Beard length

[captpete]

Everbody talks about how long the beard was on their bird. 10", 11", 12" are pretty common lengths with 13" & 14" not unheard of. I would like to know what is the shortest beard that you have seen on a bird you have taken.

Last week my buddy shot a bird with his bow from his treestand. He had 10 - 12 birds come in to about 15yds. Just to get drawn with that many sets of eyes that close is a pretty tough feat in itself, let alone actually get a shot off. He just pick out a bird and shot. He knew it was poult, but it didn't matter to him...it was bird, with a bow from a treestand.

He gets home and decided to pick the bird instead of skinning and filleting the meat off. In the process he finds that it is Jake and has a beard. It measured just shy of 1 1/4".

So what is your shortest beard???

IMG_1328 by K Pete, on Flickr

[Sixes]

I killed a spurred, full fanned, gobbling fool that had no beard and appeared to have never grew a beard.

IMG_0954 (600 x 450) by Tim Hillhouse, on Flickr

spurs (600 x 450) by Tim Hillhouse, on Flickr

[Happy]

4"

[fallhnt]

This is the bar......

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[captpete]

This is the bar......

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That is going to be hard to beat!!!

[SinGin]

This is the bar......

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That should score well

[dejake]

Mine was one inch, and consisted of two strands.  Had to part the breast feathers to find it. It was a mature bird with 1 1/2 inch spurs.  Freaky

[DrDirtNap]

What about this?  ...and he's a double beard


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[RutnNStrutn]

My first turkey, an Osceola jake, had a 2" beard.
My longest bearded turkey was an Ohio Eastern. He had a tremendous beard that unfortunately a pellet went through. Once I was through pulling out loose strands, which were between 9" & 12" long, the longest strand in the beard was 13-13/16" long. I can only imagine how long the beard was before I shot. 

[Yoder409]

Shot a Wyoming Merriam's this past spring that was olllllllllllld.....................  He had chipped and broken spurs and roughly a 3 1/2" beard.

[deerhunt1988]

Have killed several toms with short beards. Took 2 last spring.

First bird of my season last yr was this triple bearder. I KNEW he was acting like an older beard, dang sure glad he fanned out at the last minute so I didn't let him walk!









Then a few birds later I took another.

[SD_smith]

Shot a Wyoming Merriam's this past spring that was olllllllllllld.....................  He had chipped and broken spurs and roughly a 3 1/2" beard.

We've gotten probably 5 or so gobblers with full fans and decent Merriam spurs out of the Black Hills that have had either no beard or only about an inch of one.


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[West Augusta]

One of my best birds only had a 5" snow shortened beard but 1 5/16" spurs.