I may have posted this last year but not sure. A good friend killed this in Covington county.(http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/b499/brockalong/7257AF49-DF46-4C08-9494-0100E4B03B1F_zpsiyagf9iz.jpg) (http://s1288.photobucket.com/user/brockalong/media/7257AF49-DF46-4C08-9494-0100E4B03B1F_zpsiyagf9iz.jpg.html)
Bet he got his butt kicked often.
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Looks like all his energy went into growing that beard.
Quote from: mtns2hunt on February 22, 2017, 09:26:52 PM
Looks like all his energy went into growing that beard.
Was thinking the same thing. That's amazing he's that little. I think many birds are overestimated and I've been known to do it myself a time or two. That however is ridiculously small.
Does he deer hunt??
(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/PyreCapt/stuff/deer%20amp%20gun_zpsea9lnp9b.jpg) (http://s26.photobucket.com/user/PyreCapt/media/stuff/deer%20amp%20gun_zpsea9lnp9b.jpg.html)
A grouse size turkey. :toothy12:
I saw a central Fl bird a few years back that weighed 13lbs had 12 1/2in beard and 1 1/2 Spurs. Was weighed on a certified scale. Freak.
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I'm a good bit south of there and our gobblers run smaller on average than Covington Co. But that one is the smallest I've ever hear of! Cool!!
Show off! Oh sure, anyone can hit a 20 lb. bird with a shotgun... but try hitting a 10 pounder! Lol
I wonder what his tiny little gobble sounded like. There is jakes bigger than that poor thing but a Tom is a Tom.
I killed this bird last year, just cleared 13 lbs, late May. I didn't believe the scale at the check station was right, so I weighed him at home, and their scale WAS correct. (http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc496/UncleNicky1/DSC00218_zpscnfzo0ch.jpg)
Even when feed is constantly available some birds are just small in stature just like people.
That one though is a freak.
Several years ago during the fifth time period of the Wisconsin season, our camp killed several adult gobblers that weighed no more than 13lbs. This was after a particularly harsh winter. They still gobbled well and came to the call.
A guy killed this giant mini buck on one of our wma's this year. Smallest buck I've ever seen.
In the book Old Pro Gene has a chapter about a bird that didn't weigh much at all and I have talked to a couple of old timers who say that the original strain of turkeys weren't very big. All the breeding they did in the 40's and 50's were bred with farm turkeys and that's why they are so big. Your friend may have actually shot a real trophy, being an original strain of turkey. So call them Moss Back turkeys
What you are seeing is a real trophy, an extremely old turkey. A friend of mine was embarrassed at the small, Long-bearded, long-spurred gobbler that he brought to Ken Morgan's house one day. It was all we could do to convince him that he had killed a real trophy, an old timer. What really amazed us was that we didn't know that the turkey existed as we thought we knew them all on that piece of property. He must have been one cagey gobbler whose time had come. They lose a lot of weight in their old age.
Quote from: StrutStopper_71 on February 23, 2017, 07:04:27 PM
A guy killed this giant mini buck on one of our wma's this year. Smallest buck I've ever seen.
Looks like he killed it with his truck!
I believe this is one of the few times I have seen men discussing "who has the smallest one."
After looking closely at the feathers and spurs on this one, he might have been diseased.
Quote from: Marc on February 23, 2017, 09:58:54 PM
I believe this is one of the few times I have seen men discussing "who has the smallest one."
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny: Now that was just plain funny, Marc!
May be totally unrelated to anything in this thread but on at least two occasions I have killed toms with what I considered very low live weight for the area I was hunting and both appeared to be mature toms. When cleaning them I found lead shot embedded in either their breast bone or hip/pelvis bone area. Seemed as if it was rotting around the pellet, from past seasons. Figured that was the culprit on those two birds.
Quote from: silvestris on February 24, 2017, 12:13:41 AM
After looking closely at the feathers and spurs on this one, he might have been diseased.
And,looking at the turkey, I'd say he's deceased. :jackson:
The fella holding that tiny turkey looks familiar. His initials aren't C.J. are they?
