End of the season bird

It’s been a long season, but an enjoyable one. A couple missed shots. lead to multiple sits, and lot wildlife viewing. Seen lots of turkey behavior I’ve never seen before. I experimented with decoys verse no decoys. Overall a great turkey spring to be in the woods. Shot this bird yesterday. Came in with 2 others struttin and drumming. Finally yestersay I got the chip shot I’ve been waiting for at 10 yards. First time I’ve ever went for the strutting turkey facing away shot. Aimed for the base of the tail fan, and the arrow exited next to his beard. The bird expired with in 10 seconds. Definently will be making that shot again. Well until next year…
Ps. The dog thought she needed to be in the picture. She thinks she owns anybird that she see’s. Turkey weighed 22 1/2 lbs, 10 1/2 beard, and had one spur at 1 inch. The other spur was broken, must have been fighting with the other 2 toms that came in at some point.

Attachments:

1. 

   20190528_091944.jpg
   

Nice Bird. What do you usually do with them? I had them smoked and they were good that way or split breast and placed bacon in them then grilled and always saved legs for wild rice soup.

I’ve done lots of things, but most recently I have used stickers cordon bleu recipe found in the recipe forum. Which is very good and could probably be smoked. My last couple birds I have brined the turkey breasts for a week and smoked them. Then I usually slice it thin with a slicer for sandwichs or just to snack on. The dark meat gets tossed in the slower cooker for 10 hours until it falls off the bone and then I turn it into barbacoa for mexican street tacos.
This time my wife used her Instant pot and the legs and thighs took a hour and a half. Will be using it again in the future.

Nice bird .

Already marking the calendar for next spring.

Wow, look at the paint brush on that bird!! Nice work, congrats I am going to sit one last time with the bow tonight. If I don’t score it will be the first time in a long time I ate turkey tag soup.