WILSON'S MILLS - I was holding a shotgun for the first time since Boy Scout camp about eight years ago. I didn't even know how to load the thing.

When I finally fired the shot, briefly deafening my left ear, I found I'd completely missed the paper target. But I considered it a success since I hadn't hit one of the cars parked nearby.

Not surprisingly, I didn't come close to winning a ham or a turkey -- the object of the annual fundraiser for the Wilson's Mills Fire Department.

But Clayton resident Allen Pulley did walk away with a ham for his Thanksgiving dinner, and he had a few words of advice for me.

"You've got to have a good gun, a good shell and luck," said Pulley, sporting a camouflage jacket and a faded cap promoting a pheasant hunt. A crack marksman, he travels to shooting contests all over the country, and he's been to just about every turkey shoot the fire department has ever had.

Pulley said the main reason he comes is to support the local firefighters. "I think I done bought one fire truck already," he said.

But organizers of the event -- which runs several nights a week throughout November -- said attendance has been down in recent years.

"Turkey shoot ain't what it used to be," said Charles T. Wilson, the last original member of the fire department, which started in the 1970s.

Firefighter Bill Hardison says the community has changed. "Now 75 percent of the people in town don't know what hunting is," he said.

For that 75 percent -- which includes me -- here's how the turkey shoot works:

Participants pay $4 to get "on the board" -- the list of shooters in each round. You get one shot at a paper target that's wheeled out to a haystack on a motorized device the fightfighters put together. If you manage to hit the "X" formed by two thin lines in the center of the page, you win a turkey or a ham. You don't, as I originally thought, shoot an actual turkey.

Proceeds benefit the fire department, which uses the money for things that tax dollars don't cover, such as upkeep of the department's antique fire truck, which is used in parades and other events.

It's good fun for a good cause, even for newcomers like me who can't shoot straight.

I might keep my unblemished paper target until next year to see if I can't manage to put a hole or two in it.