A Turkey Tale

A Turkey Tale
By Ray Dashofy

To really appreciate this turkey tale, I have to go back twelve years when I talked a guy out of an old wall hanger musket that was never meant to be shot. I showed it to a friend of mine and, with his help, we re-breached it and rebuilt the lock. Afterwards, we took it out, loaded it with seventy grains of FF and a roundball, and shot several rounds from it. Surprisingly, it didn’t shoot too badly for an old smoothbore musket.
I knew that I wanted to use it for turkey, so I had to figure out a load for shot. The musket had no choke, so it took several days of trial and error to get it to pattern. I finally determined that the proper load was seventy grains of FF, a handful of hornets nest, and an ounce and five-eighths of shot would get me out to eighteen yards, my maximum to kill a turkey.
This spring, just like every year, I loaded up the musket, which had been dubbed “the Old Pipe,” and got ready for the morning’s hunt. I was out the door at 4:30am. I hiked up the hill only to find it had been timbered the week before.

Treetops covered my favorite spot, but I wasn’t worried. I had two other spots already picked out.
I settled in against a blow down tree and an old stump. This is the time I like best. In the quiet darkness, first one songbird began to warble, then another. The area comes alive in anticipation of that gobble. I gave a faint call and there it was: the gobble. And then another, and another! I had three birds around me. We talked turkey for quite a while until they flew from their roosts and hit the ground. A hen showed up and two of the toms disappeared, leaving me with just one. After a few more gobbles, he quit talking to me, too.

Twenty minutes passed before I spotted movement in the hay field. It was the hen. The tom couldn’t be far behind. I gave a yelp and she yelped back. We continued this exchange and with every yelp, she moved closer. As the hen stepped into the woods, I cocked the flintlock and eased the forty-three-inch barrel towards her. It must have been quite a sight, like swinging a flagpole. I waited. She took three more steps and the tom, all fanned out, and came into view right behind her. I edged the old musket his way. He ducked behind an oak. Two more steps and he would be mine.
I glanced at the hen, which seemed to be getting a little nervous. Then the tom stepped from behind the tree. I leveled off and squeezed the trigger. The Old Pipe barked and belched smoke and fire. Under the smoke, I saw him roll, tail feathers up. I had my bird. To make sure I didn’t lose him, I ran over and grabbed him, making certain he was dead.
I just had to step off the distance. I knew he was in range, but while the Old Pipe had shot many birds, this one seemed like my longest shot ever. It was; eighteen yards on the nose.