Well, as you can see, it's been a,
a fun morning of scouting here.
Uh, the season's just about to start
and, uh, just wanted to come see what was kicking around
and man, they were active this morning.
And, uh, obviously, no call or decoy
or anything, and these Toms came right in, almost too close.
I expected to just be filming that distance.
But, uh, some cool encounters there.
Uh, like I said, with the season just starting
and hopefully, a lot of new hunters in the Turkey woods this
spring, I figured it'd be a good time
to go over Jake versus Tom Identification.
Uh, for those of you that are new to Turkey hunting,
it's a good thing to know.
Um, you know, some states, Jake's are legal game
and other states, they're not.
But either way, it's important to, uh,
identify the differences between the two.
There are a few different things that I'll go through,
but number one, uh, for me, is beard length.
Uh, Jake's gonna have something around a two
to four-inch short beard,
where typically, a Tom is gonna be a lot longer.
Uh, and Jake usually looks like it's kind
of protruding out from the chest, uh, whereas a a Tom,
it's gonna hang a lot lower.
So, uh, that's one of the easiest things to look at
to distinguish a Tom
and a Jake. Second would be the tail fan.
And, uh, this one definitely isn't a hundred percent
bulletproof, but if you can see a Jake strutting, typically
in the spring, um,
they're gonna have longer feathers in the middle compared
to the outsides usually,
whereas the Tom is gonna have more even like feathers all
the way across the tail fan.
Um, so another identifier there that you can use.
A third thing that you could, uh, consider looking at
and, you know,
this one takes probably a little bit more experience
and time in the woods to distinguish,
but that would be the gobble.
Uh, typically a Jake is going to have a lot shorter gobble,
softer gobble that kind of falls off, uh, fairly rapidly.
And a Tom gobble is gonna be a lot more
fuller and longer and louder.
Again, this one isn't a hundred percent bulletproof either.
I've heard Jakes that sound pretty close to a full gobble.
Uh, but it's, uh, another thing
that you can consider looking at to distinguish the two.
And finally, spur length if you're close enough to be able
to, to see the spurs.
That is, uh, typically, this is a pretty good giveaway
uh, whether the bird is a Jake
or Tom. Jake is usually gonna have really,
really short half-inch
or less spurs that are pretty much just rounded,
kinda like a little mound.
Um, whereas a Tom is usually gonna be anything longer that,
longer than that, and it's also gonna have a point to it.
So, um, tough thing to look at in the field, obviously,
unless you're really close.
Um, but kind of going through all four
of these, likely you're gonna have to use a combination
of them until you get some experience
and just, you know, know how to identify Jake,
uh, versus the Tom.
So, uh, hopefully, that's helpful, and good luck this spring.