Nebraskan Bags Highest Scoring Merriam Turkey By Gary Howey
When Duane Filsinger, Butte Nebraska and his son headed out on their spring turkey hunt last spring, the farthest thing from their mind was taking the highest scoring Merriam ever taken with a firearm that was recorded by the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF).
Well that’s just what they did, putting Duane’s name at the top of the NWTF list for Merriam turkeys.
Like most of the state, Northeast Nebraska has as excellent turkey population, with the majority of the birds found in the area being Merriam.
Merriam turkeys are similar in many ways to the other species of turkeys such as the Eastern, Rio Grande and Osceola, which, all can be found in the United States.
Adult Merriam males are easily distinguished from these species, but closely resemble the Gould turkey of Mexico except that they have a blacker appearance with the lower back and tail margins on the Merriam are nearly white.
The Merriam’s original territory was Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, but through stocking programs the birds were stocked out of their original Rocky Mountain terrain.
Because of this successful stocking program, Merriam turkeys are now found in 15 western states.
Merriams are now found from North Dakota south to Texas, (excluding Kansas) and west to Washington, Oregon, California as well as in four Canadian provinces.
If anyone is looking for Merriam turkeys, Nebraska and South Dakota are a good bet as the top eight birds registered with the NWTF come from these two states.
This is not the first record Merriams ever taken in Holt County as Michael Kluver took the number three bird, which scored 130.2500, in May of 2005.
In the spring of 2009, the Filsingers were hunting in late May in Holt County and had located a Tom and his hens that looked like might be callable.
As they glassed the bird through their binoculars, it didn’t seem to appear much different than other birds they’d seen except that the bird seemed taller than usual.
They set up and tried calling the Tom; unfortunately, he was satisfied with the hens he had, refusing to wander too far from them.
At one point, the hens moved off and Duane and his son were able to get in between the bird and his harem.
They happened to be set up in the right place and were able to take the Tom as he made its way back towards the hens.
The Filsinger Merriam became the Best Overall bird ever taken with a total score of 144.2050 points, which broke the old 2002 record of 136.0000 set by a North Carolina hunter in Meade, South Dakota.
The bird wasn’t all that big, weighing in at 22.08 pounds, but other factors entered into the equation put the bird well ahead of other birds.
It’s six beards totaling 45” and it’s spurs that measured 1.5625” and 1.5000 inches gave the bird more than enough points to put it on the top.
For more information on the Nation al Wild Turkey Federation you can go to www.nwtf.org