I try my absolute best to never shoot a jake if I can verify he is such. This year it is possible I have seen more jakes than all my years of chasing these birds combined. This guy started hammering @ 6 on the nose ( about 100 yards across an old strip mine road and up the hill from me ) and gobbled 30 or more times by 6:10 when his girlfriend flew down from a pine tree much closer to me. Based on his gobble through my walker's game ears I felt sure he was not a jake and decided to play the game. I got set up against a tree, with my back to a very steep dropoff and 60 yards of mostly grassy road in front of me. There was a small clump of pines diagonal to my right about 40 yards and a clump of some as yet to be identified tree diagonal to my left 40 yards.
I made a few soft yelps and scratched in the leaves which he liked but as soon as the hen flew down the gobbling came to an abrupt halt. I figured there was a 50/50 shot she would either go up the hill and continue with him in that direction or they would come down to the road and go where they most likely wanted to. I decided they both knew where I was and my best bet was to keep quiet and see if they came down the hill toward me. After about 10 min I saw both of them walking down the hill, headed toward the road and about to head out of my sight as I was technically positioned just below road level. I lost sight of them for another 10 min and at this point I decided they had to be in the road somewhere so I turned in their general direction and let out a series of yelps and cuts, hoping he would be willing to come peek over the rise to see what may be there. Thirty seconds later I saw a pristine white and blue head pop up over the rise @ 30 paces...a loud boom, a putting and flying hen, and a stone dead turkey finished off the morning @ 6:40am. I am glad to have had a fun and interesting hunt but sad the bird with the nice gobble ended up being a jake with 1/2" spurs.
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