This was my first year chasing turkeys and I feel very fortunate to end up with two birds. The first turkey hunt was successful but ended up being more like a spot and stalk type hunt rather than calling the birds in. A friend and I tried calling to them as they came off the roost but they went their own way, must have been the hens idea. We tried following them and calling them back to us several times with no luck. Finally I snuck out in front of them and as they walked by I shot a jake. My second bird proved to be more satisfying as I was able to call a couple in to my decoys and took a nice tom with a 9 1/4 inch beard. It was a very exciting hunt. Now a question for all you experienced turkey hunters, if I want to save the beard and fan for mounting what do I do with the skin and meat that came away with the fan and beard? Do I salt it to dry it out before mounting it? Thanks for any help.
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<br>Jeff

Congratulations!!
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<br>There may be some useful info on the link I posted under the "cleaning a turkey" thread
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<br>Mike

X-JARHEAD: congratulations on the turkeys. i have mounted a tail and helped other people do it. it's not hard. take a spoon and scrape all the fat and meat off the tail you can.
<br>obtain 2 flat pieces of cardboard larger than the tail when it is fanned out. coat the fleshy part of the tail with borax(the stuff used for laundry). lay the tail on one piece of cardboard. get a box of straight pins. stick the pins between the feathers in the fanned position. make sure you use enough to hold it in the position you want it to be in when it dries. then lay the other piece of cardboard over the top so as to sandwich the fanned tail between them. stick pins through both pieces to hold them together. let this sit someplace dry and airy for 3-4 weeks. put the end of the beard in a bag of borax. while the tail and beard are drying you can either buy a plaque of some sort to mount it on or make your own. you may want to get or make a beard rack for future use if you are going to continue hunting turkeys. that is unless you plan to mount every turkey tail.
<br>when the tail is dry it will hold the fan shape. do not allow it to get wet(the fleshy part). remove it from your cardboard fixture and spray the feathers with "raid flying insect spray". dampen the feathers with the stuff and let it dry. this will kill any mites that are present and keep your tail good for years. now all you have to do is mount it per the instructions with the plaque or you are on your own if you made one. luck!

Thanks for the instructions, I look forward to adding the fanned tail to my mount wall.
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<br>Jeff

Congratulations. I stick the flesh that's left on the beard in salt until it dries. I only mounted one tail. Boy did I do it the hard way. I plucked every feather out one by one and hot glued them on a half round board. It took a while, but when I finished I had one heck of a nice fan.