Be Resourceful When All Else Fails

EDITOR'S NOTE: My longtime deer-hunting and turkey-hunting buddy, Bo Pitman, the manager of White Oak Plantation near Tuskegee, Alabama, ranks as one of the most tenacious turkey hunters ever.

Every morning during turkey season when Bo Pitman crawls out of bed before daylight and puts his boots on to go chase toms, he resolves mentally that, "I will run as far as I have to run, crawl as long as I have to crawl, climb as high as I must, get wet if necessary and use whatever trick that's legal to help my hunter kill a turkey today."

That kind of determination matched with his own ability to determine what a turkey probably will do makes Bo Pitman a master turkey hunter. Also because Pitman hunts private lands, he's not afraid to try tactics on turkeys that no one else has used.

"Some hunters had come from Pennsylvania to hunt at White Oak," Pitman recalled. "The morning one of them was to hunt, I had an appointment in town at 11:00 a.m. We'd found some gobblers in a field, but the birds wouldn't budge. Time began to run out on our hunt. I was desperate. I wanted my hunter to kill one of those gobblers. I knew we had to leave the woods by 10:00 a.m.

"At 9:00 a.m., I decided to use a dirty trick I had played on the gobblers only twice before. I pulled off my boots and took off one of my red-and-white striped socks. I put the smelly sock over my hand and doubled up my fist so my hand looked like the head of a turkey. I laid low on the ground and put that fist out in front of the tree so the turkey's could see it. Next I gave some very aggressive hen calls, moved my sock hand back and forth and then pulled my fake turkey head down. When I peeped out from behind the trees, I saw all three gobblers coming on a dead run. My hunter killed a bird at less than 20 steps.

"Now I certainly don't advocate utilizing this tactic on public lands, nor do I ever use it except when I'm in the most desperate situation. But on this hunt when time was running out, the sock hand trick produced a bird for my hunter and allowed me to leave the woods on time and make my meeting."

To learn more about how to turkey hunt, go to www.nighthawkpublications.com to the home page, and click on books. You can order three of John Phillips' four turkey-hunting books by calling (800) 627-4295 or by sending a check or a money order to Night Hawk Publications, 4112 Camp Horner Road, Birmingham, AL 35243.

TOMORROW: Learn How To Hunt The Toughest Toms