The Trouble with Jakes

Being a teenage boy is all about looking cool. Why? To impress girls, of course. Remember all that mirror time and endlessly detailing your ride? In their first spring, jakes are eager to play the pickup scene, but their social status is at the bottom end of the pecking order. They spend a lot of time cruising the flock’s fringe and strutting, hormones in high gear, but with no one to appreciate their coolness except for other jakes.

Football stars or super jakes, a special few teens always stand out. They’re smarter, stronger and mature sooner, and so they’re poised to dominate and succeed at an early age. As a group, super jakes can become bullies. They stake out feeding areas to harass single toms away from hens. They will even track down and attack a gobbling tom, forcing him away so that they can commandeer his hen flock.

Like a freshman boy showing off for the prom queen, jake advances are typically ignored by hens. This super jake strutted his best, only to receive the equivalent of a prom-queen eye roll. A fat grasshopper won her attention instead. 

Teen boys and jakes undergo a similar voice transformation. On the brink of manhood, the little boy voice cracks and shifts into a lower, manly tone. A jake’s first gobbles are high-pitched, sissy-sounding giggles that later develop into thunderous gobbles.

Teen rivals might settle a turf war in an afterschool chest-bumping, bare-knuckle brawl. Jakes settle challenges with intruders in wing-slapping face-offs that appear deadly. But when the dust settles, injuries from both styles of combat are seldom more serious than bloody noses, bruised egos or broken feathers.

Ask any parent – or turkey hunter. In the throes of hormonal mayhem, teens and jakes can do some masterfully stupid stuff. Lack of good judgment is part of the rite of passage. Who thought it was smart to put a rubber snake over Uncle Jack’s truck visor? Likewise, jakes are adolescent peons in the spring and susceptible to misguided urges. These jakes weren’t allowed near a tom and his flock. Undeterred and determined to impress, a nearby young calf instead became the target of their amorous intentions.

Jakes, like teens, are experts at goofing off. What makes teen boys spend hours doing nothing but hanging out? The same thing that makes a group of jakes dance, bunny-hop and levitate on wing flaps. Because they can.

Each generation of teen boys has a fantasy love that’s typically featured in a large poster as a bedroom wall’s primary visual accent. Think Farrah Fawcett if you’re over 40. Don’t cuss the lovesick jake that gets a little too friendly with your decoy. He may wreck your setup and foil the hunt, but have some mercy. He’s finally met his Farrah.

Editor's note: Sometimes young gobblers help you fill an unused late-season tag. And jakes are surely tasty on the supper table. Do you shoot shortbeards? Why or why not? Please comment below.

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