Sumter National Forest

He said it's hanging on a nail in his shop with the three feet of line still on it, and that it's the only thing he's got from that night besides the story, and he's never fished that bar again.

Wendell was turkey hunting the Enoree District of the Sumter National Forest in April of 2012, sitting against a white oak on a hardwood ridge at daylight with a slate call in his lap when something came to the call that wasn't a turkey.

He'd been hunting that ridge for 10 springs.

He'd roosted a gobbler there the evening before, heard it fly up, and he was set up 150 yards from the roost tree before light with a hen decoy out in front of him in an opening in the oaks.