Frustratingly Fun Jakes

Looking for a fight.

…this past Saturday afternoon found all four of us – Emma (5 yrs), Logan (7 yrs), Leslie (age withheld) & Me - in a ground blind hoping to strike up a conversation with a lonely tom turkey…not long into our sit, and without hearing any turkey music, a hen came strolling into our little flock of decoys…early in the season this means good things as most hens are still with the gobblers…wasn’t long and we spotted the big tom parading on the edge of the woods – he was too busy strutting to move very fast or far but he was heading in our direction…several minutes later the big boy was finally closing in on that invisible line that would seal his fate – but just before he got their, he quickly tucked his tail-feathers and began moving away from us!…as I looked around the blind to see what might have spooked him, 4 jakes came trotting onto the scene…they wasted little time closing the distance on the bigger tom and actually cut-off his escape…though the older bird did his best to avoid them, the younger boys were intent on picking a fight with him – and they did…I am pretty sure the tom could have kicked the tail-feathers of any one of the jakes on any given day, but the jakes were using their numbers to overwhelm the big boy – and it was working…it was frustratingly fun to watch this bit of wild turkey drama unfold in front of us, but the mood had turned from love to violence and we were selling love…

The pecking order is never over.

…anyone that has spent enough time in the spring turkey woods knows that every once in a while the pecking order is thrown a curve ball…according to the wild turkey textbook: the bigger, older and more experienced birds are suppose to be the dominant birds with younger birds-of-the-year making up the bottom…but sometimes the young jakes (last spring’s hatchlings) seem to realize that if they team up they can intimidate the older toms – the more jakes in an area the more this seems to hold true…having lots of jakes is a good thing – it’s a sign of a healthy population & they are fun to be around as they take part in their first breeding season…having lots of jakes around can be frustrating as they can distract the toms and can deter them from being aggressive to the hunter’s call – sometimes I think the toms are just tired of messing around with the jakes and more apt to go looking elsewhere for a love interest…this is where the use of jake decoys can sometimes hurt your hunting efforts…

…as I watched the young gobblers mob the tom I found myself wishing  we would have left our fake-jake at home and used only hen decoys – perhaps the lone tom would have come in without hesitation…but patience won the day, powder was burned and a Sunday meal secured – then an aggressive jake moved in and attacked the fallen gobbler!…

hershy