Gary Lewis / For The BulletinTroy Rodakowski, of Junction City, carries a turkey after a recent hunt on timber company land.

One of my favorite shotguns is an Austin & Halleck bolt-action muzzleloader designed by my friend Ray Crow. It is really hard to get one of these guns. The folks that have them hold on to them.

Once a year I take Old Crow out for a walk. Sometimes for grouse, sometimes for pheasant. Once, many seasons ago, I shot a turkey with it and swore I wouldn’t do it again.

I’d used No. 6 shot, which is usually sufficient for turkeys, and 90-grains of powder. I had to chase the gobbler, reloading on the run, sprinting, falling, sliding, shooting, reloading again. Not one of my finest moments, although I did collect the bird, a 17-pound gobbler with an 8-inch beard. I also collected poison oak.

Over the years, I’ve pondered what went wrong. Slower powder burn than smokeless powder? Not enough velocity for No. 6 shot? It was time for my annual walk in the woods with the Austin & Halleck, and I decided to try to smoke a wild turkey again.

Early in the morning we sped south from Junction City, fueled on coffee, bacon and eggs. Troy Rodakowski had a line on a flock of turkeys that were roosting on timber company land and feeding in a friend’s fields.

This time I stoked the muzzleloader with 100 grains of powder and 1¼ ounces of No. 5 shot. The recipe is as follows: Pour 100 grains of powder down the barrel, load a plastic cup with 1¼ ounces of lead and seal it with a fiber wad. A shotgun primer goes under the hammer.

In my possibles bag, I keep the plastic shot cups pre-made, ready to go for quick reloads. Quick reloads are important.

It was raining in Yoncalla. We pulled into the driveway, where we were greeted by the landowner. He indicated we could hunt anywhere on the property, but for best results we should use the barn as cover and take a peek into the canyon first. Never one to second-guess a host, I agreed. Troy was a bit skeptical of our chances. We couldn’t hear any birds and, in the drizzle, we couldn’t see any birds.

It was 80 yards through the rain to the barn, and then we had to sneak alongside the tractor and peer into the canyon.

There were 15 or 20 birds spread out along the far side of the canyon — all hens and jakes, which are young gobblers. I picked out a jake standing still, put the bead on his head and squeezed the trigger. Click. The hammer didn’t strike the cap with enough force to fire the charge. I quickly threw the bolt and squeezed again. Click.

In my pocket I had another cap. I pulled the old one off and put the new one on. Now the turkeys were nervous, exiting stage left. One lingered. A jake craned his neck to get a better look at the commotion I was making beside the tractor. Boom.

One of the things I always forget is the big white curtain of smoke the muzzleloader throws up. I couldn’t see whether I’d hit the bird or not. The rest of the flock legged it up the hill and out of sight.

Forty-two yards is a long shot for a muzzleloader. We had to chase down my trophy and finish it off. It was a jake, perhaps an 11-pound bird.

A turkey shot with a muzzleloader is only half-smoked.

On Christmas Eve, I took the bird out of the freezer, skinless and boneless, and let it sit in a brine for 24 hours. On Christmas Day, I took the bird out, scored it with a knife and coated it with pineapple roasted garlic Justy’s Jelly.

With the dark meat and jelly folded inside, the bird, wrapped in bacon, bound with string and coated with olive oil, went inside the Camp Chef pellet grill into a haze of maple, apple and hickory smoke.

It took an hour and a half for the internal meat probe to read 165 degrees, which is the magic number.

Don’t let anybody tell you wild turkey is tough and hard to chew. We kept the juices in and let the jelly and bacon blend with that true wild flavor and tender meat that only the hunter (and the hunter’s family) gets to enjoy.

That’s how to smoke a turkey. I wish we didn’t have to wait till spring to smoke another one.

— Gary Lewis is the host of Frontier Unlimited TV and author of John Nosler — Going Ballistic, Fishing Mount Hood Country, Hunting Oregon and other titles. Contact Gary at www.GaryLewisOutdoors.com.