A Turkey with My Missing Gun

A few years back, I was hunting a really neat ridge top here by the house and I shot a bird up on the ridge. It was a fun hunt and I grabbed my stuff, headed to the truck and went to the office. When I looked for my gun, it was not in my truck. My initial thought was that someone must have stolen it - hard to believe that someone would have gone into my truck at the office in little New Melle, but possible. I replayed the events of that morning - apparently they roll together, because I could remember putting the gun in the truck. Maybe I am crazy...... Maybe, I left it in the woods where I shot the bird. Maybe I left it where I stopped to loose the mornings coffee? Maybe I left it on the hood and drove off? So back to the tick infested woods I went. Up the hill to where I shot the bird - nothing but feathers. It wasn't where I parked the truck either. So, I called the police and filed a report that my ol' stacked buddy must have been stolen in the clinic parking lot.

Fast forward 3 years. I get a call from my pal Tom Goodman and he says "I have something for you." He asks me if I lost a gun up in the hills - knowing that I had. Turns out a guy who was shed hunting had found it leaning up against a tree with water to the top of the barrels. How many mosquitoes had hatched from it only the Lord knows! It was rusted stiff. The forend was spilt and the stock was cracked through. Tommy soaked it for a week in "Break Free" and it still was a solid piece of rusted iron- no longer a threat to birds of a feather.

So, I called my buddy Kevin Haskamp. He was intrigued with the story and to see the gun, so were the guys at the Browning factory in Arnold. Kevin was nice enough to take it down to see what they could do with it. I knew they would work some magic on it. It was there for 2 years before Kevin called me to say he was bringing it back. It was cool! The turkey chokes were still in it. It had been reblued but you could still see all of the pitting that years of weather had caused on the barrels and receiver. The wood was beautiful! I checked the fit and it was awful straight, so I decided to do a little whittling on the stock to make it fit me right. OK, that is just what it needed.. Rubbed some oil on it and I was off to the woods this morning with my old pal.

It felt good to have the old gun. It gave me hope after a rough turkey season last year! The only year I can remember only killing one bird in MO since I had started turkey hunting.. I had been with the Super-X2 on Monday and Tuesday for a little while, but hadn't had much of any contact with toms. It wasn't until Tuesday afternoon that I was able to whittle on the stock.

I went to a small farm west of town that I had not hunted in years. They would either be on it or close to it or I would just go on in to work. I was happy to hear some gobbling as I walked to the southeast. Nothing close, but workable maybe! Couple to the east and a couple to the west. I was patient as I really couldn't move to anything that was gobbling. Eventually, a tom with a few jakes was in front of me, but out of range and I saw 2 birds go to the right - I thought one was a gobbler. The bunch worked back to the west and I had forgotten about the ones that had gone right. I called trying to encourage the group to come back and here came one of the birds that had gone right. On a rope... behind a tree now but coming and close. He had to go right or left. He went right. Didn't matter either way, he was doomed since I had my old gun along!

It was a great morning. Not the most exciting hunt of my life. Not the biggest bird I have shot either. It was just that it felt right with the old gun in my hands, working together like the team that we were for all those years!!

Ira McCauley, Pres
MOmarsh, Inc.