Learn How To Hunt The Toughest Toms

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bo Pitman, the manager of White Oak Plantation near Tuskegee, Alabama, ranks as one of the most tenacious turkey hunters ever. Pitman has learned the toughest gobbler to bag is the bronze baron that keeps all his hens with him all the time.

"A smart gobbler will keep all his hens out in front of him looking for danger moving ahead of him," Pitman observed. "Then there's no way a predator or a hunter can take the tom before the hens see danger. To get this turkey, you must stay very still and let all the hens walk past you. I've even had hens spot me, putt, back up 10 steps and continue to walk down the side of a field to look for another place to enter the woods. Although many hunters will try to jump up quickly to get a shot off at the gobbler before the hens' putting spooks him, I've learned if I'm still, often that tom will continue to walk the same path the hens have taken. Then my hunter can take the bird.

"However, this is the exception rather than the rule. When a gobbler has numbers of hes with him, it's likely a hen will see the hunter, alarm the flock and spook the gobbler. But if that happens, just get to another place to try and take that gobbler or find another tom to hunt before the day is over. Even though I may get beat two or three times in one day by different turkeys, I don't consider the hunt over until I bag a bird, or the turkey flies up to roost. When he's on the roost, he's home free. However, when he's on the ground, I'll stay after him until I get him."

Although some hunters bag an easy gobbler at first light with Pitman, they miss out on a turkey war, Pitman-style. When Pitman is on the ground, crawling, low walking, running or just scratching his head trying to determine what a turkey is planning to do, he's ever the master woodsman. To have the opportunity to hunt turkeys with a man like this is the equivalent of completing a course for a doctorate degree in the fine art of turkey hunting.

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.