Tail feather: how long

Rooster Shooter said:
I always considered a 25" tail to be similar to shooting a big 10 point whitetail deer, rare but doable. Having said that, I have two 27" tails, both wild birds. Didn't mount either one because birds were giant and looked terrible
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Kind of depends where you are & how pressured the birds are (which of course affects average lifespan). I've been hunting SD public land my whole life & only 2 over 24". So from my perspective, anything over 23" is awful long. In my 41st season & only have maybe 8 or 10 that were over 23".
 
FCSpringer said:
Well I went through about 200 or so feathers I have collected for years, and I thought I would have an advantage over you guy's because of how many I have and how long I have been saving them, HAA, WRONG. The longest one is 23 3/4" :confused::(. But if you measured all of them and did the adverage it would be a good idea of a common length. They were taken in IA, SD, ND, and MN. But sounds like a time drain, my guess is who ever said 18-20" is about right. I have heard an old timer brag about a 36 incher before but that sounds like a pile a you know what. Now You guy's got me thinking "Spot and stalk hunting on long tails" for that trophy chicken. :D
:coolpics:
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In Montana, 25 to 27 inches wins contests.
 
I want to see those inch plus spurs. 25" inch and longer are prizes for sure. If you don't pull them, it is just a guess. The birds I have kept for mounts first must have long spurs, but they also have to be not shot-up or mauled by a dog...I honestly didn't even consider the length of the tailfeathers. I have kept 3 out of close to 150, once I started looking for some keepers. Good ones seem to be few and far between once you start looking for them. Would still like one more keeper, out of 60 last year, none made the cut.
 
NDPheasant said:
Great picture. That looks like some fun dirt to hunt. That middle rooster is impressive with its tail feathers at full mast!
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Thanks. That’s actually the only bird I’ve ever mounted. He had the best Spurs I’d ever seen.
 

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I want in on this, I never even thought about how long they were till I got this guy! The second I picked him up I new it was special. Been intrigued ever since.
 
Whoa!!! Those are impressive!! My father had peg-board walls in the garage, he would put a tail feather from each bird in a hole and keep track over each season....I never remember measuring them, wish he had kept them from year to year, just to check the lengths now....and his season totals, he was a farmer, so once he had the crop in, he had much more time to hunt than myself.
 
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Man 24 is really nice around here. I’ve measured my longest ones in the past most of them are 22 and half. In really sandy ground maybe a little longer
 
Wow W30! 50 plus years, never have seen tails that length.
Thanks for sharing. Back in 2005, when Cabelas Mitchell used to have a longest tail feather/spur combination, i bagged one with 26 1/2" feathers.
You had to bring the bird in with feathers intact so they could validate the bird and measurements. That particular year 1st place was a ATV. It was the early November trip with my wife, so plus 6 weeks of waiting. The letter came in March, I came in second. $150 gift card, Not bad, but really had my sights set on that ATV! 🤣🤣🤣Need to dust off the mount, & I'll post a pic
BTW - what area in Iowa did you hunt? We hunted the Brooklyn area for several years.......................
 
SW and Central part of the state we hunted, my father grew up there. I just spoke to my father who I hunted with about this conversation and he said he was surprised too that it seems to be harder to get longer tails nowadays.
Maybe genetic traits/ adaptation- birds have changed, more hunting pressure/ less habitat- less big birds??
Btw- (We never won a long tail contest, either).
 
FCSpringer said:
Well I went through about 200 or so feathers I have collected for years, and I thought I would have an advantage over you guy's because of how many I have and how long I have been saving them, HAA, WRONG. The longest one is 23 3/4" :confused::(. But if you measured all of them and did the adverage it would be a good idea of a common length. They were taken in IA, SD, ND, and MN. But sounds like a time drain, my guess is who ever said 18-20" is about right. I have heard an old timer brag about a 36 incher before but that sounds like a pile a you know what. Now You guy's got me thinking "Spot and stalk hunting on long tails" for that trophy chicken. :D
:coolpics:
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50 years hunting in Montana, and South Dakota my longest is 28.5.I have 3 over 26, and 4 over 25 inches.Any feather over 24 inches is a long feather.
 
still_steamn said:
25+" tailfeathers

Here is a picture of two 25 1/4" tailfeathers that came off one SD bird I bagged on Dec 18 last month. Longest tailfeathers I've encountered. And a picture I really like of my dog and 3 roosters from the day before. That was a good weather window, it was after some of the really cold weather and about 1 week before the nasty blizzard moved in.


DSCN2017.jpg


SDDec2009pheasant14.jpg
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That looks like a pay hunting place.
 
Pic of the 26 1/2" tails mentioned yesterday. All three mounted were from 2005, the other two on the winter trip; forward one had some unusual, almost hen like colors, and was not a young bird. No hunting operations in the areas these birds were shot, that we were aware ofPhez Mount 2005 season.jpg
 
27 3/4" is the longest I've seen. Bird got up out of a ditch and after my dad and I both shot(and dropped the bird) we looked at each other and said "did you see those tailfeathers?" Luckily my current dog destroyed my feather collection when he was a pup, wanted to write his own history I guess. That was in 2004 in East Central Iowa, longest I've seen since is 26".
 
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