Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting White Turkey

Killed a solid white gobbler this morning. Not albino, just solid white.
How rare are they in Rio Grandes?

jimmy c

Pretty rare for a Rio, how far away were you from the nearest farm? We used to raise white turkey.

Ranching country. Full of predators, too. Mostly coyotes and bobcats.
First one I have seen in wild after 30 years of hunting TX. 9 inch beard and 3/4 spurs.
Taxidermist said it was wild. It was strutting with 3 or 4 other big toms.

Jimmy C

That's pretty cool. You should show some pics.

I will try in a day or two. But my buddy's wife said it looks like a white swan in the photo.

jimmy c

Very cool, I have seen a few but never when I was hunting.....Congrats!...........Hillbilly.

Hey guys, this is the pic of the white turkey JCC sent for me to post for him. This is his wife's third gobler. He's a very lucky man to have a wife that likes to hunt with him:


Pretty cool, as I've never seen a white turkey out in the wild. I'm pretty sure they are rare indeed and a nice prize. Turkey has a 9" beard and 3/4" spurs.

Cool, I've seen 3 in the wild but never a shot at one..

I will be hunting at a place this year that I know hold em. (where I've seen them in the past.

Beautiful gobbler! I've only seen one this white, of the few I have seen most were more of a tan shade.......What a trophy!!...............Hillbilly.

Thanks for the positive comments.

It was an awesome sight and only wish I had a video of the 5 minutes before the shot. Strutting in the bright earlier morning sun among the other adult toms was a sight I will never forget.
For all those questioning the decision to shoot, it was a tough call. We decided that he was going to be shot sooner or later, if not taken by a predator. And for all those who might assume he was baited and taken from a stand, neither is true. We made a short stalk and was lucky the birds have not been pressured hard ever on this ranch due to the past years of terrible droughts.
I can assure you we decided we were going to mount him and forever have the bird and memory before pulling the trigger.
Hope he passed on some genes earlier.

jimmy c

Here is a bad picture of one from a canoe. I think it was a hen but didn't get a real good look

Congrats on a very unique trophy bird. I've seen a few white/light smoke colored hens where we hunt in middle Georgia, but not a pure white like this Tom.

Called in a mostly white hen in south Alabama last week. Blue head,white body, Gray/black tail. Pretty cool.

AWESOME!!!!!!!

That's cool. Congrats!

Wild or domestic?

He darn sure wasn't in a pen or within many miles of a farm!

The 10 birds he was with were wild as March hares.

jimmy c

We had several of these show up at various places in Wyoming where ranchers had "helped us" by buying game farm Easterns after bad winters and dumping them out to replace and/or cross breed with wild Merriam's turkeys. One ranch up in the Black Hills had a flock where a quarter of the birds were white. The genes are there, as the white domestics originally came from wild turkeys, and they were bred to perpetuate the color. While real albinos with pink eyes and heads are fairly common among domestic turkeys, most of the wild white ones have dark eyes.
We did not want a crapload of white birds in Wyoming, so we considered them domestic and encouraged hunters and landowners to shoot them, no license required. I haven't heard of one in a while, but if the right two birds breed, we might see one anywhere.
A white wild one is indeed a great trophy, as are the other weird colors. All of them are extremely rare, but as many turkeys as we have now, they are likely to be seen more often. The one seen most often is the smoke gray. I ran into a guy several years ago in South Dakota who had a nearly black gobbler, and I got one four years ago that was reddish.











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Blue head? It may have been a jake.