# Looking forward to hunting UT next month...



## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

... but in the meantime, it's been a fun spring gobbler season so far...

*GA*

























*FL*


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

*VA*

















*NC*


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

*NC*


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## toasty (May 15, 2008)

Great pics Hal. You guys are sure doing well this spring and it looks like the kids are having some success as well.


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## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

Wow - congrats on all the success!


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## gdog (Sep 13, 2007)

Fantastic!


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

That's cooler than the other side of the pillow!! Thanks for posting.


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

NE


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)




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## archersisco (Dec 24, 2017)

Turkey killing machine nice birds 👍🏻🦃


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

NE


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

UT

Finally got to Utah to hunt with Eclectic









He killed a merrio....

I wanted to get a Rio for a season grand slam...


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## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

Holy cow, you've had quite the season! Congrats!


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

Feeling very blessed and thankful indeed! In 15 days of hunting, in 6 states, I watched 10 turkeys of 4 different subspecies live their last few seconds -while enjoying the diverse beauty of the varied habitat where wild turkeys live, and playing the game of cat and mouse with all sorts of challenges that come with the game. 

But all good things come to an end, and today my season ended with a Utah Rio Grande turkey which I was within 40 yds of and in direct, wide open sight of from 5:25 till I pulled the trigger at 6:03. This turkey was one of an ultra-wary heavily pressured group of turkeys. Maybe the most risky move I’ve ever successfully executed in a turkey hunt. If any one of a thousand things had gone wrong, it was a bust. But could think of no other way to kill one of them. 

Can’t wait till fall season starts up….


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## goforbroke (Jan 4, 2009)

Wow

That is some amazing turkey success. Hats off and thanks for sharing!!


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

My son finally got out to hunt on Saturday. Took my grandson on his first Turkey hunt...


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

For those who are wondering whether their bird is a Rio or Merriams (or a mix), one key difference is to check the length of their fan and rump feathers. Look at the obvious difference in fan feather length of the bird in post #12 (rio) vs the bird in post #11 (merriams). Merriams almost always have significantly longer fan and rump feathers than a rio. Some folks think it's a feather tip color thing, but that is unreliable as the fan and rump feather tips coloration can vary considerably.


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

Here are two Utah birds showing the same obvious fan feather length difference (from 2000 and 2001)....

Merriams from Zion unit









Rio from Pine Valley unit









One other key difference is the length of the light tips of both the fan and the rump. Almost always, the merriams has longer light-colored tips on their fan and rump feathers than a rio. You can also see that difference in the examples of post 11 and 12, along with the pictures in this post.


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## BPturkeys (Sep 13, 2007)

hawglips said:


> For those who are wondering whether their bird is a Rio or Merriams (or a mix), one key difference is to check the length of their fan and rump feathers. Look at the obvious difference in fan feather length of the bird in post #12 (rio) vs the bird in post #11 (merriams). Merriams almost always have significantly longer fan and rump feathers than a rio. Some folks think it's a feather tip color thing, but that is unreliable as the fan and rump feather tips coloration can vary considerably.


Interesting. Is this something you leaned from a scholarly source or is this from personal observation. Most of my turkey hunting has been in areas that are more likely to have hybrids(Rio/Merriams) and so I see great variation in both color and tail/rump feather lengths, spur and leg length. I prefer to call any bird living in an area that has possible cross breeding to be be exactly that...a cross breed. As you say, fan and tip/rump feather tip coloration is simply not a reliable indicator of purity of subspecies. I always apply this test when trying to determine subspecies...is the area where the bird taken have a history of transplants of various subspecies or is it an area that has a historically indigenous subspecies. Of course, even with modern genetic testing, we have no absolute way to determine genetic purity of any species.
It is fun to try and fill a quota, grand slams, etc., based on some standard set of physical characteristics, but most of all it's just plan fun to hunt turkeys.


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

I have the privilege of hunting in UT with a guy who has been involved with trap and relocation since fairly early on and who knew where a lot of the birds came from. 

I have killed 20 birds in UT since 2000, and can only think of 5 that were not what I’d reckon to be mixed Merrios, based on known pedigree, and supported by the morphological indicators. I rarely care what a bird’s pedigree is and I doubt there are many “pure” subspecies anyway. It’s the different places where turkeys live that makes the hunt more interesting to me. 

But I was careful this year simply because I’d never bothered with a single season slam before, and it just seemed like a good idea to finally do it. So it had to be a Rio this year where the bloodlines were known and the morphology supported it.

But I bring up The morphological differences between the subspecies since it comes up on here from time to time. And they are interesting to me.


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## DIRTYS6X6 (May 19, 2021)

Why so many big words??? 
Have a great time.....


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## toasty (May 15, 2008)

Well, I just looked at a bunch of my fans for the length of the white on the tail feathers. Most of my northern birds have the shorter feathers and most of my southern birds have long curling white feathers. Central birds are a mix even birds from the same exact same canyon. Maybe some birds have more merriam genetics and other more rio genetics. One bird taken in the central part of the state has very long light feathers, but they are dark buff colored feathers. It really is a one of a kind bird. At this point, I consider pretty much every bird I shoot to be a hybrid as I think 98% of the birds are hybrids.


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

> Maybe some birds have more merriam genetics and other more rio genetics.


I'd say you are exactly right.

By way of illustration, here are some birds taken from the same canyon, where both rios and merriams had been released:


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