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Is it a Jake or a Gobbler?

by Mariah Hardy April 16, 2017

Welcome baby willow

With the arrival of our first child, I couldn't help but get excited thinking about teaching her all about hunting. I could not wait to be with her and watch her experience her many firsts in hunting. This made me think of my first turkey hunt.

I'll never forget my first turkey I ever killed. My dad and I belonged to Tilly Hawk Hunt Club in Baxley, Georgia. It had 10,000 acres of planted pines and was packed with turkeys. My best friend, Travis, and his family were also on the lease. It was our second year on the property and we were determined 16 years old dying to kill a turkey.

We bought all the necessary hunting gear: turkey decoys, turkey calls, etc. but had no clue as to what were were doing. We constantly were sitting up and never had one turkey come close or even respond back to our calls. Frustrated, we decided to drive around and check food plots to see if we could spot and stalk one. If they were not going to come to us, we were going to go to them, or so we thought. That was when we realized that turkeys have good vision. We could not get within 200 yards before being busted.

Back to the drawing board

Next strutter we saw was on a power line food plot. We counted five power poles away and moving away from us. We quietly took off through the planted pines towards the sixth power pole. We figured if we could get past him then he would walk right past us. We successfully made it to the sixth power pole and crawled to the edge of the pines where they met the food plot. I peeked up to see if he was still coming and and low and behold, he was! He fed right up to us where I was I able to take a shot. Bang! He flopped right over. I was ecstatic. I just killed my first turkey! I ran out to him and scooped him up and noticed he was a massive bird with two beards. I looked at Travis and said "Do you think this is a good one?" He said he did not know and thought is it a jake? Either way, I was super happy with my first turkey.

We drove back to to the camp and asked the old timers what they thought. Thats when we were told it was a huge gobbler. Then one of the guys noticed it was a two bearded turkey. They congratulated me and told me that I just harvested a trophy. We measured the beards and the longest was a 10 3/4 inch beard and the other was 6 inches. Thats when if finally set in. I just killed not only my first Eastern turkey, but a trophy Eastern gobbler.