Video: Watch This Hunter Bag Virginia’s New Record Gobbler
OutdoorHub Reporters 07.11.16
Did someone say seven beards? 22-year-old Dustin Plummer has been hunting since age 5, but he had never seen anything like this gobbler until he encountered it during a turkey hunt in April. Sporting not one, or two, or three beards, the turkey he ended up bagging had an amazing set of no less than seven beards. When submitted to the National Wild Turkey Federation for measurement, experts returned a score of 167.7500. That was enough to enthrone it as Virginia’s new state record, as well as earning it a place in the East Coast’s all-time top 20.
At a distance, everything about the gobbler seemed average. It weighed 18 pounds, and was not significantly taller or shorter than the other birds in the area. Yet Plummer knew there was something strange about this specific gobbler.
“Every time any of the other turkeys gobbled, he would cut them off,” Plummer told The Roanoke Times. “That’s the one we wanted.”
And with incredible patience, that was the turkey he bagged. The hunters let the bird come within 35 yards before Plummer shot the turkey. The hunters had also recorded the hunt for posterity, as you can see below:
