The first thing to know about the Chuckatuck Turkey Shoot is this: No turkeys come to harm during the weekly event at a farm on Audubon Road.

It was not always thus.

A turkey shoot in colonial America involved a real, live bird, destined to spend a terrifying period of time on the wrong end of a firing line before going home, dead, in the winner’s sack.

The modern tradition, however, involves only paper targets and a frozen bird.

When folks gather on Saturdays at Sharon Atkins’ farm on Saturdays during the fall and winter, they’re aiming for their share of a cooler full of protein prizes — turkeys, steaks, corned beef, bacon and whatever else the event’s founder, Mike Barnes, has been able to rustle up during the previous few days.

He and Atkins, the owner of the farm, got together back in 2010 to resurrect a tradition that Barnes and others recalled from their youth — the camaraderie and competition of a day of marksmanship and luck.

“The guys I used to shoot with back in the ’80s and ’90s, we all missed it,” Barnes said recently as a line of more than a dozen men and women prepared to take their shots at a small paper targets several dozen yards downrange.

There used to be weekly turkey shoots behind Bennett’s Creek Market and off Battery Park Road in Smithfield, he recalled.

“But they all dried up because of different reasons — mostly development,” Barnes added.

Today, the “Chuckatuck Country Club,” as Barnes likes to call the group, pits 20 or so people a week against one another. They come from Suffolk and Western Tidewater, Poquoson, Newport News, Virginia Beach and pretty much every town and city in Hampton Roads.

“We’ve even got damn Yankees,” Barnes laughs. One recent Saturday, a visitor from Sweden rounded out the competition.

There are plenty of pickup trucks and SUVs parked along the farm road by the shooting range. But there’s also a work van and a Corvette.

“Rednecks and guns” are what makes the sport fun, Atkins jokes. But shooters come from all walks of life.

There are couples and families, young men and old. The youngest shooter Barnes recalls was 6. The oldest were 82 — Barnes’ mother and father. His girlfriend, Lois Little, fired her first shotgun four years ago during one of the Saturday outings, and she won the unofficial championship that year.

“I wasn’t sure about it until I gave it a try,” Little said. “The first time I was in a competition, I won some money, and it was a big morale booster.”

One year, a man in a wheelchair was a regular.

“All he wanted to do was pull the trigger every week,” Barnes said. “He didn’t care if he hit the moon.”

Participants pay $45 for 10 rounds, one shot per round. Barnes provides the shotgun shells — most folks shoot 12-guage — and he brings the printed targets, along with the prizes.

Target runners set the targets under the watchful eye of a safety officer, and when the range is clear, shooters take turns at their targets.

The competition is simple. The target with the closest hole to the center X wins, even if that’s the only piece of buckshot that hit it.

Bobby Broadhurst has been a regular for years. He buys two sets of targets, doubling his chances of winning. And when he wins, he donates his prizes to his church, Indian River Baptist, which puts together baskets for the elderly and needy.

“I’m just givin’ a little back and havin’ a good time while doing it,” he said.

Watching as her teenage daughter and her daughter’s friend head downrange to retrieve targets at the end of a round, Atkins said holding the turkey shoot on her farm brings back fond memories.

“My dad always took me target shooting in the woods,” she said. “We enjoy it. It’s fun, and we teach gun safety. We meet a lot of good people and have fun. We love to see kids out here, especially kids who have never shot before.”

The competition takes place at 1146 Audubon Road, and newcomers are always welcome, she said. Registration begins at 11 a.m., and the shooting starts at noon.

Live turkeys would do well to take heed.