Christmas, 1966. It was not a great year financially for the father and son partnership trying to establish a pair of pawn shops/sporting goods stores in western Oklahoma and there wasn't a great deal of disposable income left for exotic Christmas gifts. The son ran the newly opened store in Burns Flat which catered to the needs of the airmen at Clinton-Sherman AFB (long departed, a victim of the McNamara defense cuts) while the father and mother ran the larger store in Elk City. The Burns Flat store passed away when the air force base closed and the store in Elk closed a few years back when the son retired with his parents gone and on one else available to take over the business. The son who was a shooter purchased a Martini cadet action mail order for something like $15 (against the law now and one finds very few cadet actions in this price range these days). He had an almost new barrel that had been removed from a 513T Remington rimfire target rifle which a customer had given him upon rebarreling his gun that only had an inch or so of rust at the muzzle He ordered a reamer and a headspace gage from a magazine and had a buddy who ran the base machine shop rechamber the barrel and fit it to the action as well as cut off the rusted muzzle. The son had spent much of the slow time that winter at the store fitting a straight grained walnut stock to the rifle. Range testing as well as practical usage against coyotes and other varmints had proved that the rifle was accurate. It was presented to the son's only son who had recently turned fourteen.

The father's name was Chick Davis, Sr., the son's name is T. C. "Chick" Davis, Jr. and I am Randy Chick Davis. It is important to know who you are and where you come from. From my fourteen year old perspective,1966 was a pretty good Christmas. My name is not without irony as my great grandfather whom I barely knew, my grandfather who was one of the finest men I've ever known and my dad were all nicknamed Chick by their peers. Against my mother's wishes my father named me Chick believing I would be so named by my classmates regardless of my given name and in my life only one person has ever called me Chick. Go figure. Regardless of name I am a product of the gun culture recently decried by the British press as responsible for the tragedy of fallen children in Arkansas and I certainly feel a kinship with the so-called "southern" tradition of hunting and guns. I "owned" my first shotgun prior to the age of ten but was not allowed to touch it except when following the bird dog hunting quail with my uncle, father and grandfather. When barely older than the youths who murdered their classmates in Jonesboro, I owned a semi-automatic handgun, a center fire rifle, and a couple of shotguns. Never took them to school because there wasn't anything at school to shoot. Guns or gun culture or southern hunting traditions perpetuating this type of tragedy doesn't work for me. I don't see how eliminating any of these things would have saved the twelve year old girl tragically murdered by her boyfriend who attended the same junior high school as my daughter a few years back. I suppose the government could ban the steak knife he used to destroy the girl and we would all be safer.

To some extent I've established that I'm a produce of the US gun culture, and that I was raised in the southern tradition of guns and hunting although I've met quite a few folks from other parts of the country who were raised much the same way. Despite hunting quail, doves, turkey, frogs and heaven knows what else when I was younger I didn't hunt much when I was in my late 20's and thirties. When my grandfather passed away in 1977, our family tradition of hunting quail prior to the enormous Thanksgiving feast at my grandparents pretty much died with him. His memory lives on when I shoot a duck with his over/under shotgun or kill a dove with the M59 Winlite my father gave him to hunt quail with when his back hurt him too much carry a regular weight shotgun for hours of quail hunting. For many years I was fully occupied with marriage, living far away from where I was raised, rearing a handicapped child, and the usual pursuits that take up all of our time. Over the years I manage to pour a rather large number of surplus FMJ rounds through the hornet at paper, tin cans, turtles or whatever. About the only soft point bullets I ever had when I was younger were loaded with a Lee loader by hand using cases from the surplus rounds I fired. Now I shoot a high tech plastic tipped Vmax and I'll soon switch to moly coated bullets. In nearly 25 years I managed to pretty much shoot out the rimfire barrel in the hornet. Groups dropped from about5/8" to nearly an inch and three quarters. Considering that the rifling was absent totally ahead of the chamber and the first few inches behind the muzzle that's not so bad. It took me over two years and four gunsmiths but I finally got the gun rebarreled. I elected to go with a22 K Hornet chambering for tradition's sake. I consistently recommend against Martini's in cases based on the hornet due to the small rim size inconsistent brass quality. A far better choice a factory chambering is218 Bee. However, I already had a 218 Bee.

