Tips for Fall Jakes

 

You don’t know if you’ll encounter a flock of  hens, toms or jakes when you hunt in the fall.  They are all legal but they all have their own language so you need to call to them specifically if you hope to call them in.  Jakes or immature toms are most interested in other jakes so if that’s what you have around, you need to know their language  to call to them.

The trail camera picture above is a jake.  A jake can be identified by a red or pink head, a little snood above it’s beak, the nub of a spur on the back of its legs  and the tail feathers in the centre of  it’s tail fan will be longer than the outer ones. All are visible in the picture above.  The nub of a beard may or may not be poking out from the chest feathers.

Jakes are like high school boys walking home together, grabbing hats, tripping each other, and dragging each other around by their back packs. They can hardly go an hour without brawling or abusing the weakest member.  They’ve got a lot of exuberance and little experience.  They should be easy to call in they have the attention span of gnats.  They’ll start coming to your call then get into a scrap among themselves, forget where they were going and run off fighting in another direction.  But if a gang of raucous jakes ever swarms you, it’ll boost your heart rate just as nicely as a big tom sneaking up behind you and gobbling down your neck.

Call to jakes with clucks, hoarse jake yelps and kee-kee runs that end with a couple of jake yelps. Some jakes are trying to gobble by the fall.  Their half gobble will attract other jakes looking for company or a scrap.

There are some nice comments on the posts   “The Wild Game Dinner” and  “Learn This Great Call for Fall.”  Take a second to enjoy these comments as I have.