Long hunt story shortened, I got my 2nd tom ever today. Hit him bad 1st shot an sprinted behind him 150yd uphill to finish him. Darn near passed out I ran so hard an I'm a firefighter in good shape. Anyways I placed the beard on my porch rail when going inside to clean up my hands. My dog got the beard an demolished it. I'm so pissed. I have a few strands. What can I do? It will never be like the original I understand. 8.5in beard and average thickness. If I had killed lots of birds before it wouldn't be so upsetting.
It may just be a memory
Not too much you can do...
Sounds like it will be a funny story to look back on to me. There will be many more beards to come anyways. Now if it was some 1 1/2" hooks I would be a little disappointed.
Quote from: littlebuk4 on March 25, 2014, 10:41:14 PM
Sounds like it will be a funny story to look back on to me. There will be many more beards to come anyways. Now if it was some 1 1/2" hooks I would be a little disappointed.
Would be a dead dog lol jk. You're pretty much out of luck unless you can gather all the strands and hot glue em together. Had a dog/critter carry off a nice 8 pt I was Euro mounting one time.
welll.. follow it around with a pooper scooper
Reminds me of my 09 season. I had come home on leave after missing the past 3 seasons due to deployment/field training etc. First morning out I killed a monster gobbler and was beyond thrilled. Then 2 days later, on my second morning out I shot my first bird with a bow. Had both fans, beards, and sets of legs in my dad's garage salted down and drying when one day dad's German short hair somehow got in and decided he'd like to shred both fans and beards and eat ALL 4 of the legs. To add insult to injury, I took pictures with my sister's digital camera and loaded them onto our old desktop. A few weeks down the road that computer crashes and so I have no pictures left either.
sorry for the mishap with the beard but dogs will be dogs....not much consolation I know.
I just remembered I had the legs and beard in a ziplock back in my truck from the gobbler I killed this week --- lol , I ran out and threw some salt on it -- your post reminded me
I remember when I was a kid , my dad had this real nice gobbler I killed when I was 16 years old mounted -- came home one day and noticed my moms cat chewed the spurs right off of it -- I always hated cats
Don't sweat it , there will be more gobblers in your future ----
Quote from: Old Gobbler on March 25, 2014, 11:39:39 PM
Don't sweat it , there will be more gobblers in your future ----
Great advice.... :icon_thumright:
I had a walker pup chew up a dozen or so that he found before I realized he was on the loose. Just cussed myself and laughed at him. There will be more beards, just hang on to those spurs. The hooks are where it's at.
Quote from: memert116 on March 25, 2014, 11:42:57 PM
Quote from: Old Gobbler on March 25, 2014, 11:39:39 PM
Don't sweat it , there will be more gobblers in your future ----
Great advice.... :icon_thumright:
:agreed: My pics and beards from all my gobblers got burned up in a fire at my dads 5 years ago. Now that still upsets me...... Life goes on and now I just can't wait for my girls to start their collection......
Cut his tail off for a substitute trophy. You will cherish it someday.
Quote from: silvestris on March 26, 2014, 03:18:55 AM
Cut his tail off for a substitute trophy. You will cherish it someday.
+1 haha !!!! :lol: That really sux that your dog ate your beard, man - it really does. The only thing you can do is slip back into you camo & get back after it & bag another one; who knows, it might be bigger than your current trophy. But be dog-gone (sorry, couldn't resist) if I'd be putting that beard/fan/legs anywhere *near* that mutt.
