Not for me, but I was there. I took a friend out to go after the bird I thought had 4 beards and told him he could shoot the tom the quad beard was hanging with. We got out there on Friday afternoon and went to the usual lookout spot about a half mile from where I had been seeing them and saw 2 hens within about 100 yards of the spot. We decided to sneak down the creek and get into position without calling so we could sit and wait over our decoys. We had been set up for no more than a minute when a lone hen came running to our decoys and immeditly began pecking and scratching around. After about 5 minutes we had 4 more hens join her in our decoys, adding the perfect amount of realism to the spread! I thought I heard a faint gobble to the west and my friend confirmed that he heard it too, so we got ready. Soon my buddy saw 3 birds coming, 2 toms and a jake so I figured it was them. When they got to the decoys, I couldnt tell if it was the triple beard or not because both birds beards were really wet thus looked the same, but we decided to take them anyway. I told him to shoot the one on the right and I was going to take the bird on the left. When we pulled up our guns, the toms both had their heads down facing us, so I didnt want to shoot yet. The tom on the right lifted his head just enough to get shot and my buddy let him have it. When he shot, my bird flew strait up in the air about 15-20 feet, which is where I shot him. I hit him in the head, but the fall from that much altitude was enough to break one wing almost completly off, knock out 5 or 6 tail feathers and break one leg in half! Upon inspecting the birds, we found that my bird had a nice 10.75" beard that twisted at the end (one of my longest) with 1" spurs. His bird was the bird I thought had 4 beards, but "only" had 3, which were 9.75", 6.25" and 3". This bird had to be the brother of the one I shot because they were almost Identical to each other.
I did not get the bird I was after, but a good buddy did and thats better than not getting him at all. With a score of 79, his scores less so I can hang that over his head! Below are pics of the 2 birds together (only me in the pic, I dont want to post him without asking) and then the pic of his birds 3 beards.
My bird on the right, his triple on the left.(you can see the damage that falling from that high will do to a bird)
His triple beard, all wet. They all blended together so I couldnt tell if he was the bird I was after or not.
Another triple beard, the end of a saga
