Last Day Gobbler

Hunted hard for most of the season.   Missed opportunities on 2 other gobblers.  Took this one on the last day at 9:45 am.  5" beard with 3/4' spurs weighing 13 1/2 lbs.  Not the biggest bird in the woods but I took him after putting up with the heat, heavy foliage, mosquitoes, and 3 ticks embedded in me.
 
 

He must have really been chasing the hens.  There isn't many gobblers in the area I hunt, so he didn't have much competition.  My buddy said it is a jake.  But I don't think so.  Would a jake have a 5" beard?  It had a pretty big head and the beard looks wore off.  I would say at least a 2 year old. 

Saturday evening my better half wants to know if I saw the big gobbler in the corn field on the other side of the road?
 
Seems she was returning home around 6:00 pm and saw the bird out in the field: "big bird with a white head and the beard was just swinging back and forth as he walked across the field toward the trees"; she said.
 
Past two weeks I've been seeing bicycles or scooters laying in the weeds along the edge of that field so, I never even gave it a thought about hunting that section of woods or field.  Anybody having Amish neighbors knows bicycles or scooters means the Amish beat ya to the spot.
 
Well guess who ASSUMED those bikes and scooters would be there Saturday afternoon sooooooo..... he didn't hunt that area?
 
Oh well........ there's always this fall! 
 
Congratulations to those that 'bagged their bird(s)'.

Nice bird for sure. He must have worked hard this spring and lost some weight. Congrats!