6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Shawn Battagler, Missouri
“It would be an organized secret. A date would be selected to meet at the airport. Only the essential details would be known ahead of time: when, what to bring, and who is going along.
The ‘when’ would be far enough ahead to let everyone involved clear the calendar and taste the anticipation for months. It would be so exciting to tell friends about the dream hunt:
Buddy: ‘Where are you going?’
Me: ‘Don't know.’
Buddy: ‘What will you be hunting?’
Me: ‘Don't know.’
Buddy: ‘Then how in God's name do you know it will be a dream hunt?’
Me: ‘Weatherby is putting it together!’
And nobody would have a doubt.
[Those guys would get so sick of hearing about this trip.]
The ‘what to bring’ would help define the hunt without giving it away entirely. Assurances that anything you don't bring will be provided at the secret destination would be perfect. A warm, comfortable place to stay, good food, a stocked bar (for evenings after the hunt), a campfire (with the wood already cut...hey, it's a dream hunt), ATVs, a big piece of land and a guide who knows it and knows the game, these are the things a dream hunt is made of. (I've never been outfitted or guided in a hunt, so I'm not even really sure what to dream about in that respect.)
The promise of getting to shoot Weatherby's best and newest products that our Weatherby host is anxious to showcase would be icing on the cake. We would absolutely have to have a range near camp, a big stack of cartridges, several different Weatherbys to shoot, and time set aside for oohing and ahhing over the beautiful rifles and challenging each other for best groups.
A dream hunt would last about a week to ten days, it would be far enough from Missouri that it couldn't be done by us with easy regularity...the Rockies, Alaska, Canada, the Southwest, or some ‘best-kept secret’ area that most hunters don't even realize exist. But it wouldn't be so far away that traveling would take a big chunk out of the actual hunting time. I'll save Africa for another dream.
The ‘who’ would of course be the man who taught me to hunt and let me go with him when I was still young enough to ruin any hopes of silent stalks or quiet ambush...my father. Looking back, the success of the hunt was measured by my learning. And he was less than 50 yards away when I bagged my first whitetail. I know he didn't consider it any sacrifice at all. My love of hunting is the best hunting trophy he could earn.
Except for the whitetail season I spent overseas, we have spent at least some portion of the fall together at deer camp (Chigger Ridge)...even if only for a day. It's the highlight of my year, every year. So Dad's in!
If arrangements could be made for others to join us, I would bring my two closest cousins and their father (my dad's brother). We grew up together like brothers. We made our own fun in rural Missouri with air rifles and homemade bows and arrows. We chased hounds in the dark in pursuit of raccoons. We sat together on the banks of the Missouri River together with an old man that taught us how to catch catfish. For many years, we've had a standing appointment to archery hunt together the weekend before the Missouri firearms season opens...our own annual (and more affordable) dream hunt.
But what would I want to hunt on a dream hunt? It's really less important than the time I'd spend with family and the debt I'd only begin to repay to my father. But it would be nice to put the Weatherby accuracy and stopping power to the test. Big game: elk, moose, bear, antelope, mountain lion, caribou, mule deer, would all be good options. Despite years of hunting, neither my dad nor I have ever taken a taxidermist-worthy trophy. His taking the time to teach me to hunt greatly reduced his chances of killing a trophy for many years. I'd love to be able to make that up to him by taking him on this trip and helping him take a trophy that wouldn't be possible in Missouri.
And maybe it would be a combination hunt, even including upland birds so I could bring along my Weatherby shotgun...the most used gun I own (and I'm not just saying that because it's Weatherby's contest...I feed it boxes at a time). Dad's favorite dog ever, Lady, the first dog I knew as a kid, was an English Setter. That would add a little nostalgia for him since the upland bird hunting in Missouri has not been good for many years.
Or maybe the combination would be with varmints...big scopes and flat trajectories. That would be a salute in memoriam to a dear family friend, and a deer camp buddy who was obsessive about accuracy a told stories for hours around the campfire about his hunting trips out West killing antelope and prairie dogs. Who knows how many Weatherbys he owned before he died!
Is a hunt like this even possible? Not too far and not too close. Everything provided and not even the opportunity to really plan. An unknown weeklong adventure with your closest and oldest friends/family/hunting companions...people you don't get to see very often these days now that we all have jobs and families of our own. Hunting big game and small game on the same trip with someone to help you figure out this new kind of hunting. Shooting A LOT! No idea where you're going until you get on the plane. People don't do that! I dream of it. Let's do it...flat, hard and accurate!”