1st Turkey

TimberToes

New member
Gee, only took me 53 years.. ok I guess we dont count the baby years, lol.

A bird from a place I Coyote hunt... about 1pm, after only seeing a Hen at another place, and after trying some public land, I made a call and begged for permission...
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I knew the area had Birds.
9-1/2" beard. Hunted all day, 1 hen seen, 1 white-headed, light colored gobbler? feral-domestic ? seen, then finally this one, an Eastern, and he made his last gobble at about 5:30.


Taking this Bird was made even better by using my first turkey box call I ever made.
Heck, my adrenaline was pumping so bad, I could hardly work the call for the first few minutes!!
Load was Federal #4 3" in a Benelli Nova
When the season is over, I will give the landowner the Box Call. Its the least I can do!


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Nice bird. Although I'm no turkey expert, I believe that is a Rio Grande. The easterns have chocolate brown or dark buff tips on the tail coverts (the shorter feathers that cover the long tail feathers). It possibly could be a hybrid, but looks identical to the RGs I just shot in OK. Here's a couple of photos for comparison. The first one is an Eastern taken in GA last year and the second one is a Rio from OK this year. Yours looks more like the Rio, but I know TX has some easterns as well. I didn't intend to divert your thread and hope you'll pardon me.

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Thanks for that info, I really appreciate the help!

now, what kind is that three feather with a hat bird ?
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I dont question for a minute that my county would have both. About 45 minutes east, on a Public WMA,different county, its "eastern turkey season", which makes one belive only Easterns live there..

And no doubt as one goes west from my area, its Rio country.

Would the two types breed ?

Also I note in pictures of Rio's the end of the tail feathers are much whiter, where as in both of your (fine) birds
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the feather are yellow-brownish. Any advice on that ?
 
Great job on your first turkey nice looking bird very nice looking call also. I have to agree with mason looks like a rio to me either way good job and. Weather you know it or not your hooked for life now
 
Originally Posted By: TimberToesThanks for that info, I really appreciate the help!

now, what kind is that three feather with a hat bird ?
smile.gif


I dont question for a minute that my county would have both. About 45 minutes east, on a Public WMA,different county, its "eastern turkey season", which makes one belive only Easterns live there..

And no doubt as one goes west from my area, its Rio country.

Would the two types breed ?

Also I note in pictures of Rio's the end of the tail feathers are much whiter, where as in both of your (fine) birds
smile.gif
the feather are yellow-brownish. Any advice on that ?

That's my uncle denoting that was my third bird of our season there in GA. The funniest thing is I never knew he was doing it until I got back here to Idaho and downloaded my pics!

Turkeys do interbreed. If you go to the NWTF website they show that almost the entire state of Nebraska has "hybrids"....although I'm sure there are "pure" birds around there somewhere. Since you were hunting an area that borders where easterns and Rio Grandes intermix, I'm sure there are some hybrid turkeys there, but that one looks pure Rio to me.

I've seen some Rios that did have very pale tips on their tail feathers, but, from what I'm told, the best way to determine is to go by the color of the tail coverts. Rios will usually be light duff to cream colored. Where you start getting into the "white" feathers is with Merriam's. The Gould's feathers are really white, but they're mainly in southern New Mexico, southern Arizona and Mexico. There might also be some in southern Texas?

Like, I said earlier, I'm not the expert. Those two Rios I shot this year were my lifetime 11th and 12th turkeys. Maybe somebody like GC will jump on here and help us out.

It's still a nice turkey....whatever the type. Those from the eastern side of Texas seem to have much thicker beards. I hunted Rios near Kerrville last year and killed a couple. They had really thin beards...although they were both over 10 inches. I saw a road killed Rio just south of Fort Worth when I was driving home and stopped to check it out. It was a gobbler with a really thick beard. I cut it off and have it here now. I wonder if it has to do with food and water availability? The Merriam's we have here in Idaho also tend to have thinner beards than the ones I've seen that came from Wyoming and South Dakota.
 
Oh! One other thing. The easterns will also normally have that dark "bar" on their tail coverts. Since your bird doesn't have the bars, that also led me to think it is a pure Rio.
 
that is a RIO and we are only allowed 1 Eastern in Texas. 4 gobblers total so long as there is only 1 Eastern.
 
Nice bird and congrats on it being your first.

I'm still waiting on my first and please don't tell me I have another 13 years to wait!
 
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