Justin’s Chironoleech, black, courtesy Rainy’s Flies.

People want to know what wild turkey tastes like. Depends on how it’s cooked, but we like wild turkey. We’re planning to bacon wrap this one to keep the moisture in. I smoked it already. With a flintlock blunderbuss.

I built the short bell-barreled smokepole from a kit from La Grande-based muzzle-loaders.com. By the time I put the last coat of Tru-Oil on, I knew I would take it hunting.

In the middle of January, I slipped over the mountain to hunt turkeys near Junction City with friend and fellow outdoor writer Troy Rodakowski.

It’s hard to aim a blunderbuss at the thing you want to shoot. Lining up the flared muzzle on the one bird that was separate from the others, I could not see it as I held steady and squeezed. The flint struck spark into the powder and the powder fizzed for a full second before it ignited the charge. Boom! A white cloud of burnt powder hung in the air and a big gobbler stretched out in the sunlight. I’ll smoke the turkey further on the Camp Chef pellet grill.

I had just enough time to cut and wrap the 22-pound bird before I boarded a plane to Las Vegas for the 2022 Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade Show.

It’s hard to convey how big the SHOT Show is, but 2,400 exhibitors occupied three levels of the Venetian Expo and Caesars Forum. I haven’t heard final numbers, but best guesses put attendance at 43,000.

At Media Day, the buzz was about the new 30 Super Carry, a cartridge designed to allow handgun designers to build guns with smaller grip circumference and add capacity in box magazines.

At the DiamondBack Firearms booth, the new Sidekick made in Cocoa, Florida, caught my eye. It carries like a cowboy revolver, but boasts nine shots instead of six, a double-action trigger and fast double-action revolver ejection.

Suppressors are trending this year. A long time ago, I studied suppressor design, built one, tested it, tore it down and threw it away. Apparently a lot of other people were doing the same thing. Suppressor design has come a long way in 30 years. Bend-based Nosler is introducing two suppressors this year, rated up to 30-caliber. Shhhh. Protect your hearing and avoid spooking game. What’s not to like?

Speaking of silence, the company that brought us Walker’s Game Ear has upgraded many of their products to include Bluetooth and additional frequency modes to adjust for conditions.

Long-distance shooting tripods are coming into their own. Today’s precision rifle shooter can choose a tripod rated for 18 pounds or more to get prone-like shooting performance from a standing position. Look for more hunters to figure this out. Carbon fiber components make it easier to pack into the backcountry.

I might add a Nukem blind to the turkey kit for 2022. At Media Day, I met the Newcombs from North Carolina, exhibiting a fast deploying one-person ground blind that folds up to fit inside a pack.

Umarex, the air gun company, introduced an astonishing number of new guns this year. A 20-gauge PCP air rifle caught my eye. I might get one for an upcoming hog hunt. But my attention was diverted to the Airsaber Elite X2, a double-barrel arrow rifle. I shot a Robinhood, sinking a second arrow into the shaft of the first. Very quiet. Very interesting. Umarex is calling 2022 the year of the airgun hunter.

For handgunners there is a new emphasis on small optics for pistols. I shot pistols with optics from Leupold, Bushnell and Vortex. Tualatin-based Warne Scope Mounts is making holsters now as well as magazine extensions for Glock and Colt and others.

I had to try a Rambo e-bike on the rock-crawling course. Pedal partway up a hill, then dial the electric juice up to 5, grab the brakes at the summit and lean way back for the downhill bash. I kept my hat on and didn’t bite the dirt. I haven’t been that excited about riding a bike since I was 5.

On the shotgun side, I shouldered an AK-style M12AK-T1 and shot five rounds. This 12-gauge gun will retail in the $300 range. The AR 10-style M12AR-B1 was my favorite 12-gauge though. After I missed the first clay pigeon, I hit the next four in a row and would have kept shooting except there’s an ammo shortage.

Straight from Krakow, Poland, I wanted to see the Rubox interlocking ballistic block wall system. Blocks are made of ballistic rubber and filled with a ballistic granulate to withstand 10,000 rounds. With a wall of boxes a shooting range may be built very quickly.

Roland Welker, the star of season 7 of Alone was in the Case Knives booth when I shook his hand. He survived 100 days alone in the Arctic and showed me the head of a musk ox to prove it.

With 13.9 miles of aisles, there was no way to see everything, but there is always time to talk to friends. My friend Brooks Jordan introduced me to Wyoming governor Mark Gordon. We talked grizzly bears and wild cutthroat trout and hope to continue the conversation over a campfire.

Speaking of campfires, in these days of fire restrictions in dry climates, Camp Chef has an updated propane fire pit coming to market. What’s camp without a fire?

In Las Vegas you get a glimpse of the future. Virtual reality. Will you be able to hunt moose in the Metaverse? I tried it. It was a lot easier than moose hunting in Canada thanks to my new friend Alexander at HorusVR. I put on the goggles, missed the first shot and then steadied my breathing for a 400-yard squeeze with a virtual rifle.

Don’t ask me what VR moose tastes like.

Is it a chironomid or a leech? Let the trout decide. This fly started out as a chironomid, but when the designer left the tails long on a couple of flies, he realized it was a great small leech imitation.

Justin’s Chironoleech imitates emerging chironomids, leeches and other trout foods. Fish it deep on an indicator with flies at different depths or trail it behind a slow-stripped streamer. Don’t overlook it for dead-drifting in the Crooked River or the Metolius.

Tie this pattern with orange sherbet thread on a scud hook with an oversized ice cream cone tungsten bead. For the tails, use black ostrich. Build the body with black ostrich and a silver-wire rib. Finish with an orange-thread collar behind the bead.

—Gary Lewis, for The Bulletin