One you’ve seen one turkey you’ve seen them all, right? Wrong. Especially if it’s a rare white turkey like Jacob Johnston of Traphill recently killed.
“We had seen it several times over the past couple of months. It was usually with a small group of other gobblers, but it was the only white one. Every time we saw that bird, it was about 2 miles away from my family’s farm, so I didn’t really think I’d get the chance to shoot it,” Johnston, a forestry student at Western Carolina university, told North Carolina Sportsman.
Image: North Carolina Sportsman
Did we mention it was opening day? Not only did he get the bird he wanted, he got it on opening day. Talk about luck.
“I had no idea it was the white turkey. I had roosted several turkeys in that same spot in the week or so leading up to the season, so I figured it was one of those,” he said.
It’s not hard to imagine how excited he must’ve been when he realized this particular bird wasn’t just any old turkey, but the rare white one he’d had his eye on.
Johnston shot the bird with a Remington 870, about 30 yards out. Though the turkey’s body was solid white, it wasn’t an albino. It had dark eyes and a black beard.
So what’s the next step? Johnston is having a full-body mount made of the turkey.
