For several years I have been working around the edges of hunting wild turkey with a Muzzleloader. Three seasons ago I stepped up from my flintlock 20 ga. Trade Gun to a Ray Eye "Tominator. To be honest, when properly loaded I found myself to be of little disadvantage, compared to modern shotguns, with the exception of being limited to a single shot.
The Tominator is one of the new age inline, screw-in choked, frontstuffers made for turkey hunting. The Tominator proved to be a successful tool for tipping over a big tom.

At this time I am working up an ultimate turkey load for a 12 ga., choked, flintlock fowler. It is my view, to move forward in muzzle loading you have to step back.

By the second week of the season I knew my brother had had some difficulty on his home range. The creeks were up and raging and the birds in his area were on the other side. He had had no luck in persuading them to his side of the world. I called to ask him to hunt with me. The sharing of a hunting area is a special thing and if you can't share with a brother you may have to hunt by yourself. I thought to myself that I would offer to let Rick use my Tominator. Being an avid black powder man, I was sure he would be for it.

Rick was appreciative of the offer to hunt and before I could offer my muzzleloader, he said, "I'm hunting with the Parker". We were evidently of the same mind. This was an original 12 ga. Parker double barrel muzzle loading shotgun. Rick had purchased the gun from a dear friend and mentor, Arlin Blair. Arlin had told Rick that he wanted to see him win a National Championship and kill a wild turkey with it. The first leg of the quest was accomplished in September of 1996, when Rick wrapped up the Quail Walk championship at the NMLRA national matches at Friendship, Indiana. He was now determined to kill his first blackpowder bird with the Parker.

We rendezvoused, mid morning and hiked back to the hillside that I heard turkeys on the previous weekend. We settled in about 30 feet apart, and called. An answer came from across Laughery Creek. "Too far and the creek was up", I thought. As I continued to beg for a response, it became apparent that the "across the creek" bird was the only game in town. With nothing else to do, I began cutting him hard and another bird from the same location joined in. Rick pulled out his slate and began cutting my calls. The birds went nuts. They double and triple gobbled. I threw in some diaphragm calls and the Brothers Johnson sounded like a hillside of virgin hens.

When we had them worked into a lather, I got up and went to Brother Rick and whispered into his ear. I told him that we should move to a point directly across the creek from them. I felt they were hot enough to flap across the creek if encouraged. Rick informed me that he thought they had already crossed. As I was moving to him he said he saw two or three large birds land in the brushy bottom. He said they could be buzzards or crows but be believed them to be the turkeys. "Let's ring'em up." I said. Pulling my box call, I gave them my best series of yelps. Rewarded with two gobblers answering, we looked at each other with a mighty grin. I could see teeth through his head net.

Each answered call confirmed they were on their way. As it turned out there were three long beard gobblers. One was on a beeline to us with two hanging on the outside of a barbed wire fence. They stayed in the pasture to our left. I was leaning into the tree Rick had his back against, and I could whisper right into his ear. "How far will this gun shoot?", I asked. "It's good out to forty yards", which by the way is a long way for a muzzle loading shotgun. It was choked and the boy had won a lot of competitions with it, so who was I to doubt. I whispered, "Not Yet"

They began to cross at a diagonal in front of us, with the woods bird ducking under the fence, stepping into the pasture. It was apparent that he was following the pasture birds as much as he was coming to the invisible hen. They walked through an opening and then into the brush. It was obvious that the last bird was the closest and would be barely within Rick's range when he cleared. Rick moved the barrel of the Parker into the next opening. One then two and finally the third passed through. "Too brushy, move to the next hole", I said quietly. The third opening was wide open but the first two birds were too far, I thought. The bird bringing up the rear, was several paces closer, and when he finally stepped into the open, I whispered, "Kill'em". Rick reacted as if I had pulled the trigger myself.

We jumped to our feet and I headed for the gap in the fence and was on the flopping bird quickly. I had him wrestled down when I realized that Rick had not followed. He arrived staggering and I asked what happened. He had become caught in the fence and his camo's were ripped from crotch to below his knee. He collapsed on the ground and smiled ear to ear.

I recognized this event as special. A memory and bond we would share forever. As we lay in the spring grass of an isolated pasture we relived what had just happened. Together as brothers and friends, we had teamed up to call three adult gobblers across a raging creek.

Rick had fulfilled Arlin's challenge to kill turkey with the old Parker.

After a some silence, Rick asked, " Did you tell me to shoot, or did I just imagine that?"