Gunning for gobblers
Turkey shoot keeps
tradition on target

By Jeff Warren
Combining the flavor of an old-time militia muster with a rendezvous of the mountain man era, a turkey shoot convened at Yellow Creek Fire Station, Saturday.
The event off Yellow Creek Road in the southeast corner of Pickens County pulled a crowd--mostly men with a sprinkling of ladies. The congregation bristled with long guns as if every male had snatched up his shooting iron and hustled to the meeting place.
On that most American of sporting fields the contest unfolded. Shooters fired across a baseball diamond. Near the backstop fence behind a table topped with ammunition boxes, Ms. Ammadell Whitsell registered shooters.
Three dollars bought a cartridge and a shot on the firing line. Across the clay ball field (sticky soft with heavy dew) ten wooden target stands, ranked side by side, stood about waist-high on single 2 x 4 stakes.
Each numbered stand mounted a paper target the size of a sheet of typing paper. Targets bore an X, penned diagonally from corner to corner. Invisible from where shooters stood, the X's were there for scoring. Ten at a time, shooters stood side by side along the third-base line and faced right field. One at a time, they blasted their assigned target.
Once the tenth shooter fired, judges and target changers moved forward. Judges Scott Day and Nathan Colvin collected holed targets to determine the winner while a squad of staplers tacked fresh targets right behind them. Colvin and Day knew the winner of each round or "shoot" when they found the paper target holed by a shotgun pellet closest to the crossing of the X at the paper's center.
At times results put the competition pretty close. Day used a tape measure to confirm the winner. In the fourth shoot on the fourth target, shooter Tommy Freeman dotted the X, putting a pellet hole exactly where the drawn lines crossed.
"That's few and far between," Judge Scott Day smiled. Freeman did that magic with his trusty bolt-action shotgun from a kneeling stance.
The turkey shoot began at 9 a.m. and continued through the day. "'Til we run out of turkeys, hams and cakes," Day promised.
After Day and Colvin made the call on each round's winner, they relayed the target number to the registrar's table. In a voice that pierced the small talk, registrar Ammadell Whitsell announced the winner and issued a ticket for that round's prize while eager shooters crowded forward waving money for another go.
First shoot's winner was Kim Day, Scott's wife--an early surprise in a day that continued to provide them.
Organized by Scott Day, the turkey shoot raised money for the youth ministry of Mount Vernon Baptist Church off Kelly Bridge Road in Dawson County. Scott and Kim Day lead the church's youth. Some of the young people assisted at the event, running cartridges to shooters and selling concessions behind the backstop where coffee steamed a welcome treat during the cold morning.
Tradition colored the day. Many shooters arrived with sons or grandsons. Boys fired shotguns older than they were. Ten-year-old Joshua Amos came with his father David. Joshua tried his luck with a full-choke Iver Johnson single-shot 16-gauge.
"It was made in the 30's or 40's," David Amos told me. "It belonged to his grandaddy. He [grandfather Clyde Amos] used it for everything; rabbit, squirrels, deer. He was raised in the mountains of North Carolina-- Andrews, North Carolina."
A pretty good shot, Joshua won a turkey two weeks before on the same diamond, his father said. "He's been huntin' and fishin' ever since he could walk," David Amos said. "Aim tight, hit tight," he told his son as the youngster walked to the firing line.
Several times the hammer of Joshua's old Iver Johnson fell against the cartridge without firing. Once when the hammer finally made fire after several dull falls, the blast nearly took Joshua and spectators by surprise. But in the ninth shoot, his grandaddy's gun brought home the bacon (better still, the turkey) when Joshua blasted target one and came up the winner.
Joshua Amos was just one of the youngsters active at the outing. Little Dylan Stroup peppered some targets with a .410 shotgun while his grandad Jimmy Jones helped young Dylan steady the gun's long barrel.
Young star of the day was ten-year-old J. T. Duncan, the hittingest shooter all morning. Duncan won in shoots 10, 13 and 14 to claim two frozen turkeys and one frozen turkey breast. The number 14 shoot was a kids' shoot and put up a lighter prize.
J. T. did his heavy hitting with a Stevens double barrel 20-gauge, a model 311-D. His grandfather Donnie Duncan said his own brother owns the gun and told me J. T. was firing the left barrel of his great uncle's sturdy fowling piece. The Duncans left before lunch after J. T. pretty nearly bagged his limit--just about more turkeys than he could tote.
"They're goin' up the bank over yonder, one in every hand," said a voice in the crowd.
Adult Gene Taylor of Camp Road won multiple shoots, bagging a ham and a turkey with a 12-gauge Winchester Model 12 pump. "That gun's been in the family since about '39 or '41," Taylor said.
I asked Rev. Gary Keown, pastor of Mount Vernon Church if his own firearm had any history behind it. "Not a bit," he assured me. "I think I give ten dollars for it." His 12-gauge Stevens single-shot wore a patch of duct tape behind the trigger guard.
The amiable preacher (his name pronounced "Cowan") said he owes the spelling of his surname to native American ancestry. In looks and good humor, the man bore a fair resemblance to Will Rogers, another great American who traced his forebears to our region's original inhabitants.
Young people dominated the day. In the afternoon, teenager Chase Gilreath prevailed in three separate shoots, switching between a 12 and a 20-gauge, a single-shot and an automatic.
Shotguns of many configurations took a turn on the field: a bolt action, some pumps, a double barrel and at least one automatic that looked a lot like a Browning Sweet 16. But the standard arm was the classic single-shot, middle-breaking shotgun.
Gaye Cantrell won a cake near the end of the day, making her the second lady to take home a prize. The turkey shoot continued through 38 rounds.
"We had to end up buying five more hams and five more turkeys," Scott Day said later. The church youth sold out of all their concession items, satisfying eager shooters with hot dogs, cookies and steaming beverages. All told, the turkey shoot raised more than a thousand dollars.
"Everything we bought basically got sold or got won," Day said. "All that good stuff. It was real good and all good fellowship."