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Hunting Spring Turkeys with Bo Pitman and His Alpen Binoculars
 Editor’s Note: Bo Pitman, a master turkey hunter, is the head guide for deer and turkey White Oak Plantation in Tuskegee, Alabama. This week he’ll tell us how he uses his Alpen binoculars to find and take spring turkeys.
I hunt turkeys every day of the season with people who generally have very-little hunting experience. I use Alpen Binoculars primarily because they let me see the turkeys before the turkeys spot me and help me determine whether the turkeys are mature gobblers, jakes or hens. A quality pair of binoculars like the kind Alpen makes will save you from walking and crawling, because you can see far and clearly, and you don’t have to put a stalk on a turkey you may not want to take.
I also use my binoculars to learn which way the turkey’s traveling, if he’s feeding or in a strut zone and his mood, which tells me how receptive he’ll be to calling. Once I decide to go after a turkey, I use my binoculars to look at the terrain, decide which way the turkey’s moving and determine where I need to move to intercept him. I do very little calling to a turkey, but instead try to be where that turkey wants to go, get out in front of him and reach the spot where he’s heading before he arrives there. Then, I use my Alpen binoculars to keep up with the turkey and make sure he’s on course to come to me and my hunter.
 I can be successful as a turkey hunter and a guide without a call as long as I have my Alpen binoculars and my shotgun. My job when I’m guiding is to let my hunter know where the turkey will appear, when he’ll get there, and where my hunter should take the shot. Turkeys don’t read your playbook. They’ve got minds of their own, and many times they don’t behave the way you think they should. Once I locate a gobbler to hunt, I don’t feel comfortable hunting that turkey, until I can see him with my Alpen binoculars.
 Sometimes when I hear a turkey gobbling out in a field, and I can’t see out in that field, I’ll put my binoculars around my neck, climb the backside of a tree away from the field and peep around the tree with my binoculars to see how far out in the field the gobbler is, if he has any female turkeys with him, if he’s strutting or feeding, and which way that turkey’s moving. I can make all these assumptions much better and quicker with my Alpen binoculars.
If you plan to hunt turkeys this spring, you need binoculars that are clear and bright. Oftentimes, you’ll look at turkeys before the sun comes up in the morning and after the sun goes down in the afternoon. The brightness and the clarity of the binoculars are critical to successful turkey hunting. You can pay much more for a pair of binoculars than what Alpen binoculars costs, but I don’t believe you can find any binoculars more clear or better for hunting turkeys.
 When you earn a portion of your living from turkey hunting like I do, you must have hunting aids you can depend on, no matter what the weather and the light conditions are. That’s why when I get up before daylight to go into the woods and hunt turkeys, my Alpen binoculars are always around my neck.
For more information about White Oak Plantation, you can visit www.whiteoakplantation.com, or call 334-727-9258.
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