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Joined: 02 Jun 2007 Posts: 99 Location: Jacksonville, FL

Well Im laid out with a cold and will miss the opening weekend of dove season, but I thought I'd share a little story about my first outing with my "new" Sweet 16 during early Wood Duck & Teal season...

We were blessed with some nice rain throughout the season (still getting it, too) - badly needed down here in parched FLA , so I didnt want to take my 16 in all of her (almost) unblemished glory out in the weather - spent the first three days of the season rotating between my 870 12ga and A5 Light 12..

The last day of the season, drizzling and misty again. Get out of school and scoot home...note from the wife and child that they were going to the mall and to enjoy a final afternoon hunt of the season...

Load up the piroque, grab a bag of dekes, and my possibles bag. Run in for a gun.. reached for the A5 12 and then glanced over at her little sibling. What the heck, and I promised the gent that I'd bought her from that she wouldnt be a closet queen. Slip her into the gun bag, grab two boxes of bismuth and off I go.

Set up on a little pond and hunker down to wait for the wood ducks (teal had been sparse for the season in my neck of the woods) . Time slips by and Im admiring this little gem of a gun in the mist - then I hear the wings above me -- one wood duck screaming over my rig. I hastily pull up on the bird, fire....and miss.

I chuckle and explain to the gun (I guess I talk to myself a bit when hunting alone) that she's going to have to accomodate my poor shooting skills...

A bit more waiting and then I hear the scream of some woodies... in they come...three of them right over the decoys -- dipping lower but hurrying along to - Im assuming - their roost. I pick out a drake, swing through, slap the trigger and down he comes, dead as a stone.

Now that's more like it - daddy's having duck for dinner. First blood for the 16.

For a while Ive watched y'all pontificate about the beauty of the gauge (and some of you the A5 in particular - a gun that I adore) , and I vaguely remember shooting my dads M37 a looong time ago, but ...well, the gun and gauge is everything Id hoped for - so smooth, so sweet, so damned deadly. And it fits sooo good.

Ten minutes later Im surprised by - lo and behold, a nice little flight of teal -- five start dipping their toes into my spread and hitting the brakes...three leave. Now Im getting a little spooked (in a good way). I dont get many doubles, and I hardly remembered the shooting (do these things have souls and think for themselves).

Figured my luck was done for the day and that Id better not press it any further. Give her a quick dry off and case her up. While picking up the dekes Im saluted by a nice overhead flight of wood ducks (of course- when the steel is in the bag) -- thinking to myself that "Ill see y'all come November"

At the ramp, an old timer comes over to talk duckin' and fishin' -- sees me oiling down the A5 and gets misty eyed and tells me that his dad used to shoot an A5 Sweet 16 -- "didn't know people still appreciated 'em"...

Well this man sure does.

Someone posted up about how the 16 was a "dead gauge". I think MacIntosh said that hunting with a 16 was like dancing with a ghost. Well, if thats the case, im going to start hanging out in the proverbial graveyard.

Maybe I can even get over that ugly wood on those new BPS guns...or wait till I see if the new Ithaca survives and order a M37 like my dad's -- one with a barrel that can take the taste of a little steel shot...

Went out and inventoried my Bismuth stock...12 boxes give or take 4 shells. Gonna savor them like fine wine. Its going to be a memorable season. And soon, mamas going to let me out of the house and chase some doves (for a lesson in humility, Im sure)

Thanks to ya'll (esp. Jeff M) for getting me started down this road. Ive wanted this gun since I was a kid, and now, at 41 shes 'home'.

Sweet Sixteen, Indeed.

James

Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Posts: 42 Location: Mobile, AL

Sweet, indeed.

Excellent post! Felt like I was there with you.

Rooster

Member Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Posts: 989 Location: Las Vegas

Great post James! Thanks for sharing!

Matt

Enjoyed your dance FWF. Congratulations on your fine acquisition.

Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 425 Location: Big D

Very well written. Send Mama to the mall more often.

Guest

Wonderful report, James!

Member Joined: 25 Jul 2006 Posts: 781

James,

Great story and glad that you and your Sweet are bonding.

I think that a Sweet sixteen is the perfect gun for small fast ducks like woodies and teal, particularly in flooded timber or on a small pond.

I use mine for big ducks and geese even inthe late season but have to have the self control to pick my shots. The top gun is a '51 Sweet Sixteen:

I lived in orange park for a few years loved that part of the state,
went to a gun show yesterday and found a new in box sweet 16 but the guy was asking 1800.00 for it, some day.

Nice post James!

I sent you a PM.

Guest

I ought to take my 53 skeet-choked SW16 down in our bottoms. I've got a couple boxes of bismuth that I take with for non-tox pheasant areas that I can burn up. Woodies and teal are in the area right now. Makes me wish I still had my old tan hunting coat and jones hat.

Joined: 02 Jun 2007 Posts: 99 Location: Jacksonville, FL

Thank you all - glad you enjoyed it. For what its worth, a blue-wing teal is my favorite puddler of all - let others wax poetic about greenheads and sprigs...Ill take a teal any day of the week, thank you.

Jeff, I think she's going to be perfect for some of the bigger ducks as well - on the freshwater, of course -- dont think this gun will ever see the saltmarsh, and I do quite a bit of hunting around saltwater...

(laughs) of course, throwing $2 into the air every time I pull the trigger helps just a wee bit with maintaining self-control.

Its funny, Ive always bought my guns new - now I feel like Im getting the bug for some older ones... Im punching myself in the head for not picking up that shorty A5 you mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

Seeing the geese made my blood boil. Next year, Florida opens up a resident Canada goose season. There's a spot where a large number congregate... never shoot a goose before, & I get the feeling that they may be in trouble.

Gotta go now...need to become a proper member of this forum. And start sniffing around for a reloader.

James

Oh, and some of y'all please dont start talking SXS -- my brother is already whispering "elsie" in my ear and running his mouth about buying a setter (ok so theres not many quail left in the state....but there are woodcock....) next thing you know Ill be smoking a pipe, wearing knickers and a tie, and running for my life so I dont get strung up from a Tupelo.

And if I brought home some dainty side by side, all hell would break loose in the gunsafe.

Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 425 Location: Big D

Member Joined: 09 Mar 2007 Posts: 972 Location: Keller,TX

Once you experience the handling of a well balanced SxS you will love it! Not only that, but you get to use two different chokes- where applicable! Wink