Finaly got Brandon's pics back from the youth hunt, and his Bearded hen. Beard is just over 8 inches in length.
We were set up in our blind well before dawn on the edge of the foodplot, when dawn arrived, we had 3 gobblers hollering at us on a ridge in front of us about 100 yards away. At flydown, a hen flew off the ridge and landed in the foodplot, where she was joined by 2 more birds. As I called, they came a little closer and could see one had a beard. 20 minutes later all 3 were in front of us and in shooting range, 15 yards. I thought the one with the beard was a jake, and Brandon wanted to shoot, so I gave him the go ahead, and he took it. Turned out it was a Bearded hen. Clean kill with one shot! This ended his 3 year dry spell. Took it with a Mossberg 20 guage, with #5, in 3in. Brandon is 12 years old.