6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Thomas Hicks, California
“I thought about this a lot and realize that I had my Dream Hunt. It started about 40 years ago with my father so let’s go back to 1967. Like so many young boys at the age of 15 your needs begin to change, like how can I get dad to buy me a motorcycle or maybe a car. So I put my plan together...how I would spring this on him at the dinner table for discussion, which I did at the right time of course. To my surprise it worked, my dad agreed to go down to the local motorcycle shop with me and take a look at what I wanted.
The next week just as he said, we drove down to the motorcycle shop. As I walked through the doors there it was the biggest, meanest looking 175cc off–road trail bike you have ever wanted. I got to sit on it at the time and this was the greatest feeling to have a beautiful bright silver trail bike under me. Next the salesman came over to talk to my father about the trail bike. They went back and forth and came up with a price. My dad told the salesman to give us some time think about this and then we went home.
A couple of weeks went by, which were the two longest weeks in my life at the time. Then one night at the dinner table my father said, ‘Tom, I know you would like to have that trail bike but we just can’t afford it now.’ Right then it felt like my heart had hit the floor. Then he said. ‘But you’ll have a chance to buy that trail bike yourself.’ I said how can I? I have no money. The next thing my dad said was bigger surprise then the trail bike. I got you a job as soon you get out of school for the summer...you’ll go to work at Tolson Rice Mill. Me a job, go to work? I thought about this for a while then decided ok if this what it’s going to take to get this trail bike I’m for it. So soon as school was out for the summer I started my job. Now from my home to the rice mill was two miles which I rode my bicycle every day to and from work seven days a week. Yes, seven days a week, 12 hours a day for three months of summer. Working 12 hours a day and seven days a week dosen’t leave a fifteen year old boy much time to spend his money so I’d saved all my money that summer.Now that I had all that money in the bank which was enough to buy the trail bike, I begin to realize what my father had done for me.Understanding the value of work and money, at 12 hours a day, seven days a week, I now had a understanding of what my father was doing for the first time in my life for me and my sister and my mother every day and I never heard him complain once about it. I felt that I should do something for my father to show him that I appreciated what he had done by getting me that job.
I remembered one time when I was 13 years old my father had taken the family fishing and I began to talk about some of my friends were going pheasant hunting this weekend. He made a remark that he never should have sold his shotgun and I asked him why. He replied for some reason but he couldn’t remember...that was his way of not telling the truth. So later that evening when just my mother and I were around I asked my mother why did dad sale his shotgun? You know that mothers can'’t lie to there childen. She said we had some hard times so he sold his shotgun to pay bills. I asked what did he hunt she replied ducks and pheasants. So by remembering this story I knew now what I was going to do for my father. I would buy him a shotgun. The next night at the dinner table I told my father I would like to go pheasant hunting. He said that sounds good but you have to have just one thing, a shotgun. I said that’s right, I’m going to buy each of us a shotgun. My father said, ‘I thought you wanted a trail bike?’ ‘Yes I do, but I would like to hunt pheasants and ducks. I can buy the trail bike next year after I work the summer at the rice mill.’ So I bought my dad and myself a new 12 gauge pump shotgun that cost me $130.00 each. Boy did it feel good to have my first shotgun and to have my dad thank me for his shotgun. I also bought a new lawn mower for we had a push mower at the time.It was my job to mow the yards even when I was working at the rice mill but my mother felt sorry for me working those long hours. She would mow the yards in the summer. So I bought the lawn mower so it would be easier for my mother next summer for I knew she would do it again next summer. That’s the type of mom she is, loving.
Pheasant season was here and we had plenty of places to hunt because my father was a truck driver. He hauled agricultural products and he knew just about all the farmers in our area so we had real prime land to hunt on. Right after I got out of school my dad would pick me up and out to the fields we go plus every weekend of the season. These were the best times. Then duck season was next. We hunted on some of the best farmland in our state we would hunt weekends and if I kept my school grades up sometimes my dad would let me skip school during the week and we go hunting.
Now I look back and realize that these were my Dream Hunts, the time I spent with my father hunting and the things he taught me about the outdoors hunting, fishing and family. I really miss those times together. Now in the fall my father talks about when we hunted pheasants and ducks and I listen to his stories. The laughter, even though I have heard these stories many times before, means so much to me. My father is 77 years old now and no longer able to hunt. Time has taken the best from him now and I know that time is running out for me and him. I have two boys which I have taught to hunt and fish and they both love the outdoors. We started taking them camping before they were two years old. They grew in the same town as I did but the opportunities were not the same for them because times have changed. There is hardly any open land to hunt on and the land is farmed totally different now. You hardly see a wild pheasant any more or ducks on open land. It seems you have to belong to a club and that can be very expenisve on a family budget but I did my best to give my sons time hunting in the field.
My youngest son is 25 years old now and really would like to go on a elk hunt, high country hunt in Colorado which can be expensive. So this is the Dream Hunt for my son and me to be able to hunt elk in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and that some day my son will realize that the times we had hunting together will be his Dream Hunt just like me and my father. Now you know my Dream Hunt and why it’s so important to me and the next geeration as they say...‘Pass It On!’
Yes, I got the off–road trail bike the next summer.”