"Miss Faith" Gobbler....not a "normal" bird....

[Longbowlogan]

Awesome hunt! Congrats

[BMN]

Great story Curt. The birds on my dad's place always seem to gobble late. Drives me crazy.

[Mike Gerardi]

Congrats Curt. Way cool with Miss Faith. Very cool hunt      

[Hopewell Tom]

Gotta love when the highs and lows of a hunt end on a high note. Way to hang tough and make that final shot count.

[snakebit40]

Congrats Curt! Looking forward to the other "twist"    

[wapiti792]

Beautiful bird GURU! Once again you get it done and take us along in the process. He had a desire to die and picked the wrong dude to give 3 chances to. If it were me he'd been safe!   :p

[FerretWYO]

The sign of a true hunter is over coming the adversity placed before him. You did just that. Awesome hunt My Friend.

[Onestringer]

Awesome story

[elkken]

Great story and pics .... congrats Curt

[drewsbow]

very nice Curt , congrats      

[jonsimoneau]

I've been waiting for this one. Great job as usual Curt!

[jcar315]

Way to go Curt!!

Great story telling and pics as always. Looking forward to the rest.

[Shedrock]

Well done!

[Thumper Dunker]

Cool stuff      

[huntmaster80]

you are killin me!!!!!!!! Congratulations on a great bird

[DW]

Congratulations Buddy and great story telling as usual!

[scbowhnter]

Very cool!!

[Guru]

Thanks for the kind words fellas, always worth the time and effort sharing pix and stories with the "Gang"!


Ok...where was I.... ahhh the next "twist" to this story....

After getting home and eating a good breakfast I grabbed my camera like I always do when I'm about to breakdown a turkey.

So,  I check out the entrance side and see the 1 1/4" VPA had broken the radius, ulna, and the humorous bone of the folded wing on the way in..
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And entered right behind the ball joint of the wing...
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Although the BH was completely inside the bird when I first found it, it was apparent by the small hole on the exit side that the BH had come partially out the far side....but in its retreat had worked back inside...
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Next I weighed it...".hmmmm, just over 13#'s"..."awful light for a 2yr old gobbler".

Around here they are usually 18-20#'s...again just figured he was a ladies man and was running ragged...

I flipped it on its back to start to open up the skin on the breast and feel I something hard and seemingly out of place inside the skin on the breast.  I kinda shrug it off at first thinking it was just something stiffened up.

What I found after opening the skin was totally unexpected......
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It was very firm, but not rock hard...and as you saw in the pix, even the "normal" side of the breast was very thin and flat.

I knew right away this wasn't a bird I would eat, and decided to take a ride to our DEC regional office that's about 20mins away in New Paltz.
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While waiting for the biologist to come out and examine the gobbler....I got to looking close and saw this....
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Yes, he'd been shot with a shotgun last year as a jake!

More in a bit.....

[JoeM]

Great Story as always Curt!!!  So that explains the blown off beard.  Man is it green up there.  Good luck with tag #2

[Ryan Sanpei]

Don't stop now.......