A Five-Bearded Bird in the Pine Tree State

Connors harvested a five-bearded tom that has become the top overall NWTF-scored bird in Maine.

“Hunting is like gambling,” Connors said. “You're not specifically trying to shoot a five-bearded tom; you shoot the one you can. But this was like hitting the lottery.”

Harvesting this once-in-a-lifetime bird was just the icing on the cake for Connors, who always looks forward to hunting with Tibbetts.

“That kid is just so much fun to hunt with,” he said. “We have so many laughs. But he is also such an experienced caller, and I am always picking up tips from him.”

The early morning in Maine started like any other. Connors and Tibbetts ventured deep into a woodlot, spending the entire morning chasing birds with no luck. Just before noon, they decided to set up in one last spot before calling it a day.

Tibbetts ran a call and was immediately cut off by a group of far-off gobblers. Game on.

They hunkered down and didn’t call again for a while. Six minutes passed before Tibbetts ran his call again, and this time, three gobblers were practically in their lap.

“Those six minutes were a long sit,” Connors said. “Adam’s got discipline; I was losing my mind. But the second he ran that call, we were both looking at each other, like, ‘Oh yeah. They're right there.’”

They had three mature toms come in. Connors got himself in position and focused his shotgun on the bird in the front of the pack because it was the most accessible.

He took his shot, and the bird went down, just as he’d planned. But what happened next, no hunter could ever prepare for.

“We got done with our high fives and chest bumping, and then we went over to look at the tom,” Connors said. “I said, ‘Holy crap, this thing's got three beards!’ Adam looks and he goes, ‘Dude, it's got four!’”

They decided to get their bird scored, which is when they discovered there were actually five beards on the tom.

“Multiple beards on a tom are about as prevalent as bearded hens, which is less than 10% for Easterns," said Doug Little, NWTF director of conservation operations for the East.

Beards emerge from a specialized structure on the skin called a papillae. Why some toms have multiple papillae, and therefore grow multiple beards, while most do not is unclear. According to the Wild Turkey Lab, toms with multiple beards consistently grow the longest beard on the bottom. Any other beards emerge above the primary beard and are typically thinner and shorter.

“Literally, the only thing that would have made this hunt better is if one of my kids was there to shoot it,” Connors said.

This was the first year Connors went to Maine without his sons. While he was excited to be on the gun this time, he explained that there’s something more exciting when a young hunter falls in love with hunting for the rest of their life, and he said this tom could have been someone’s “spark bird.”

Getting youth involved with the outdoors is why Connors and his local NWTF chapter, the Tri-County Strutters, host an annual JAKES Day event. After hunting with Connors, Tibbetts now donates an all-inclusive guided turkey hunt to the JAKES Day event. For the last three years, he has taken young hunters out into the woods, and all were able to harvest.

Tibbetts and Conners met through a mutual friend who knew Connors had been looking for a guide in Maine. It wasn’t until they met that they learned that they were both NWTF volunteers in New England. The turkey hunting world is small, and you never know who you might meet or where it might lead you.