High Desert Tom Down

[Mrfish62]

Went out this morning and saw this boy with his hens on some private land, but they were travelling towards the public land. I looped up ahead of them, dropped down a hill and set out my decoy on an old road. Let out some soft yelps and he gobbled once. I saw them coming through the trees to my left and then saw movement at my decoy. Looked over and saw a hen at my decoy. She walked within five yards of me before moving on. I continued to make some clucks and purrs and the hens this guy were with came right up the road to me. Gave him a lead shower at 25 yards. Let me know if you guys think he is a merriam or rio. He was a heavy bird, shorter beard, maybe only 6-7 inches with 3/4 spurs, but from what i hear merriams dont grow spurs and beards like rios. This is my first bird this year but i moved up to the high desert for work and its taken me a while to figure these birds out. Pays to wear in some boot leather....

[scottmarine]

Contests on the nice bird

[dtj6ppc]

Nice bird, one of the best natural photo poses of a turkey Ive seen............Don

[bobk]

Nice Bird. Great job on finding birds up there.

[solus]

I wanna know what area honestly you say high desert but I didnt know there was turkeys in the desert. Thats a nice bird congrats

[baco]

I'm with Solus what are you calling the high desert?

[Mrfish62]

He is a Lassen County bird, he was up in the hills off the desert floor

[solus]

I thought the high desert was north of the sbnf and anf mountains and mojave. I guess the high desert goes up to northern/central ca too

[skeeterbait]

Fine looking bird. Congrats.

[mojavejohn]

Great looking bird

[6x7]

I guess every where on the west coast has a high desert but I have allways known from reno north up into oregon and over to utah and southern idaho as the high desert.The country is very deceiving you can be on a valley floor and you think the elevation must be 2000 feet or less but it will be 5000'

[hunterdoug]

congrads mrfish. nice bird. hard to tell from the photo because of the backlight but looks like a rio (lighter tail tips), I think merriams are more tan. 3/4 spurs with 6 -7" beard just means he's probably a two year old.

[Kentuck]

Congrats on the bird. Hard to tell what species from that pic. It's very small on my PC. Merriams have white tips on their tail feathers and Rio's have tan tips. Easterns have chocolate colored tips. This one does look to be a Rio.

[russ209]

The Lassen county/susanville area up to tulelake and lavabeds NM is all high desert very beautiful country!

I thought the high desert was north of the sbnf and anf mountains and mojave. I guess the high desert goes up to northern/central ca too

[palladin]

I'd go with Mirriam. Lighter tail tips and the color looks more purpleish than copper/green from the photo.

It's a nice bird either way...congrats.

[hunterdoug]

Congrats on the bird. Hard to tell what species from that pic. It's very small on my PC. Merriams have white tips on their tail feathers and Rio's have tan tips. Easterns have chocolate colored tips. This one does look to be a Rio.

I had it backwards, and looking at the fans I have kentucky is right

[Mrfish62]

I saved the tail fan, i will post a better pic of it once I get it dried out a little. I looked at pics of some birds i shot last year down towards the sac valley and they are far more brown in the tail fan compared to this bird. I will try and post one of those along with the fan

[knoopr55]

This is very good news as I own property in Lassen County near McArthur and you are not to far away. I will be retired and tracking down some bad boys like yours in a few years. Nice job, great set up. Ducks, Deer, Turkey, Trout cant wait to get there full time. Save some please.