Everything is relative and it's hard to determine exactly what you are looking at. Fer instance this hunter might clock in at 450 pounds and stand 6' 10" and then that 18 pound gobbler would suddenly look about right.
BTW, that illusion works both ways. That's why I married a woman with little hands.
Cheers ;D
FullChoke
On a different note, this subject was discussed several years ago in Lovett Williams column here on OG. He says that what he has there might be a hen in gobbler plumage. The poster referred to a "Mossy Head" turkey.
http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php?topic=8981.0
Quote from: cwb04 on February 24, 2017, 01:20:46 PM
The fella holding that tiny turkey looks familiar. His initials aren't C.J. are they?
Yep, how do you know ole Jones?
for sure small for eastern I've killed some light weight merriams 13 pound range but never seen eastern longbeard that small
Quote from: FullChoke on February 24, 2017, 05:34:49 PM
On a different note, this subject was discussed several years ago in Lovett Williams column here on OG. He says that what he has there might be a hen in gobbler plumage. The poster referred to a "Mossy Head" turkey.
http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php?topic=8981.0
That was my first thought but the bird pictured has spurs. I've got video footage of a hen with gobbler plummage and Mr. Williams confirmed it as such when I sent it to him. She didn't have spurs but ran with a group of 5 other toms, at least when I would see her during deer season. For all purposes she looked like a very small bearded tom. Was sharper eyed than the toms as well, was first to pick me off in a deer stand every time I saw them.
"Hold me closer tiny gobbler!" sorry, couldn't resist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0SOgshTufs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0SOgshTufs)
Older camera, sorry for the resolution but it's all I had at the time.
Quote from: THattaway on February 26, 2017, 03:25:40 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0SOgshTufs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0SOgshTufs)
Older camera, sorry for the resolution but it's all I had at the time.
So what made you come to the conclusion that the bird was a bearded hen with gobbler plumage rather than a gobbler with a hen-like head? To me, judging by the company she/he was keeping, I think I would have concluded the latter rather than the former...
...Not that it really matters...
Fair question. Just acted like a hen I guess and also I suspected it was a bearded hen based on size alone. I saw her for several years in the fall up close (10 yards on a couple occasions) multiple times and maybe during the spring a few times at distance. I never saw spurs on her/it/shim but did on the toms with her. Never really paid attention to the plumage till it was mentioned here by Mr. Williams. Somewhere around that time I posted the video here and he confirmed my suspicions, if that is possible from the video alone. That post is long gone, I requested to have my account deleted thereafter for other reasons and OG obliged. In doing so it removed every post I made under that account name. So, I have nothing but memory and my word as reference for Mr. William's comments. I'm convinced it wasn't your normal turkey and definitely had a hen's head. Beyond that I don't claim anything else other than it acted like a hen and sounded to my ear like one. Had never run up on anything like this but have since seen pictures of hermaphrodite wood ducks, drake plumage and hen eye/bill coloration so I guess it occurs in other birds as well. And I think I got the spelling and am using the term correctly, "hermaphrodite".
And I am not saying that the OP's bird was a hen with gobbler plumage, just further supporting the idea already offered.
Quote from: Blong on February 24, 2017, 09:12:02 PM
Quote from: cwb04 on February 24, 2017, 01:20:46 PM
The fella holding that tiny turkey looks familiar. His initials aren't C.J. are they?
Yep, how do you know ole Jones?
Hunted with him in GA a couple years ago. He duck hunts out of a camp with a good friend of mine up here in the Delta. Heck of a good guy!
I was scouting a new area of NF 2014 heard a few gobblers and while walking an old fence row I heard some hens so I ducked behind a pine and one after another 6 hens flew into a pine then down into a clearcut running beside the fencerow.The last turkey was a gobbler he landed and went into strut he looked no bigger than the hens from the side while in strut there didn't look like 6" between his fan and head. I watched them for a few min. until they fed away. Never saw one that small or this one again I heard him gobble and he had a normal looking beard.