Aggressive jakes ???

[Yoder409]

Soooo.........in 43 years of playing this amazing game in the spring..........

I have read scores of times in this forum and others.........in books and magazines........of gangs of jakes running mature birds off.  Messing up hunts or even entire seasons in a particular area.

I'm here to say........... I've never ONCE seen an example of this behavior.  EVER.  As a matter of fact, in my core hunting area, it's pretty uncommon to even have jakes respond to (as in "come in") the call.  But, never once have I seen a jake or group of jakes chase, bully, harass or otherwise interfere with a mature gobbler.

Wonder how come ?? 

[3bailey3]

Well I can say I saw it this season, jakes were gobbling and strutting and drumming and would shut the gobbler down, later in the season it seemed like the gobbler would go to the jakes and shut them down but they would then shut down.. I hope all the Jakes I called in work that good next season..

[RutnNStrutn]

I've only seen it a couple of times. I too have read about it but rarely have seen it.

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[ChesterCopperpot]

I've never encountered it either. Lots of times I've had groups of jakes running around acting like eighth graders asked to senior prom, but I've never seen them shut down a dominate bird. I've seen them strut and gobble, sure, some even sounding and acting like adult birds, but just never seen them subordinate a dominant bird.


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[Mossberg90MN]

I've seen it. After spring break up there was something like 1 tom and 4-5 Jakes in that area. These were like super Jakes though not late hatch smaller Jakes but larger early hatch ones. Those Jakes were fired up and strutting really early in the year too.

Whenever they saw the tom strutting alone in an opening they would go and chase him off until he was strutting on the out skirts of the property away from the Jakes.

Those Jakes owned that property and would bug the hens. Of course after the season they linked up with the Tom and all was well again.


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[Turkeybutt]

I have never witnessed this myself but based on what I have read and various conversations with other hunters I know it happens.
I just write it off as Turkeys being Turkeys!

[Cowboy]

I witnessed it first hand this season.  Group of 5 jakes. Very belligerent and they would gobble too. One of the 5 would strut as well. Called them in on 3 different occasions.  This was during the youth season so it was late March and first weekend of April.  First time we had a gobbler that had been gobbling behind our setup. The jakes came passed us and went straight to that other gobbler and beat the you know what out of him. Wife and kids were with me and had never heard such a racket before. Knock down drag out fight. That was the first time I had actually witnessed it by myself for sure. Next weekend,  called in these clowns again. Once again, lots of aggressive behavior and lots of gobbling.  They were fun to watch.

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[zelmo1]

It's a respect/ fear thing, lol. I have seen it also, but never 2-3 jakes. Usually a bigger " gang" of jakes will harass a lone Tom around here during the breeding season. But most of the year they hang together.

[Treerooster]

I've seen it a few times. Kind of rare but it does happen. It has been mostly a gang of jakes attacking a single Tom or 2. I think it is more likely to happen when you have a very bad hatch followed by a really good hatch. Then you have a bunch of jakes running around very few two-year and older birds. The jakes gang up on them. I think there is also less gobbling, generally speaking, in those years as toms gobbling will attract the jake gangs and they are a bit reluctant to gobble.

One time I have seen a jake run off a tom in a one on one situation. I chalked it up to some individual birds are just more aggressive than others.

[Greg Massey]

I can't say that I've ever seen it also. I have seen plenty of Jakes this past spring coming to the calls and just bunching up together. I have seen both Jakes and gobblers together, but not necessarily fighting, more so just playing around. I'm sure it's different in other states how the turkeys react to each other and the number of birds in a given area.

[GobbleNut]

Add me to the list of those that have never seen jakes harassing mature gobblers.  Around here, jakes tend to group up, but be somewhat reclusive and keep to themselves.  I have, however, on numerous occasions witnessed gangs of mature gobblers getting into it with each other. 

It is interesting how these groups of gobblers will run into each other, have a tussle, and then sort themselves out again and go on their way.  I would assume these groups are separated by family/genetic dynamics and all of these interactions are dominance-related.  Whatever it is, it is an interesting evolutionary phenomenon in wild turkeys. 

[Dtrkyman]

Seen it a handful of times, one place in Nebraska one year we quit hunting a property, had the same group of Jake's run off a tom every time I went there.  Came really close to executing one of them to see if they would stop responding to calls.

[hootgobbleyelpgobble]

I have seen in several times. It was always groups of 4 or more jakes. Either run in to the calling or decoy setup and scare the gobbler off while they beat the hell out of the decoy if using one. Best I can recall it was always 1 "dominate" jake that would strut around while the others did the dirty work.

[gotitbad]

This year on a property for many years now I have permission to hunt on, I called in a group of 4 jakes early in my season. They seen my lone strutting decoy and walked around it like they were trying to intimidate it. They didn't attack it just walked around by it then slowly left after awhile.
Funny thing is I never herd a gobble this whole season in that area , a first for me hunting that property.
I was able to kill a Tom on public a few miles up the road but it was pretty quit every time I went back to that private land.

[Jim K]

I've seen it twice. Once in Nebraska there were 3 jakes that would run off lone  longbeards. As a previous poster said, I was starting to think about shooting one. It was very frustrating.

Once at my place here in PA I had a group of jakes, hens and 2 longbeards hanging around preseason. The jakes were with the hens and the longbeards hanging around the fringes. If a Tom would work over close to a hen, the group of jakes would immediately go over and chase them off. Interesting to watch preseason. Not so much when the season starts.