The tom dropped as if poleaxed.
By the time I hustled to where he had fallen, he’d futilely beat outstretched wings a few times and a dark spot of blood had stained the side of his red, white and blue head lying flat on the stubble-strewn ground. The bird hadn’t moved more than a foot from where he’d dropped.
Cradling the broken-open single-shot over my arm, I unclenched my left fist and pulled the shotshell from where I’d squeezed it between middle fingers as a handy backup round. I tossed the thin .410 shotshell to Todd Gifford. “Looks like I won’t need this,” I said. To be honest, there was a lot more going on and the scene wasn’t nearly that sedate. There had been whooping, yelling, laughing, hugging and high-fiving. Big smiles were hidden behind camo masks. We’d just scored a double about 17 minutes after shooting light on the first morning of our Minnesota hunt.
It had started with a quiet walk in
