Turkey Day 2003:
We loaded up the truck for the 60 + mile drive to my in-laws for the feast. I always take a rifle when we go there as they live on a 7000 acre ranch and there's almost always something to shoot there. I had the gun in the back of the pickup in a hard case. Got about a mile in to the ranch and spotted some black spots up on the side of the mountain. Realizing that I had forgot my binoculars, I had to get the gun out of the back and use my scope to see that the black spots were actually a small herd of hogs.
The combination of spotting those "spots" and forgetting my bino's turned out to be the equation that made my turkey day so great. Had either not occured, I never would have got the gun out of the case in time to smoke the coyote that crossed the road a couple miles further in. I was rounding a bend in the road when I noticed a yote drop in to the creek on my left. he ran right past me headed the opposite direction. I turned the truck into the creek and swung the .06 out the window just in time to see him scurry up the bank and take a turn to the left, I missed. I bailed out of the truck and he had already crossed the road, ran under the fence and was headed uphill at mach 4. This is where the 17 years of hunting with this rifle paid off. All in one fluid motion, I jacked another round in, shouldered and aquired, then squeezed one off into his boiler that rolled him ass over teakettle.
Even if the turkey was dry and the mashed taters lumpy, this was still the best Turkeyday ever!
