“Turkey Hunting in Mosquito Country with ThermaCELL and Preston Pittman”
Part 2: The Boy, the Gobblers and the ThermaCELL
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, tell us about a recent hunt where you used your ThermaCELL.
Pittman: Until about 2-years ago, I wasn’t a ThermaCELL believer. I was afraid it would spook animals and still not keep mosquitoes away. But I’ve been converted. A classic example of my conversion occurred last week. While hunting in Columbia, Mississippi, I was in camp with Dick Kirby, founder of Quaker Boy Game Calls. We’d been auctioned off by the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) to take two hunters on a turkey hunt. We both believe in and promote the goals and the purposes of the NWTF and had agreed to the hunt.
When Dick, our hunters and I got out of our vehicles, the mosquitoes swarmed all around us. I actually heard two mosquitoes talking and arguing about whether to eat us on the spot or carry us back home and eat us there. I pulled out my bug spray and sprayed down, but I was still being eaten by the mosquitoes. Then I pulled out my ThermaCELL, and within 5 minutes, all the mosquitoes went away.  I could see them out in front of me like a black cloud, and occasionally, one or two of them would come zooming by but wouldn’t stop to eat me or my hunter.
Question: Tell me about the hunt.
Pittman: We didn’t kill a turkey, but we called in quite a few of them. My hunter, 10-year-old Wylie Cleveland, and I only had the morning to hunt. When we started calling, turkeys seemed to come from everywhere. We had jakes and longbeards coming in, and we were in a tight place. Finally, three adult gobblers came in to within 20 yards. But as turkeys would do, they didn’t come from the direction they needed to come from to allow Wylie to get in front of them. So, I had to help Wylie move around the tree to make the shot.
 While we were trying to move around to get Wylie a shot, we spooked the birds. That morning, we also had nine jakes (1-year-old turkeys) come in to our calling. Although we had a great morning of turkey hunting and saw plenty of gobblers, we didn’t close the deal because the gobblers were still bunched together and henned-up. Later in the season, when the gobblers began to gather their hens and mate, and the hens started nesting, the place where we were hunting would be a dynamite spot to take a longbeard. But early in April, this place was simply a great area to collect mosquitoes, if you didn’t have a ThermaCELL.
Tomorrow: Sunshine State, Mosquito State
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 |