When my dad gave me the hornet, he told me the cartridge was just right for turkey and pretty good for coyotes out to nearly 200 yards but at that time in that place we didn't have many turkey to hunt. Four years ago (in the Gallery click on "about"/"hunting stories"/"turkey story" for the details) I attempted to rectify the omission of a turkey trophy for the hornet, but was betrayed by a loose scope mount and ended killing my first gobbler with a Win. M43 in 218 Bee. Three years ago the hornet was at the gunsmith's and I ended up not going for spring turkey in any event. Last year we hunted turkey on our deer lease. Our deer lease has the added degree of difficulty of not having any turkey on it for all practical purposes. Anyway, I didn't see any turkey last year and nothing graced my calling with an answer which resulted in not getting a shot as well as considerable disappointment. Right along with the rule about not bringing a knife to a gun fight is to hunt game only in an area that has game in it. However, this year my hunting partner had purchased a quarter section of land near our deer lease that did indeed have turkey on it (we had seen tracks in the mud and a repairman had seen a flock of 25 birds or so) and graciously invited me to hunt with him.

On the Friday before Easter I headed out to my friend's ranch secure in the certainty that any Friday away from work was a good Friday. On the way I stopped at Castle Guns and left my 25 Krag Martini-Henry with the gunsmith there for some much needed trigger work. A twenty pound pull is a bit much even for a hunting gun. I had this rifle built to be my deer rifle and there's only about 200 gunsmithing days left until deer season opens. That may seem like a long time to you but the 25 Krag was supposed to be ready for deer season last year and another gunsmith has had my Marquart 45-70 Martini for the last eight months working on the block and firing pin. All things have consequences and the consequence of not having either the Krag or the 45-70 ready meant I shot a deer on opening day with a Browning high wall which is a bit of a sour note for a Martini enthusiast. I'd like to be writing something about a deer for the Krag next year but I'm not counting on it yet. Gunsmiths are slow and unpredictable. Did I mention that gunsmiths take a long time to work on Martini's?

We got out to the lease about 1:30 and started unpacking stuff in the cabin. Having a cabin available when hunting with microwave, running water, a toilet, air, heat, lights, and general comfort is right up there with my idea of roughing it after quite a few miserable cold, wet nights sleeping in my camper shell while hunting deer. As my partner is unpacking he discovers an extra turkey call he forgot he had. Sitting the cabin with the door open he lightly checks it out making a turkey purr. Outside I hear an answering hen call within 100 yards or so of the cabin. After not hearing a turkey call in three years, that's what I'd term a positive sign. His place is fairly hilly with mesquite and cedar brush on the higher terrain with blue stem as tall as 30" and mixed hardwood with a goodly percentage of oak and pecan trees in the creek bottoms. He's planted a wheat field of about 20 acres that is 15"high in nice green winter wheat. A ground box blind was recently constructed in one corner of the wheat field and there he takes his stand. His four decoys are positioned along one fence line and near a small stand of oak inside the wheat field. Along the far boundary of the wheat field was a stand of pecan trees in which my friend had seen turkeys roosting some months back. Turkeys love pecans.

I set up a portable camouflaged cardboard blind behind some brush across from one of the small tanks on the place and set my decoy in an open area where we had seen quite a few turkey tracks earlier in the year. I know that it is exactly 52 yards from my blind to the decoy because I measure it with my handy dandy Bushnell laser range finder. I don't know what good it is to know that it's 52 yards which is too close because I could see the blind was too close to the decoy but couldn't do anything about it as it was the only place in this area available with a clear view of the decoy. Four years ago I managed to set situate my decoy so I didn't have a clear view around it and the error nearly cost me a shot at a big gobbler. Well I'm a much more experienced turkey hunter now. Right. Whether they're really useful or not high tech gadgets are neat. Our hunting strategy is to set up in a blind, put decoys in an open area likely to attract turkeys and attempt to call in a gobbler. Both of us had cedar box calls because they are easiest to use and I had a combination box/friction type call. Basically, one sits in his blind and attempts to sound like a love crazed female turkey in hopes that a gobbler will let his lust overcome his normal instinct and wander out to take a closer look at the decoy impersonating a hen turkey. When I explain this to non hunters at work they seem to think that all hunters are a) crazy or be b) downright strange. Of course the first rule of spring turkey hunting in Texas is not hunt or be hunted by rattlesnakes. The corollary to the first rule is to avoid kicking up copperheads underneath oak trees down in the bottoms. See a) and b) preceding.

