Quote:
Originally Posted by Dean Romig
In the 80 acre field below camp we often see large flocks with as many as 60 or 70 birds, about 25% being toms and jakes. The number of mature longbeards among them is usually fewer than 10. When the breeding gets hot and heavy the jakes gang up and single out a longbeard and run him off... then they move on to the next longbeard and the next and the next until only the jakes remain. The longbeards don’t have the sense to protect one of their kind - they’re too busy trying to corral a hen.
That is the exact scenario that provided two jakes with one shot for me two years ago.
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That's interesting Dean. On the property I hunt, I rarely see hens and gobblers together except in the spring. In the fall when bowhunting this year, I frequently observed large groups of hens in the Timothy and Sorghum. Gobblers did not frequent the fields but when they did, I did not see any hens present. The number of gobblers yesterday was unprecedented. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know that there were that many gobblers on the property since they don't frequent the fields to the extent and in the numbers that the hens do.
I went back to the hanger and grabbed a friend and binoculars to go back and double check that all the birds were gobblers, although I was sure that they were. We looked them all over and he validated that they were all gobblers. I would say that about 10 or 12 of them were jakes that were mingling with the mature birds. No confrontations, but it’s early. About half of the birds were in one group with other groups close by.
I’m going back to the fields tonight with a camera. I hope they return.