I received my Spring 2021 turkey tag for Charles Mix County, and Saturday morning will find me in a blind on the river bottom south of Wagner with friend and former student Chuck Zacharias. What will make this hunt novel will be the shotgun I’m toting. I told you in an earlier column about the 125 year-old 16 gauge Ithica double barrel I acquired this past winter. It has side hammers and a Damascus twist barrel, and will require black powder loads that I custom assembled for myself.

Chuck plans to put our blind between the roost trees and the regular route the birds follow first thing in the morning. We all know about “The best laid plans of mice and men,” and I should have a good story for you next week. But know this. Chuck is a master hunter and one of the best things that ever happened for this old hunter.

A while back, I told you that I would never again shoot a tough, inedible gobbler, and that my bird of choice would be a tender fall hen. That turned out to be nothing but big talk. My fall hen, though it was tasty, weighed an ounce less than 8 pounds dressed, and barely left Betsy and me with leftovers. Saturday, a young gobbler will be my primary target.

I’ve told this story before, but it’s worth repeating. It was an April spring morning when I was returning home from a Gregory County hunt. I stopped at Abby’s in Pickstown for a late breakfast, and a big gobbler lay in the back of my pickup. An old-timer came in and asked loudly, “Who shot the turkey?” When I acknowledged he said, “Wiltz, some day you’ll learn not to shoot old gobblers. They can be tougher than boot leather." He knew what he was talking about.

The following Sunday we had roast wild turkey for dinner, and Betsy invited my father and her mother to our special meal. That bird was tougher than nylon rope. We couldn’t begin to chew it, and it spent the next three days simmering in the crock pot. No change whatsoever. Not even Brown, our Chesapeake, would eat it, and she’d eat most anything. Dinner that day? Salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, veggies, dressing and dessert.

Another favorite turkey tale. Hunting partner Dave Isebrands had bagged a big Gregory County gobbler. Like Betsy, Sue had prepared a glorious Sunday dinner, and her parents, along with Betsy and me, were dinner guests. Unlike my gobbler, the meal was fit for a king. Unfortunately there was an unknown problem. When Dave dressed the bird, he failed to remove the crop. It was turkey soup for dinner the next day, and the soup was delicious. However, there was an abundance of crickets and grasshoppers floating around in the soup.

And another turkey tale. When Betsy was growing up, she spent her time outdoors with dad doing farm chores while her sister helped mom prepare the meals. End result? When we married 56 years ago, Betsy knew little or nothing about cooking. Our first roast turkey dinner? Betsy put it in the oven upside down. In fairness to Betsy, I was just as “green.” I remember the day I came home from Willow Lake high school football practice and walked in the back door. Betsy asked, “Guess what’s new?” I couldn’t guess. She replied, “I’m pregnant.” Wow! Me a dad? Who would have thought?

Getting back to those 16 gauge black powder loads, my 16 gauge is a rare gun. I bought a 16 gauge Lee Loader, a bag of primed 16 gauge hulls, and a bag of wads from Precision in Mitchell. I had some FF black powder on hand. A 1-1/8 oz. load of shot in a 16 gauge shell has a 2-3/4 dram equivalent printed on the box. Learning from an old reloading book that a dram equals 1/16 ounce or 27.3 grains by weight, I calculated that I needed to measure 75 grains with my powder scale. Using a 1/8 inch wad over the powder, I got a perfect crimp with 1-1/8 oz. of shot over 75 grains of FF black powder. Test firing showed good penetration.

Old Damascus barrel 12 gauge guns are far more common. 1-1/4 ounces of shot over a 3-3/4 dram equivalent is the common hunting load. A 3-3/4 black powder dram equivalent comes to 92.4 grains of black powder. I don’t wish to bore most of you with technical jargon, but some readers have asked about reloading black powder shotgun shells.

See you next week with a turkey tale.