This accordion cardboard blind is a Mickey Mouse kind of deal intended for temporary use but I had shot my second buck out of it down in Llano county four years back so I didn't intend to sell it short Anyway, I get set up in the blind along about 3:00 PM. The temperature is about80F and the wind is gusting about 15-20 mph. This is not ideal turkey hunting weather but I had shot my only gobbler when it was equally warm and even windier so I was not discouraged. Being out in the country rather than in the office at work might have had a bit to do with my good attitude. I call every seven or eight minutes alternating different sounds on the two turkey calls. I hear hens calling back in the stand of pecans and up along the far wooded hillside. Finally, I hear a gobble along about 5:00 back in the pecan stand which is repeated from several different locations back toward the pecan trees. I sit in the blind until about 8:00 when it's pretty dark (not to mention time for snakes to start moving around). Despite hearing a lot of turkeys and my partner calling off in the distance I have seen a turkey of any kind. My friend comes by and he's seen two hens but not male turkeys. In this part of Texas one can hunt with either shotgun or rifle, only gobblers are legal, and the limit is four turkeys per season. I decide I'm hearing most of the turkeys off toward the stand of pecan trees so I move my decoy and blind by bright moonlight and flashlight over in that direction about 100 yards. An occasional gobble serenades us as we move the blind and decoy. The new and improved location has the advantage of getting the blind further from the decoy, perhaps 80yards, but has the disadvantage of very limited brush for cover. It also goes kinda slow as dusk is prime rattlesnake movement time and one tends to watch where one steps and avoid stepping in brush piles altogether. Using a brush pile as a permanent blind is discouraged because building one is essentially constructing prime snake habitat. The idea is to have the blind set up and ready and arrive about daybreak then next morning when the turkeys fly down from their roost. We walk back to our trucks, take our gear back to the cabin, and drive 20minutes into Stevenville to an all night diner for supper.

Saturday morning we arise about 6:00. I can tell you that one gets afar better night's sleep in a cabin with the temperature in the high40's, than in the back of my pickup when the temperature is somewhere around freezing. Outside the wind is blowing fairly hard perhaps 25mph. In fact the wind chill is quite cool compared to the 80Fafternoons we'd been experiencing in North Texas. Neither one of us had brought much in the way of warm clothes so we ended up bundling a couple of layers intending to take outer layers off as the sun came up. This is a bit more critical for me than my friend because I'm planning onsitting on a hillside in what is essentially one third of a cardboard box that showing quite a bit of wear and tear. I usually carry a backpack when I'm hunting and fortunately my stocking hat was left in it from deer season. We get out to our blinds about 7:00 am.

First thing I discover is a bit of mesquite brush directly in line between me and my decoy perhaps 40 yards toward the decoy which I had clever missed in the darkness of the previous evening. There's nothing for it but to walk out of the blind and break the silly thing off. I get about two steps from it and hear a gobble back in the stand of pecan trees. I stomp the mesquite down out of line and quietly walk back to my cardboard box with what dignity I can muster. Neither call elicits a response from the turkey I heard. After an hour or so of this, I began to suffer a bit of discouragement and fantasize about shooting one of the ever present buzzards out of the air. That'd be your $200+ federal fine. It's starting to warm up and I'm thinking of taking off my coveralls. A hummingbird on his way north investigates a bit of brush to my east. These guys are so small that they are eaten by insects, praying mantis's, to be specific. A few minutes before 9:00 I see some movement on the hill about two miles away from me on the next place. I put my binoculars on the pickup driving around up there to see if I can tell whether the fellows in the pickup are hunting turkey, working cattle or just driving around. They go behind some trees and as I search for them I hear a sound like a helicopter landing behind me. Turning around I catch a momentary glimpse of a large black bird with a red head out of the corner of my eye landing in the top of a tree about40 yards from where I'm foolishly gawking at the guys in the next county. Two facts pass through my mind-gobblers have red heads while turkey hens have bluish heads and turkeys have excellent vision for moving objects and I just jerked my head around with a male turkey in a tree closer than I've ever been to a wild turkey.

My physical condition starts to deteriorate in that I have difficulty breathing and my pulse rate is going off the meter. Without moving my head I try to see the turkey and am rewarded by a dark blur of flight in an adjacent tree. Why'd the stupid turkey fly from on tree to another? The blur drops down into high brush beneath the trees and is lost from sight. I finally get the binoculars down and turn more or less toward where I'd seen the turkey. There aren't many leaves in the brush so early in the spring and I'm again rewarded by the outline of two turkey son the ground behind the brush moving more or less toward my decoy. The degree of difficulty in breathing accelerates. The turkeys move as turkeys do, pecking down at the ground a bit, walking with their heads down, and then sticking their long necks up. The turkeys disappear and appear in the broken brush as they move or less toward my lone hen decoy. I'm afraid to move because I can't tell exactly where they're at most of the time and any movement is likely to spook them out of the country. The larger turkey has a visible beard and is certainly a gobbler and both have red heads so I'm pretty much convinced I'm looking at two young gobblers. Unlike the turkey four years ago there is no strut or any indication that they have the slightest sexual interest in the decoy. Perhaps they're both married.

