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Big Boy Killer

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have you ever wondered why a subordinate gobbler always leads the dominate gobbler in to your calling,you would think it would be the other way,even though the dominate bird will take care of his buisness when he gets there.
 
The dominant bird is usually strutting, which slows them down on the approach. I also think that many times the subordinate bird is willing to risk it, just to get there first.
 
i will post the article here if i can find it again but i just got done reading a cool article somewhat about this exact topic. It was about a growing theme where mature gobblers are teaming up with jakes and/or younger birds. the theory is they do so in order to have more eyes out there looking for danger rather then them being alone and having to look for themselves. Doing this allows them to strut more and look less.

in the same way they did research how or why the younger birds would tend to come in first to calls or decoys and the theory was to allow the younger bird to somewhat come in and scout out the scene allowing the danger to be on them and at the same time allowing the older bird to come in strutting or to come in looking more closely to the scene. the younger bird coming in first was no concern to the older bird because he knew he could just come in and take what he wanted once he was comfortable with the scene and if there was danger he was able to flee quickly and with much less of a chance of harm.

overall it was a very neat article to read and i will try to find it again and post it.
 
REN said:
the theory is they do so in order to have more eyes out there looking for danger rather then them being alone and having to look for themselves.
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I would be interested in reading the article, but I think the above quote gives the birds too much credit. I just don't think they are that smart.

Setterman's comments are probably a better explanation. Also, could be that an older more experienced bird tends to play the, "I gobble you come to me" game more than younger birds.
 
WMAn said:
I would be interested in reading the article, but I think the above quote gives the birds too much credit. I just don't think they are that smart.
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see there is where i dont agree, i think animals in general are very instinctive. it does not have to be "smart" for them to do something to aids in survival. Many types of animals use this same approach to survival and turkeys do the same thing in the winter already.

IMO saying what is "too smart" for an animal is just a human response derived from human logic which does not apply in the animal world.

BTW the article was from Dr. Lovett Williams...still looking for the link though.
 
it was in both of his books. i believe he calls them sentry birds, usually 2nd year birds.

here is one example. i was setup back in the woods off a field edge. about a dozen hens, 5 gobblers were strutting at the top of the hill. this is the only bird that came to the dekes with a hen. he was checking out the jake decoy pretty hard. i called this bird in twice trying to get the older gobblers to follow. they were 60 yards away and would not budge from the strutting. i killed this bird, then i went back and shot one of the 4 year old birds a week later in the afternoon.

03-30-08_0832.jpg
 

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