“Turkey Hunting in Mosquito Country with ThermaCELL and Preston Pittman”
Part 5: Impressing the Hardest Person to Impress – My Wife
Editor’s Note: Preston Pittman of Petal, Mississippi, the founder of Preston Pittman Game Calls, is the only person to win five divisions of the World Turkey Calling Championship: the World Open, the World Two-Man Team, the World Champion of Champions, the World Gobbling Championship, and the World Natural Voice Championship. Pittman also holds more than 150 other world, national, regional and state championships. Because of where Pittman lives in Mississippi, and where he hunts primarily in the Deep South, he’s become a believer in the power of the ThermaCELL.
 Question: Preston, who did you impress the most with the ThermaCELL?
Pittman: My wife, Shelly. We were turkey hunting near Canton, Mississippi, and she was at least as skeptical, if not more skeptical, about the ThermaCELL as I was. Shelly will swat mosquitoes. They don’t even have to bite her. If they just come around her, she’ll swat them. She’s as concerned about the noise they make as she is about the bite of hide they take.
We were hunting old family property, and I had my ThermaCELL strapped to my belt with my Velcro invention. Shelly and I had slipped down a pipeline right-of-way to check out an old field. We didn’t see any turkeys, so we sat down. I started crow calling to try and trigger a gobble. When the turkey gobbled, he about scared us to death, because he was only 60 yards over a small hill from where we sat. I knew I’d be in trouble if Shelly started swatting mosquitoes like she normally did because this gobbler was really close.  Since turkeys could see about 10 times as good as humans, they’d pick up the least little movement. I was hoping my ThermaCELL would do the job and not only keep the mosquitoes away, but also keep Shelly still enough so she wouldn’t spook the turkey we were trying to call in to where we waited.
As the turkey came toward us, the mosquitoes had already left us, due to the ThermaCELL. The big advantage with the ThermaCELL on that day was I didn’t have to worry about Shelly and her swatting problem. She was able to watch and concentrate on the turkey without thinking about and swatting mosquitoes. For the last 20 or 30 years, I’ve rarely had the chance to hunt alone.  I’m always taking writers, family members or business associates with me. Turkey hunting is intense enough when you’re one-on-one with the turkey. However, when you not only have to concentrate on the turkey, but also be conscious of the person you’re guiding, you’re in an intensively-stressful situation. Most veteran turkey hunters will look cross-eyed at a mosquito sitting on their nose, watch that mosquito bury its bill into their nose, suck out a quart of blood, and not move when a turkey’s in close. Over the years, a veteran gobbler chaser has learned not to move a muscle when mosquitoes attack. They can be suffering from fanny fatigue, back and muscle aches or muscle quivers from holding a shotgun too long, and they still won’t move. However, when you have a novice turkey hunter with you, anything you can do to remove a degree of strain and hurt greatly enhances your possibility for taking a turkey.
I’ve found that most newcomers to the sport of turkey hunting have an automatic response to the sound of tiny wings buzzing around their head and to mosquitoes lightly landing on their head nets and gloves.  They just have to swat those little blood suckers or at least shoo them away. When I take a newcomer hunting with me, I try and sit right beside them, not only so I can tell them what’s happening with the turkey coming towards us and help them move when they need to get the shot, but also so the magic from the ThermaCELL can keep the mosquitoes away from both of us. Too, I’ve learned that the hunters who hunt with me really appreciate the opportunity to be able to concentrate on the turkey hunt without the annoying sounds and bites of mosquitoes. Many times I’ll carry two ThermaCELLs with me to make sure my hunting partner doesn’t have a mosquito encounter. I’m convinced that the ThermaCELL makes me and the people I hunt with much-more comfortable and successful.
Part 1: How I Found the ThermaCELL
Part 2: The Boy, the Gobblers and the ThermaCELL
Part 3: Sunshine State, Mosquito State
Part 4: Squirrel Hunting, Too
Part 5: Impressing the Hardest Person to Impress – My Wife |