With not much in the way of success I try to calm myself with controlled hyperventilating. Both turkeys go behind a bit of evergreen cedar that is perhaps 20 foot in diameter. This is the opportunity to get my K Hornet up unseen. Both turkeys walk out from behind the cedar and I wait for them to clear some more mesquite brush. At last they both get out of the brush and I focus on the larger bird. It seems as if they'll never stick their heads down and peck at the same time. I have no intention of waiting for the birds to investigate my decoy. With turkeys it is advisable to take the first decent shot one gets. One of the birds looks directly at me. Stillness is golden and I am not here. It almost as if one gobbler keeps watch while the other pecks in the dirt as they progress in the general direction of the decoy. Finally, they both put their heads down while the bird I want doesn't have any mesquite between the V-max and him. I put the ancient K-10 crashers on him verifying that he does for sure have a beard and thus is legal game. He sticks his head up in the air and looks around as a prologue to moving along. With the cross hairs slightly below where I think the long neck joins the body, I squeeze the trigger. Small frame Martini's tend to have good triggers.

The pace of events accelerates. The turkey I'm shooting at flies straight up about five feet, wobbles, and comes crashing down to disappear from view in the tall grass. His friend runs off about 10yards and then turns to start heading out of the country back the way he'd come through the tall blue stem. I eject and reload with a round from my pocket and start tracking the outline of the turkey in my scope. He finally slows down in much thinner brush to look around and seeing him clearly I take a chance on a shot. He jumps slightly and runs down a draw into the forested creek bottom. Things slow down considerably. I put the little Martini down, take my mask off, draw my357 revolver, and head down the draw where this turkey disappeared. I don't think I've hit him although I don't understand how I missed but one must check. I walk as far into the creek as possible but find no feathers, no blood and no turkey. Walking back toward where I shot at the first turkey, I realize there is a mesquite tree 10' from the blind in line with my second shot which I did not see through the scope and I theorize that by bullet did not get through this bit of mesquite brush unscathed. Walking back toward the scene of the first shot I find the gobbler properly piled up and dead within a few feet of where I shot him. Rarely have I felt so fortunate and blessed.

I pick up the turkey and carry it back to my blind to contemplate the situation. Being an experienced turkey hunter with precisely one previous turkey under my belt, I have learned that plucking turkeys after they cool out is an enormous task. One can breast out and skin the bird with little effort but the meat cooks a bit better if the skin is left on. This thought process and the remembrance of the miserable two hours I spent plucking feathers from the previous turkey after it had cooled cause me to start plucking away. Presently, I have a broad swathe of feathers spread out by the wind and I'm being dive bombed by buzzards eager to check the potential of fresh kill. One does this from one's blind on the off chance another gobbler will show up. Didn't happen. After a bit I'm sitting in the blind with an essentially naked turkey and I come to the startling realization that I have a somewhat messy task ahead of me and there's not clean water or place to completed dressing out the bird. Having the logical engineering mind associated with my profession, I hike the 400 yards back to the truck, complete field dressing the turkey, and get it into the shade. Returning, I spend the rest of the morning in the blind but nothing responds to my calling.

We give it up about lunch time and call it a weekend as my friend has to get back home for preparations for Easter Sunday. He's spent the morning watching hens all around his wheat field but sees nary a gobbler. I'm reminded of how much of hunting is luck. I'd consider myself a shooter rather than a hunter but I've had the good fortune to hunt with more experienced hunters and have experienced a certain degree of success mostly by being in the right place at the right time. This turkey is not particularly large as the beard is only a bit over three inches about one third as large as the one I shot four years ago. But it's a trophy. Hunting trophies are measured not in the size of the animal but in what the experience means to the hunter. And I can testify that shooting this particular turkey with the Martini my . Certainly if my dad hadn't given me the little Martini hornet nearly thirty years ago there wouldn't a Martini Gallery. I'm surely not a big time trophy hunter and my experiences pale in comparison to most of my companions. It's important to know who you are and where you come from. But I certainly enjoy hunting with a Martini.

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