There is something nostalgic about the Stevens 16 my family has. Its been a real shooter for a long time and has taken squirrels at the twig tops of old hickories in the east Kentucky mountains. I often wonder how many turkeys would have fallen to this ole 16 if it was just taken out and given a chance. Well this was the year I was going to take it.

The soft rain pebbling my bedroom window kept me in the bed till around 10:00am. The steady rain had turned into a light drizzle, so I figured I would hit the fields. Turkeys tend to graze the fields when its raining and I had a spot picked out where I had seen turkeys in last week. I made my way through the field and would stop to call often. Heard nothing. So I decided to get setup while I'm dry. As soon as I got my blind set up, a downpour came again. I managed to not get too wet since I had my blind tucked beneath some low cedar trees. I decided to give my full strut decoy a little help, so I attached two fishing lines to his plastic body. I was able to turn in 180 degrees with ease. About an hour had passed and I noticed two turkeys on the next ridge over. So, I cut loose on my box call and started yanking the fishing line. The two turkeys telescoped their heads, started my way, then went out of sight towards the hollow between us. Coming my way? I hoped so. Then, out of nowhere, another downpour started. After a good 15 minutes of steady rain, it slacked off again. I get my box call and start to yelp and notice two turkeys about 100 yards away to my right in the field. The race was on: as soon as one turkey would get a lead, the other turkey would ran faster. These had to be the turkeys that I had seen on the next ridge over. These jakes saw my decoys and ran straight to my setup. They came with range and mingled around for a while and started eating again. Probably eating wormsthat were forced out of the ground from all this rain. They got closer and acted a little cautious when they got right next to my full strut decoy, but they calmed down. They both managed to have their heads behind the fan of my decoy at the same time, I raised the 16, gave a whistle and fired. The jake feel at 15 steps. Awesome hunt. I really dont think a 27 pound gobbler with 2 inch hooks would have been a better harvest. I was jacked up on adrenaline and proud to drop a turkey with the 16. I decided to take the jake back to "gobbler rock" I call it: a place where I decided some years ago to take gobbler photos. This turkey lived a short life, but now his story will carry on with tales of harvests taken by the 16.