Sidelock Sidekick

I could hear the whistling wings before I ever saw it. But this time I was ready and could tell it was headed right to me. My feet were planted, and I was ready on my gun—all I had to do was bring it to my shoulder. The bird came from above me, on my right, from a young pine thicket dense with briars, brambles, and some out-of-sight bird dogs. I was in an open creek bottom of mature hardwoods. In an instant it appeared, I settled my gun on my shoulder while sliding the safety off. I pressed my cheek down on the stock and squeezed the front trigger. The bird folded and landed not 15 yards from me. With a big smile and my adrenaline pumping I walked over, reached down, and picked up the bird. I daydreamed for years prior what it would feel like to harvest my first woodcock. My emotions were heightened like never before. It wasn’t until I left the woods when the pieces really started coming together for me.

This harvest was the result of a family history project in the eighth grade. That project, completed in January 2012, introduced me to my great-great-grandfather Everett Shelton Swaim Senior (1887-1969). Swaim was the lead bird dog trainer and head guide for the prestigious Thomasville Shooting Club (organized 1881, est. 1894) of Thomasville, North Carolina. He started working for the Club in 1903 at the age of 16 and worked for over 55 years in that role. Several newspaper articles, journals and publications mention Swaim as being the most outstanding guide in the South. The Club was made up of 25 members from New York and Philadelphia that headed south each winter to shoot quail and woodcock in Thomasville. At the turn of the 20th century, Davidson, Randolph and Guilford Counties were considered the best quail shooting in the nation. 

George Warren Davis (1848-1921), a Wall Street broker, was the founder and organizer of the Thomasville Shooting Club. Davis’s parents had their hearts set on him becoming a doctor. After medical school, Davis was interning at a hospital in New York. One day he took off without authorization and returned several days later. When the doctor heading the medical institution asked Davis where he had been, the wealthy young man replied, “Woodcock shooting in North Carolina.” The astonished doctor sternly reminded Davis, “You can’t go off and shoot woodcock and still become a doctor.” Davis’s retort, “Well, I won’t become a doctor then.” Davis left the medical profession that day. Shortly after, Davis made an extended trip through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and other states trying to find better shooting than the surrounding Thomasville area. He reached the conclusion that nowhere else in the States was there a better quail and woodcock population than the Piedmont of North Carolina. 

Of course now, the bird population is not what it used to be. Quail have long since disappeared due to loss of habitat and agricultural improvements. But the one bird we can still find every winter in fine numbers is the woodcock.

Swaim harvested his first woodcock sometime around 1915. And here I was, 110 years later, when I harvested mine. Not only was I the same age as Swaim when he harvested his first bird, I used his 1912 L.C. Smith 12-gauge Field Grade to do it. A gift from a Pennsylvanian hunter, the L.C. Smith was used by Swaim for over 50 years. The checkering on the stock and forend had been worn smooth from the years Swaim spent carrying it in the field. The barrels were cut down to 26.5 inches, a common length for a Piedmont bird gun.

I didn’t know the gun existed until I was in college. My parents called and told me a locked case with a note that read, “Father’s shotgun, for Austin”, had been left at their side door. A recently passed family member had left it to me. I drove to my parents that night with my girlfriend, now wife, to see it for myself. My dad and I cracked the case code with 0-0-0 thanks to a Google search. Time hadn’t been too good for the shotgun with dots of rust all over the barrel and a stock that had been broken in half and glued back on. But inside the barrels were clean and it still locked up tight like a bank vault. 

I thought for a few weeks about what I wanted to do with the gun. Should I display it as is? Should I restore it? After all, I never knew this gun existed. My Grandaddy had told me Father (Everett Swaim Sr. as he is referred to in our family), had an A.H. Fox Sterlingworth and either a Parker or a Purdy, both which were stolen decades ago. Both of which carry more value than a Field Grade L.C. Smith. As my Grandaddy and I talked about the gun we both decided the best thing for it was to deploy it back to the field. 

It made perfect sense. Swaim carried that gun for over five decades in the field. He guided some of the richest men in America. He guided many guests of the Thomasville Shooting Club including discoverer of the North Pole Robert Peary, famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody, a French President’s grandson and Governor Maurice Townsend of Indiana. His L.C. Smith was his dependable sidekick in the field on these genteel outings. Now, the baton had been passed, and it was my L.C. Smith. I could honor my great-great-grandfather by commissioning it back to the field and using it for the purpose it was meant for; its full potential is in the field. 

