I think about this every year before season opens. I have posted it before. Hope you enjoy it.
I know some of you have read this and a couple of you probably remember the story when this bird was killed. With season coming I thought you might enjoy this.
The legend of the Patterson bird: First off I know that several members here are already familiar with this story. Myth or monster?
In the 70's we had very few turkeys in Lincoln Co Tn. Sometime in 1977 or 1978 TWRA released a bunch of birds here. While it took a while for them to really take root they eventually did. A farmer in the north west end of the county lived one farm over from one of the release sites. He began reading everything he could find about the wild turkey and soon after sacrificed one of his hay fields for a turkey plot. He planted chicory and chufa as well as brown top millet. before long he had the entire north end release staying on his farm. He was the first real turkey hunter I know of in Lincoln Co. During this time he had a son that was raised watching the birds. When he reached the ripe old age of 8 years old he decided he wanted to hunt a turkey. His father sawed the stock off of a old single shot 20ga so that it would fit him. He rounded up some #6 high brass ammo and off to the turkey fields they went. The father began to call on a box call and soon had several birds headed in his direction. He said as soon as I saw the gobbler I realized that he was huge. The son never broke nervous and when the bird was about 25 yards in front of him he made a good shot dropping the turkey in its tracks.
Upon retrieving the bird the father told his son you will never top this bird. They loaded it up to check it in at the Delina store. While there the store owner also amazed at the size of the bird wanted to weigh it on their scales. For anyone that doesn't know meat scales have to be certified accurate by the dept of agriculture. They weighed the bird, measured the beard at 14 1/2". The bird weighed 30.0lbs. The spurs were 2 1/2 and 2 5/8. In other words 110.25 bird.
Now true or false? I first heard about the bird in 1984 and found out that the father of the boy that killed it worked less than a mile from where I worked. Obviously I had to ask him about the bird. He retrieved a picture of a young boy holding the bird up by its legs over his head and the head was on the ground enough for the neck to bend. You could see that the beard was huge. I asked him what happened to the bird and his first reply was "we ate it". Soooooo I asked about the spurs and beard. He lit up when he realized I was genuinely interested in the bird and told me that he dried the legs spurs attached and fixed the beard with a shot gun shell cap. He didn't have it with him but said he would be glad to show it to me.
I had nearly given up hope on it when he came in the front door where I work and said sorry it took so long but here they are. I nearly passed out. The spurs were not an exaggeration. The beard was as advertised. No way to verify the weight however except the bird was weighed on a certified scale but the store had burned down and the people that ran it had moved away.
I ran into the father last year and immediately recognized him although we both have aged a bit since then. I was saddened to learn that he hardly turkey hunts now. I had to ask about the spurs because I wanted to take a picture of them. To my surprise he said that after his son grew up and moved out he really didn't know what happened to the spurs and beard. It seems odd that about 25 years later the number one a-typical bird in the state and number 11 all time was killed less than 5 miles from where a 8 year old kid on a breezy spring day killed one of the greatest turkeys that ever lived.
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