Just curious as to what the longest spurs you've ever seen on a turkey you've killed. A couple weekends ago my dad shot a turkey with spurs like we'd never seen before. My very first turkey has 1 1/4" spurs which i considered to be really long. The turkey my dad shot a couple weeks ago had matching 1 1/2" spurs.
The biggest spurs on a turkey of mine was 1 1/4" also. The longest I've seen shot was like your dad's at 1 1/2", which is flat out huge. I agree with you 1 1/4" is long, but I don't believe there are too many taken with 1 1/2", so that's something special. Congrats to your dad!
Here is a bird shot here this morning that has 1 3/4". Buddy of mine shot it at 7:05 AM today. I saw a bird at a turkey camp in Missouri about 20 years ago that had an honest 2" set of spurs. The kid that shot it was only 10 years old and had no idea what he had just done. He shot it behind his Grandfathers house where there had not been hunting allowed for many years. They didnt even look real they were so crazy long. Sorry, I will try with the photo again.
Limbhangers for sure.. Longest I have got is 1 1/4 but man 1 1/2 that is awesome. How old of a bird do you think that was fletch920? Those spurs aren't very thick, think young? Old?
Those are some sick spurs, Fletch. What a warhammer of a tom. Wow. Monarch bird for sure. I've killed a handful of 1.5's, but never anything better than that. I'm waiting for my next 1.5"+ tom, but I'm not sure when/how that will happen. Turkey hunting has kind of exploded here in Pennsylvania, so there are truckloads of guys out there. You're looking for birds that have to be 5-7 years old before you start getting that kind of length, so suffice it to say, you need to dial in on a bird that either nobody else is hunting, or is extremely smart (and has lady luck in his back pocket). Man, I love turkey hunting.
I am guessing that bird could have been 7 or more years old. Not very common anymore. We used to kill quite a few birds with long spurs but there is a lot more pressure on them now. Both hunting and predators. We didnt used to have bobcats and I know they take their share now. Last year my youngest son and I got to watch a bobcat make an unsuccesful sneek on a strutting gobbler in one of our foodplots. We didnt get the bird either, but now share a really special memory. I had a gobbler with 1 1/2"+ spurs walk by at 42 yards with a couple of hens the other evening. Too far to shoot but I got a good look at his hooks with my binos and hope to get another chance to put a tape on them.
True that, brother. Around here, it's the perfect storm for the elimination of top-end age structure in our turkey flock. First of all, we have entered "Hunt-Mania." Everybody around here has all of a sudden turned into the next Michael Waddell wanna-be. 20 years ago, I could count all of the turkey hunters I knew on one hand. Now, it's everything I can do just to avoid the masses. It's like a circus out there. I had a guy shoot my decoy a couple years ago, and was nearly sprayed again this year. Secondly, we have a natural gas goldrush going on here, so every acre of property in the Commonwealth is being drilled for gas. There are literally thousands of trackhoes, drilling rigs, loggers, water buffaloes, and earth movers ravaging our turkey woods. I've lost so much hunting land to gas lines, well sites and access roads, it's pathetic. The habitat destruction is widespread and catastrophic. Finally, we've got a coyote population explosion in progress, as well as a nest raider population that's out of control. Nobody around here traps or hunts furbearers anymore, so we're overrun with raccoons and opossums, which are feasting on nests, which is really affecting the annual poult production. Legendary hooks are a thing of the past here in SW PA. I enter a pretty big turkey contest here every here, and usually do pretty well. This year, the leading bird is sitting at 66 points (natural bird NWTF scoring), and probably half of the guys have already checked in their bird. That's sad. It used to take a 72-75 point bird to win it. It's definitely a testament to the dwindling age structure in our flock.
