If that title sounds familiar I give full credit for it to the late great Archibald Rutledge, citizen of the South Carolina low country and first poet laureate of South Carolina. I am reading one of his books now and recently read a story he wrote with that title. I thought maybe it would be an interesting topic for a new thread here, with hunting season winding down. I'll begin. It's time I got some of these off my chest, so to speak. There're numerous ones I can recall that humble me even years after the fact. But, I will begin with one that I will never live down.
I shot competitive patched/roundball muzzleloading competition for a lot of years, in the 80s and 90s. Iron sights, traditional half stock and/or longrifles. I was fortunate enough to be pretty successful in that arena, winning numerous state championships and even shooting one perfect 50 at Friendship at the NMLRA Spring Nationals. I felt like I was a pretty fair shot with my roundball rifles, and regularly hunted squirrels with my .36 cal. Appalachian Po-Boy rifle, taking head shots only with it. I've never been a turkey hunter, preferring to let close friends and family hunt the turkeys on my land but, after making an acquaintance with a died-in-the-wool turkey hunter from Kentucky, and inviting him down to hunt on my land, I took him up on the invitation for him to call a gobbler up for me. I really wanted to kill one with a m/l rifle, which is perfectly legal here.
I had roosted several gobblers in a big 500 acre wet weather pond that I own one side of. I had stated that I knew I could put a roundball in a gobbler's kill zone at 80 yards, to my friend and several others. In hindsight, I was bragging, fully confident in my ability to shoot 50 cent sized groups with that rifle at that distance, offhand. Done so many times. Plus, I knew I'd be sitting on my butt resting the rifle on my knees. I was over confident, if you get my drift. He called up a big gobbler just after daylight on the edge of that big swamp. I waited with the rifle across my knees, head on the stock, hammer at half cock. As the bird drew within range I pulled the hammer to full cock over the primed nipple. He stopped in a clear area at about 40 yards, broadside, but kind of quartering. Piece of cake. Turkey on the table. Then ......... he blew up in a strut.
Being totally inexperienced in turkey hunting I drew aim on his pinbone on the right side, or so I thought. I gently pressed the already set set-trigger and the gun boomed and black powder smoke filled the air. To my amazement the bird took flight and flew off. I sat still and said to my friend "Listen, he'll drop dead any second." I was so (over)confident. It never happened. That big boy was long gone. I couldn't understand what had just happened and walked out to the scene of the "crime". I looked very closely at the ground where he was just standing and found two breast feathers, cut from his front by the passing ball, which had only grazed his breast.
I kept those feathers as a reminder to: 1. Never shoot at a gobbler when in strut, because he looks much bigger than he really is, and 2. Never be over confident to the point of being braggadocios. James 4:6 says ..... "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
Anyone else care to come clean? Warning, my pastor has a saying ........ "Confession is good for the soul, but is not so good for your reputation".