E-bay. :-X
last year i was drying out the legs of 7 birds i had killed. the spurs were soon to be removed. The dog ate everyone except 1. they don't know any better, but i did cuss him out, damn block head lab
Take the brass from the shell you shot the turkey and pull the plastic part of the shell away from the brass. It works easy if you boil it for 5 minutes. Pop the primer out with a nail. get a hot glue gun and a piece of leather or she string. Cut the leather 6" long and loop both the open ends thru the primer hole. Now take your hot glue and fill the brass 3/4 full. stick each piece of beard that you have left in the hot glue before it dries. Make sure you stay away from the brass after the hot glue is in because it can burn you. When it is dry you will have whats left of your beard on the brass you used and you can hang it up some where. You can even take a sharpie and write on the brass the day and stats of that turkey. Good luck,
Joe
Quote from: Bigspurs68 on March 25, 2014, 11:58:55 PM
I had a walker pup chew up a dozen or so that he found before I realized he was on the loose. Just cussed myself and laughed at him. There will be more beards, just hang on to those spurs. The hooks are where it's at.
Yep I to am a spur man, sure I keep the beards but my wife gripes and gripes about "your turkey feet"!
killed my second multi bearded bird last year, he had 3 very decent beards... left them connected with the skin between them and it looked pretty cool with all of them together until an outside cat that evidently turned into an inside cat every time I left the house made an appetizer of it....grrrrr! I eventually got over it but it took a good while
This is a good idea...Take a pic of your dog and put it with the beard. It will be a good memory of the hunt and of your dog that you will treasure one day.
Quote from: TRKYHTR on March 26, 2014, 09:34:20 AM
Take the brass from the shell you shot the turkey and pull the plastic part of the shell away from the brass. It works easy if you boil it for 5 minutes. Pop the primer out with a nail. get a hot glue gun and a piece of leather or she string. Cut the leather 6" long and loop both the open ends thru the primer hole. Now take your hot glue and fill the brass 3/4 full. stick each piece of beard that you have left in the hot glue before it dries. Make sure you stay away from the brass after the hot glue is in because it can burn you. When it is dry you will have whats left of your beard on the brass you used and you can hang it up some where. You can even take a sharpie and write on the brass the day and stats of that turkey. Good luck,
Joe
Quote from: archery1 on March 25, 2014, 10:54:28 PM
welll.. follow it around with a pooper scooper
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny: Thats what I was thinking. Feed his ex lax and make him wear a diaper.
In all seriousness though I feel your pain. Hopefully you got a pic or two.
Quote from: TRKYHTR on March 26, 2014, 09:34:20 AM
Take the brass from the shell you shot the turkey and pull the plastic part of the shell away from the brass. It works easy if you boil it for 5 minutes. Pop the primer out with a nail. get a hot glue gun and a piece of leather or she string. Cut the leather 6" long and loop both the open ends thru the primer hole. Now take your hot glue and fill the brass 3/4 full. stick each piece of beard that you have left in the hot glue before it dries. Make sure you stay away from the brass after the hot glue is in because it can burn you. When it is dry you will have whats left of your beard on the brass you used and you can hang it up some where. You can even take a sharpie and write on the brass the day and stats of that turkey.
That is exactly what I would do. Go out there and gather up as many strands as you can find and hot glue then in the brass. This procedure that Joe has described is what I do with the beard off of all of my birds, but I also string the cleaned spurs on the leather thong. I take an electric engraver and scribe any data I need to remind me about the bird into the brass.
