Fullback

A buddy of mine said he went out with a friend of his a couple of days ago......set some decoys out in a field......and had a turkey come in to the decoys, he said it never gobbled or anything........but said when it got to the decoys, it started strutting.....he didn' t see any beard so the bird walked away.......his friend said that was the first time he' d ever seen a hen strut like that....and convinced my buddy that it was a hen strutting.....I told him it was probably a young jake, and done right by lettin it walk without seeing that beard.......but, my buddies are arguing the fact that it was a hen.....for my own sanity, do hens strut?.....I' ve never seen it, and have never heard tale of it......

Stickemup

I' ve seen a hen with a beard, but I never saw one strut. Did you ask them if there was any red on the birds neck? Also, if it was a jake, they should have seen the cut feathers on the outer edges of the tail. Another possibility is that it was a mature tom that had lost it' s beard to mites.

I had a tom fly down and land right in front of me once, but his beard was only a couple of inches long. I let him walk around ten steps in front of me thinking it was a jake. He turned and walked right to me and when he got five feet from my boots, I realized that his beard was truncated and there were some hairs left that were hanging down eight or nine inches. He was a grown gobbler. He started acting spooky, so I tried to whip the gun up on him. Just as I was coming down on the trigger, he ducked right under the blast, darted behind a pine tree and was gone. I' m sure the look on my face was priceless. [&:]

TomC

I had a group of hens and a jake come in to my decoy once...I swear that one of the hens was strutting. Looking back on it -I think it may have been what is called an intimidation display--sort of like what you see grouse do sometimes...

TineHunter_Jay

Read a post on another forum a few weeks ago where a guy was sure he had a hen come in and strut. So, I' m sure it happens.......for whatever reason.

Tree climber

one of the hens that was with the gobbler I took the first morning this year was in full strut for a good long time.
I know it was a hen,because it was only 5 feet from my blind.a mature (I think dominate hen).

we had one try to gobble once,she tried several times.it sounded like a young jake trying to gobble,she did not strut just gobbled but again we knew it was a hen.funniest thing you ever saw!!

mauser06

could have been.....there was a post on here not to long ago about it.....cant these guys tell a male from a female?? its really not hard...most hens are ugly as can be....theres tons of ways to see the diffrence....

Fullback

I can tell the difference between a hen, jake, and mature gobbler.......I wish I would have seen it........but again, I' ve never seen a hen strut.....I did however, like mentioned before see a hen that gobbled, or at least attempted.....it sounded like nothing I' ve ever heard a turkey do before....these guys I' m talking about are not that serious abouting hunting as me, or from the looks of it, alot folks in here........I just wanted to get an opinion from folks that have spent countless hours out in the field like myself.......thanks for all the replys!!

Borch

Yes hens do an intimidation display that closely resembles strutting. I' ve seen it on a couple HS Strut turkey hunting videos. Does make you look real hard to make sure it' s not a tom in disguise.

Side Strutter

Had it happen to me this year. A hen came into my deeks, she didn' t pay any attention to the jake. She went into an intinidation type strut, not quite as full a fan as a gobbler, then she jumped on the hen decoy and beat the heack out of it, she went down the ridge about 20 yards and came back and jumped on it again with it laying flat on the ground. I tryed every way I could to put a beard and spurs on her but the white head and fan coloration gave her away as a hen. About 1/2 hour later another hen came in and was only interested in the jake.