6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Scott Schlather, Florida
“Wow! This should be easy, as this is one of the many ways that I fill my time as I pile on the miles of driving in doing my job! Unfortuneately it’s not! My dream hunts are select, but they are many. I could hunt green head mallards on Pauls Pond out west, and marvel at the thousands of ducks that pile in the only watering hole for miles. Or it could be climbing thru the apsen stands of Colorado and New Mexico for a trophy 6x6 bull elk. Or would it be for the long bearded gobler, the leprechan of the woods, that still evades me to this day? Or would it be just a simple backwoods Southern Kansas whitetail hunt for a good wall hanger! Ahh...the stuff that day dreams are made of! Come on retirement! I wanna go play!
I personally fancy myself as old fashioned, so I’m going to limit this day dream to open woods, non–guided, hard won hunts. That eliminates Pauls Pond and the green heads, and my 10–day elk adventure, because this Florida boy shivers when it hits the 50s. Leaving us with whitetails and fans. Whitetails, are predictable and just not the challege that they use to be so that leaves us with the goblers.
My dream would be to hunt a private working farm in either Tennessee or the rolling hills of Kentucky. It’s spring, and Big Tom’s got two things on his mind: Lunch and Love! By my side is my oldest daughter, Taryn, who at 13 has made it her quest to beat her dad to the slam. Permanently etching her place in the annuals of family fireside camping lore! Our guns would be twin Weatherby PA–08s. Mine loaded with 3–inch Magnum heavy shot, and she with a lighter 2.5–inch load. Calls and Camo’d out to the teeth, we’d slowly walk off in the direction the local landowner pointed us in the night before. The cool and crisp morning just begins to give way to the grip of darkness. The mist still rolling off the trees when we hear our first gobble. Shortly thereafter the woods become alive with the sights and sounds, only to be once again broken by the sound of a love sick adolescent looking for ‘trouble.’ Taryn, responds back with the skill and grace of a hunter three times her age, and the boys begin their cat and mouse game in the shadows around us.
The day ends. It’s lunch time, and we are slowly walking down dusty log roads, and over washouts towards the gate. Shots may or may not have have been fired. We may or may not have gotten or bird. That is not important. What is important is that I got to spend one more day, afield, with my daughter. And we both got to have some fun with the boys!”