Banded birds

[Treerooster]

Bands are way cool in my world. Any banded bird is way way cool. Bands can tell some neat stories.

Congrats on getting a banded turkey, a rare bird indeed.

Now the question...you know there are other banded gobblers in your area. Will you hold off killing a gobbler if you see he isn't banded?

Nope.  With tall grass and such I rarely see spurs or lower legs.  I suppose if time and circumstance allows, I would scan the legs of a group of gobblers for a band. 

Yeah I hear ya on the grass and not seeing a band. I hunted one area where they did a study (2008-2010) and was really hoping for a band. I helped several guys fill their tag in that area over the years and 4 of them shot banded birds...but not me. Mostly I just shot whatever tom I called in. A couple of times tho, I had toms in range in a sandy area and could clearly see their legs. I held off on those.

By 2015 I figured I was SOL for getting a banded tom. The youngest banded tom would have been 6 years old since they quit banding in 2010. Had 2 tags for the area that year and got 6 year old and 7 year old banded toms. I was beside myself!!!

Just curious, what did the spurs look like on the 6 and 7 year old?

Good question. The 6 year old had 1 1/8" spurs but hooked pretty good. He was overall a smallish bird, both weight and size. The 7 year old had 1 3/8" spurs and the spur with the band on it was sort of deformed. I believe from the band resting on it. The 7 year old banded bird is the one in my avatar pic.

I included a couple of pics of the banded toms. The 6 YO with the call has his band between the foot & spur. That is where it should be. The 7 YO had his band above the spur. Probably got shoved up there somehow. You can see the wear on the band from it riding on the spur so long. EDIT...LOL I don't know what I am doing with posting these pics. I tried to get rid of the doubles...didn't work. 

An interesting note on the 6 year old bird...in 2012 I called in a gobbler for my friend James. His bird was banded and it was 3 years old and had 1 1/4" spurs. 3 years later I got the 6 year old banded bird just 100 yards from where my friend James got his. Those 2 birds were banded on the same day at the same trapping. They were together when banded! And the 6 year old had smaller spurs (1 1/8") than the 3 year old. That has convinced me that once a bird is 3 or 4 years old you can't age it by spurs at all. I also believe that there are more 5 year old plus toms around then we think.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.