I am in the same boat. Left knee and hip have been killing me for a week and we leave Sunday morning. There are only 2 of us old farts going but I will volunteer to be the one man blocking force. If we get a couple of birds I will be happy. I shot a wild rooster in ND probably 30 years ago and one in MT around 25 years ago. It will be nice to carry my old 16 gauge 870 again and it hasn't been fired in years.
I hope it all comes together for you. The boys were asking about my shotgun (all of them ran 870 12 gauges...some things never change) which is a Browning auto built 30 years before they were born and designed 60 years before I was. I told them my first shotgun was also an 870, in 16ga, that my grandfather bought new sometime in the mid 50's. I found and put a VR barrel with modified choke on it and that was quite an upgrade from the plain Full choke barrel it had when I got it. I told them I'd get it out and run it next week unless I was feeling too lazy to pump it which might well be the case.
