---
title: "How to Make a Memento from Your Turkey Beard and Spurs"
description: "You can call them trophies if you like, but to me they are memories. Every hunt has a story, and every life we take has meaning beyond our own enjoyment afield. Here's how to turn your turkey spurs and beard into cool memento."
date: "2018-06-19"
modified: "2018-06-19"
authors:
  - name: "Cosmo Genova"
    link: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/authors/cosmo-genova/"
url: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/how-to-make-memento-from-your-turkey-beard-and-spurs/"
categories:
  - "Hunting"
  - "Turkey Hunting"
---

# How to Make a Memento from Your Turkey Beard and Spurs

![](<https://www.outdoorlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/23/XWOM4BXZGE4QUGNNOEVLKUVYSA.png>)

You can call them trophies if you like, but to me they are memories. Every hunt has a story, and every life we take has meaning beyond our own enjoyment afield. When I finally connected with this public land gobbler after a hard hunt and a string of mishaps, I wanted to honor the moment long after the meat was gone and the feathers had all been tied into flies. Every time I look at this memento, I think of the how my heart sank when I realized I had lost my trigger housing pin and almost my entire trigger while the bird closed in. Or how all the small decisions I had made came together for that split-second opportunity, with the trigger box clenched tightly into the gun with one hand as I slowly squeezed and felt the shot break with the other.

Every time I look at this memento I am grateful for our American system of public lands that allowed me to pick a spot on the map and have an epic adventure. I will remember that ridge top, that logging road, those noisy hens, and this beautiful tom every time I see the beard and spurs dangling in the breeze.