I killed the heaviest turkey I have ever killed today.. he was 25.5 lbs .. Granted some of that weight may have been water, but by the time I actually weighed him 4 hours later the scales said 25.5 lbs and he was pretty dry by then..
It is a long and crazy story.. I had to contort around on the back side of a fence row as he came in silent behind us after we setup on some different birds that flew down in a field 250 yds in front of us.. and Tommy couldn't get a shot so I took an akward shot after having to move my gun onto the other side of a tree and he saw me move .. the shot ended up being further than I thought in the field and injured him.. I shot again and missed.. He started running around in circles and Tommy shot a couple times at him too, and may have hit him but not enough to put him down .. Tommy jumped the fence to run him down but was out of Ammo in his gun.. I had only put two in my barrel so i had to dig for another shell and finally found one and caught up with Tommy at the Creek edge.. he told me where the last place was he saw him and I found him hiding under a brush pile and he jumped up and into the creek and I killed him right in the Middle of Cedar Run swimming it .. I got very wet retrieving him
You can see the fence row we were on behind us in the pics.. he had a 10.5 inch beard and 1 inch sharp spurs .. I knew he was heavy carrying him out .. but never thought over 25 lbs.. When we jumped the fence and was running after him there were at least 5 hens just out of sight that he had left to come to us.. I am very surprised that he left them to seek us unknown out.. I am just grateful that I got him and he didn't suffer a painful death later or to a predator .. I hated that I injured him though.. first one I have had to shoot a second time in years and maybe the only one I have ever shot at 3 times to put down.. surprisingly his breast only had a few shot in it though..