Many of my neighbors have bird dogs. Brittanys, Boykins, GSPs, English Setters and so on. But none of my neighbors hunt. What’s the point? The very thing these dogs were bred to do, they don’t. I didn’t want that to be the legacy of Swaim’s L.C. Smith.

I contacted my friend Bill Graham of Nice Old Double Gunworks to see what it would take to get the gun back afield. Other than the broken stock, it wouldn’t take much. I wondered what to do about the stock and reached out to multiple individuals and forums online to see what a new, custom stock would cost. I thought it was my only option and, truthfully, I didn’t like it. I wanted to give the gun new life, but a modern stock didn’t seem appropriate. A few weeks later I found myself at the Southern Side by Side hosted by Deep River Sporting Clays in Sanford, NC. Still pondering what to do about my stock problem it hit me. On the wall in the gun shop was a 1912 L.C. Smith Field Grade shotgun only a hundred or so serial numbers off from mine. I checked it carefully and though it looked good to me, I showed it to Mr. Graham who was also at the Side by Side. He gave me a thumbs up and I bought it off the wall for $800 cash. 

My newest purchase became a parts gun for me. I asked Mr. Graham to keep everything on my gun original, just switch out the stocks. The only other modification made was a period appropriate pad added to the end since I’m six foot three inches and the length of pull was originally too short. I have all the parts from the gun I bought stored in a box in case anything needs to be replaced in the future. The original stock from Swaim’s gun, though splintered, sits on display in my office.

My first outing with the gun was in North Dakota. A week of blizzards and winter storms brought over 15 inches of snow and made upland hunting nearly impossible. I was able to shoot a sharp-tailed grouse on that trip though, my first one and the gun’s first as well. I like to think that harvest was the start of a new chapter for both me and the gun.

A year had passed since that trip in 2023, and my schedule was finally lining up with my friend Carl Bundy, my first upland mentor. I had gained an interest in woodcock after hearing stories from him and seeing the amount of them that would swarm my deer lease every evening. We spent half a day in January 2025 chasing those birds and put up five with his flushing dogs. Only one gave me a shot, and it was more of a hail Mary than anything, a clean miss far out of range. I was hooked.

By January 2026 I was ready to get back after the birds. My best friend Maurice and I had just finished guiding our first whitetail season under our new company, Uwharrie Ridge Outfitters. I spent many days in December dropping off clients at deer stands and I’d hang around close by in case they harvested a deer. At that point in the season my mind had already wandered to woodcock. I would sit in a stand on the other side of the property from clients, far enough not to mess with their hunt, but close enough to gather intel on migrating woodcock. They were showing up, but not in the numbers I’d seen in previous years.

The stars aligned on January 22. Maurice and I headed to our deer lease that, by coincidence, used to be a quail preserve in the 70s and 80s. Years of habitat management have made it an ideal choice for woodcock, and it has held an incredible number of birds. We were met by my good friend Grayson Guyer of Lost Highway Gundogs. Grayson and I quickly became friends a few years back over our shared interest in Piedmont quail history and writing. Grayson makes his living as a bird dog trainer on one of the farms my great-great-grandfather used to guide on, doing the same thing as Swaim, but over 60 years later. 

He showed up that morning with pointing dogs. It fits the narrative for my L.C. Smith that never harvested a bird over a flushing dog; at least not yet. We spent most of the morning finding fresh sign, but no birds. It wasn’t until we put Possum the English Setter on the ground with his older companion Pete, a Brittany Spaniel, when we found birds. Both dogs went deep into cover too thick for a man. But Grayson, being the outstanding woodcock guide he is, crawled through thick briars to flush the bird. I put my trust in the outstanding guide and the 114 year old gun and waited for the flush. 

Since that day, Grayson and I have hunted many times. I’ve harvested my first bobwhite with my L.C. Smith. Though it was a placed bird, it fits the narrative perfectly. By the mid-1900s Swaim was raising birds and setting them for clients on the very farm Grayson resides. It’s where I took my first bobwhite in February. Another circle completed as my L.C. Smith settles back into the field. Even though I wanted my first bobwhite to be wild, I realized it wouldn’t be accurate to my story.

I can’t help but think of those past years when my great-great-grandfather was guiding. He devoted his life to a few ounces of feathers and the dogs responsible for finding those feathers. I look at my gun and see that. I feel the smoothness of the forend that’s slick from decades of being carried and it tells a story. I constantly imagine and daydream about stories that I’ll never know, but the gun does along with a man that’s in the grave. I find myself longing for that specific period of time; I’ve never experienced it, yet I’m homesick for it. Maybe I’ll always look back and wonder if it was better than what it was. For now, though, there’s another lifetime of work for my sidelock sidekick.