Merriam's?

[Ladykiller]

Looking to hunt Merriam's turkey next spring for the first time. I'm willing to travel. I'm looking for areas where the birds have the whitest tailfeather tips. Since I moved to Washington recently, this will obviously be on my list. But my first choice is going to be whatever state has the best representation of these birds. I've seen some that are a bit tan, like they are a Rio hybrid. That's not what i want. Any help? Seems I recall Montana having some beautiful specimens.

 

[cedahm]

There's a lot of variation even within wholly native populations, but, even though the hunting is generally great, I'd steer away from NE due to the prevalence of Hybrids (that being said, my Whitest Merriam's came from NE).

NM seems to put out some stunners.

 

[406LIFE]

We have Merriams here. The better colored ones will be up in the timber. The ones in the valley tend to be darker. Our strain has some areas where easterns may have polluted the gene pool, still some debate on that. We have plenty of birds and plenty of tags.

 

[BrentD]

And here I thought I'd finally found a thread on Kangaroo Rats...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merriam's_kangaroo_rat.jpg

 

[Wally Dog]

NE WA
Plenty of them roaming around Stevens County