1st fall tom - super jake?

[fallhnt]

Great hunt and great bird. Congrats...if you want to know if your bird is a super jake,jake an a half,ect. Look at the tip of the beard.If it is redish looking the bird is most likely under two.Takin in fare chase they are all trophyies to me.

[maustypsu]

Seems like last year's Jake to me.  Usually in our area at this time of year they have that 6-7" beard.  That beard will be 9" or so this Spring.  Don't be fooled by the growth pattern ramping up from nubbins in spring to 3/4 of an inch by now or the beard doing the same.  I am NOT a biologist by any means.  But it seems from my observations that in the first year turkeys do most of their body growth.  Then in their second year toms do most of the spur and beard growth.  Then it slows down as they get older they just fill out a little bit in body, spur and beard growth.

At the same time, 3/4 inch spurs right now could be a 2 1/2 year old bird.  This is especially true if it was on rocky terrain that wore the spurs down (PA mountains where I grew up).  Beard could have gotten frozen and broken off at some point too. 

So your best bet is to find one of his friends and ask them how old he was.  Any survivors?

[dirt road ninja]

Congrats on the fall bird

[surehuntsalot]

definitely a tom

[timberjack86]

 

[opster246]

Seems like last year's Jake to me.  Usually in our area at this time of year they have that 6-7" beard.  That beard will be 9" or so this Spring.  Don't be fooled by the growth pattern ramping up from nubbins in spring to 3/4 of an inch by now or the beard doing the same.  I am NOT a biologist by any means.  But it seems from my observations that in the first year turkeys do most of their body growth.  Then in their second year toms do most of the spur and beard growth.  Then it slows down as they get older they just fill out a little bit in body, spur and beard growth.

At the same time, 3/4 inch spurs right now could be a 2 1/2 year old bird.  This is especially true if it was on rocky terrain that wore the spurs down (PA mountains where I grew up).  Beard could have gotten frozen and broken off at some point too. 

So your best bet is to find one of his friends and ask them how old he was.  Any survivors?

He had 2 other buddies with him, but when he went down, they commenced to pummeling the poor boy.  I assume he wasn't well liked by his peers, so I don't know that they would have been honest about his age anyways!

[chatterbox]

Seems like last year's Jake to me.  Usually in our area at this time of year they have that 6-7" beard.  That beard will be 9" or so this Spring.  Don't be fooled by the growth pattern ramping up from nubbins in spring to 3/4 of an inch by now or the beard doing the same.  I am NOT a biologist by any means.  But it seems from my observations that in the first year turkeys do most of their body growth.  Then in their second year toms do most of the spur and beard growth.  Then it slows down as they get older they just fill out a little bit in body, spur and beard growth.

At the same time, 3/4 inch spurs right now could be a 2 1/2 year old bird.  This is especially true if it was on rocky terrain that wore the spurs down (PA mountains where I grew up).  Beard could have gotten frozen and broken off at some point too. 

So your best bet is to find one of his friends and ask them how old he was.  Any survivors?

He had 2 other buddies with him, but when he went down, they commenced to pummeling the poor boy.  I assume he wasn't well liked by his peers, so I don't know that they would have been honest about his age anyways!