5 bearded turkey!! and double bearded turkey!!

[tomgobbler]

MatthewP and his brother in law, and i found ourselfs on thursday morning as the sun was starting to break the day, sitting under a couple of pine trees, listening to a couple of San Carlos turkeys sound off, unfurtantly the weather was terrible, windy, rainy, nasty.... and those two birds would not coporate for anything, they just didnt sound to interested, and didnt gobble much.... BUT through the day we were able to put 3 NICE gobblers on the ground, with matts brother in law having the longest beard at around 10 3/4".... and he got his about 8:00 that morning, at about one, after lots of miles traveled, and hearing a lot of wind in the trees that was about it, but finally as matthew and i got out of the truck about 1:00 to try again even with the wind blowing we made a few hen yelps, not really expecting to hear anything, like the last 50 times we had gotten out of the truck, as we made a few calles a gobbler answered just over the top of ridge in some cedars, and before we could even set up and get ready, 3 hens and 3 gobblers came over the top working towards us, we both grabbed our guns and with a quick, you take the left, and i'll take the right at about 55 yards, the 3 1/2" winchester #4's did there job, and we had 2 gobbelrs on the ground! as we get up to the first bird the one matthew had taken we looked at it and it had 2 BEARDS! i was totally jealous, out of all the birds i have taken i had always wanted to take a multiple bearded gobbler, but was thinking this is so awesome, and could'nt of happened a nicer guy, as matthew is one heck of a friend! it had a 10 1/4" thick main beard, and 7 1/2" second beard for a total of 17 3/4" of beard NICE.... well we get up to the second bird the one i had shot and take a look at it, and low and be hold it has 5 BEARDS!!! yep you read that right 5 BEARDS!!!! i couldnt believe it, i really didnt know what to say.... out of the couple dozen gobblers i have taken, and the 50 or so i have been a part of, i had only called in one other turkey with multiple beards, i had called one for my buddy a few year ago in NM that had 3 beards....and now to have 2 on the ground at the same time with multiple beards was trully amazing! after getting home and looking on the NWTF websight and doing a ruff score on my bird, he will be somewhere around the top 55 or so of all time merriams gobblers!!!! what a once in a life time bird! and to have shot him at exactly the same time as my buddy took his bird just added to the greatness of the moment. i cant thank matthew enough for letting me tag along on this turkey trip, i'm doing a coupe of lifesize mounts on these birds to capture the moment forever. but those few seconds will be relived for a long time to come, as i will probably never beat 26 5/8" of beard on one bird ever again. thanks matthew for everything!!!!!

here are a few pictures of the beards i tried to take when i got home, matt will have to post the pictures of in the field off of his digital camera in the next day or so! i put a piece of paper behind the beards to try and get them to stand out better. i hope you like them

good luck

tommy

[deaddog250]

that is for sure a once in a lifetime experience good job

[Koury Guide Service]

Very cool that's not something you see every day. Congrats on the three Turkeys.

[Basser15]

Sounds like a great turkey day! Congrats on the 5 bearded bird

[tomgobbler]

here is a picture of ben, then phil, matthew, and then me on the far right. opening day about 2:00, or should i say opening day for us

[CouesWhitetail]

That's pretty interesting! I haven't killed a multiple bearded turkey yet!

[matthewp45]

Here are the pictures I finally got back. I think the real good pictures of the multiple beards is on Tommy's camera. Enjoy