So you can't just chek the birds AARP card? Lol... Seriously though, I killed a bird last season that I thought to be an old bird. Literally he just looked old. Flock was in field and had 4 strutters, dozen or so hens and a few jakes. He was not allowed to be a part of the flock (got run off by a jake, chased him about 200 yds to the woods). When he came back to the field a while later, he kept his distance from the flock and went the opposite direction from them. 3 hens peeled off from the flock at that point so I thought maybe he was an OG past his prime but still a player. He just walked to me and I shot him. When I picked him up, he was skinny. His coloration was much different than the other birds. His spurs were over an inch and pointed. Beard was long but looked old. Anyone else seen such?
Arpund 20 years ago, it took me 3 weeks to finally kill a bird I was hunting. The problem I had was a gang of 7 jakes had taken over the property and had beaten him into submission. I'd set up on him, but the jakes would always intercept him, chase him off, the the jakes would come in.
I got lucky finding him midday in field with the jakes 200y away. I belly crawled to 100y from him and got down in a creek. I called just loud enough for him to hear me, but way too quiet for the jakes 300y away to hear. He would look in my direction, then look back at the jakes. Not seeing them react, he would take a few steps toward me. We repeated that until he worked in and got shot. Just over 1in spurs, but RAZOR sharp... literally as sharp as a pin.
Longest spurred bird I ever killed was a subordinate in a group of 3 toms. Worked in to within 75y of the trio, and soft clucked the group in. All I had was my son's 20g before TSS, so I needed them to be 25y. I was going to shoot the biggest bird until I saw the spurs on the smallest bird and chose him instead. Only 19lbs (the other 2 were at least 23lbers), but he had 2in and 1 7/8in spurs. Old bird, just small and subordinate. Didn't fight so he never wore his spurs down.