3rd Prize
Mark XXII Rifles (5 awarded)
Andrew Martel, Virginia
“When I was a kid, my family lived a long way from what we considered town. Being a young kid couped up in the front seat of a ’72 Chevy truck for 90 minutes to pick up a few odds and ends with my father ended up being the basis of an amazing discovery that I probably took for granted until I was old enough to appreciate it. My father is one of the most amazing story tellers I have ever come across. On our long rides to and from Staunton, Virigina, my father would conjure up tales about my future in the hunting fields. (I was hooked at a young age, he carried me spring turkey hunting when I was only seven days old). He even made up a family that we would stay with (Big Red, Dorothy and their son who was my age, Little Red).
Every week, my dad would somehow pick out a new adventure for us with the Red’s. Sometimes it was a cattle raiding bear, or a rogue pack of wolves that needed my attention. I remember one ‘Old Mossyback’ mule deer that took three weeks worth of grocery runs to finish off. But the usual game du jour was elk. For a man who has never hunted elk, and really only ever seen a handful of wild elk, my dad sure could make young kid lust after a bugling bull on the Colorado hillside.
Later in life, my dad always told me that if I made good grades, maybe we would get to go out west and chase elk together. I tried hard in high school, but my grades never were the straight A’s he demanded to make the trip come true. Moreover, the money we would have used turned out to be my college money (which wasn’t nearly enough), because if I had high grades, I probably could have gotten a scholarship or two. It wasn’t until college my grades got right, but by then there were so many other bills, and with my sister off to school behind me, any sort of hunting is really out of the financial question.
Dad had a heart attack in October of 2005, and it wasn’t until then that I realized the guy is actually starting to get old. I remember how much it scared me seeing Dad, who otherwise had never had more than a wart and a sinus infection health-wise, laying on the hospital bed with tubes and monitors hooked up everywhere. Dad has made a great recovery, but I am truly worried that we may not have enough time to get to live out the dream of hunting elk together out west. It’s pretty hard getting my dad to even moxy up the time and money to purchase his duck stamp anymore for our formerly frequent duck hunts. Money has become so tight for us that he will not even take free fishing trips lately, just because of the price of fuel to get to the bay.
Dad has given over 35 years of service to the hunters and anglers of Virginia. He is currently the Director of Fisheries for the Virgnia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He is a truly a hero of conservation. Watching his stand on the bank, with all the other regular ‘Joe’ fishermen, and giving away some of his acquired freebie rods and reels to the inner-city Richmond kids who gather by the river during the spring shad runs really sets a wonderful example of what a servant to the resource should be. His number one priority, is making sure there are always fish in Virignia to catch on hook and line, and always kids interested in catching them. My father has given so much to our family, our state resources, to the outdoors community and especially to me, that my dream is to see the two of us live out one of the stories he told me as a child; to hunt elk side-by-side in Colorado.”