I got an idea for you, about 10 years ago I decided to pull a joke on a old timer turkey hunter who had hunted for years & claim to have seen it all. I knew a friend who had horses & ask if he ever trimmed their tails, of all the horses he had he only had the hair from a palomino horse. Well I took that big tail & took some black shoe polish & rubbed it all through that tail & it looked perfect with gray streaks all through it & mounted it into a shotgun hull, I was going to leave it about 20" long but I knew he would never believe that, so I trimmed it to 16" & it was all I could to get it all into the shell. Well at Church one morn he ask if I had killed a turkey yet, I looked at him & in a quiet voice, I said, man your not going to believe what I have killed, I told him I had killed a turkey that weighed 37 lbs with a 16" beard, his eyes got so big & said did I have the beard with me, I told him I had it in the car & would show him after Church. Well after Church he couldn't wait to see it, I showed him & he said how long were the spurs, I told him the turkey was so old it had worn the spurs down to the nubs. well to make a long story short he told so many people about it they made fun of him & he staked his reputation on it & said if anyone knew turkeys it was him & that the beard was real. Finally he ask if he could take the beard to work to show he's Buddy's, and also ask where I had killed it, well I said it not far from the Golf course where I work & nobody was supposed to be in there & there was a bigger one with the one I killed, then he said, I SAW THOSE TURKEYS. That is when I told him it was all a joke. He liked to have killed me. :TooFunny: :deadhorse:
Quote from: Crawdad on March 26, 2014, 12:08:21 PM
I got an idea for you, about 10 years ago I decided to pull a joke on a old timer turkey hunter who had hunted for years & claim to have seen it all. I knew a friend who had horses & ask if he ever trimmed their tails, of all the horses he had he only had the hair from a palomino horse. Well I took that big tail & took some black shoe polish & rubbed it all through that tail & it looked perfect with gray streaks all through it & mounted it into a shotgun hull, I was going to leave it about 20" long but I knew he would never believe that, so I trimmed it to 16" & it was all I could to get it all into the shell. Well at Church one morn he ask if I had killed a turkey yet, I looked at him & in a quiet voice, I said, man your not going to believe what I have killed, I told him I had killed a turkey that weighed 37 lbs with a 16" beard, his eyes got so big & said did I have the beard with me, I told him I had it in the car & would show him after Church. Well after Church he couldn't wait to see it, I showed him & he said how long were the spurs, I told him the turkey was so old it had worn the spurs down to the nubs. well to make a long story short he told so many people about it they made fun of him & he staked his reputation on it & said if anyone knew turkeys it was him & that the beard was real. Finally he ask if he could take the beard to work to show he's Buddy's, and also ask where I had killed it, well I said it not far from the Golf course where I work & nobody was supposed to be in there & there was a bigger one with the one I killed, then he said, I SAW THOSE TURKEYS. That is when I told him it was all a joke. He liked to have killed me. :TooFunny: :deadhorse:
That's a Good One!
See them for sale on ebay all the time.!!
Give him some Ipecac and hope he swallowed it whole :)
Quote from: archery1 on March 25, 2014, 10:54:28 PM
welll.. follow it around with a pooper scooper
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny:
Quote from: Old Gobbler on March 25, 2014, 11:39:39 PM
Don't sweat it , there will be more gobblers in your future ----
:agreed: :icon_thumright:
I Feel your pain!! Our dog got a hold of my longest beard to date and destroyed it. I gathered up as many of the strands as I could and I glued it back together with epoxy. Turned out okay. Little thinner and shorter than it was before lol! The beard was 11 1/4" before the dog incident. It is now 11"
I left two beards on my workbench in my garage one afternoon. The next day I found nothing but pieces left. Mice! Never made that mistake again. Ended up trapping a half dozen or so.
Same thing happened to me yrs ago my dog climbed up on the kitchen table and got 4 beards that were some of the best I've killed.Luckily he just chewed the ends off before my wife stopped him,and I was able to glue them back together.
hey atleast it didnt get the spurs or tail fan i had a tail fan mount once with the bead and spurs it was my first bird and the darn dog rips it off the wall and chews it all up
Here is a pic before I breasted him out and left the beard on porch(http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad234/cohuttariverrat/2014-03-25103549_zps4b4dae77.jpg) (http://s939.photobucket.com/user/cohuttariverrat/media/2014-03-25103549_zps4b4dae77.jpg.html)
ebay and the next time teach the dog not to touch it.
good lookin bird
I feel your pain, longest beard of all the birds I've taken, chewed up by our German Sheppard years ago. Tares me up thinking about it. Id go as far as saying the most memorable hunt I've had. 24lb with a set of hooks anybody would be proud of, close to a 12 inch beard. I've got the spurs and the memories......can't have it all sometimes.