6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Jarred Cooper, Kentucky
“As a child, my father would take my younger brother and me hunting or fishing every chance he had. We called these adventures, ‘character building’ trips. Something always managed to go wrong. The canoe would capsize dumping all of our supplies into the river, the tent we borrowed to use as base camp would leak through a weekend of pooring rain, or we would forget vital pieces of gear like the toilet paper only to discover what poison ivy looked like. No matter if we bagged the game we were after or not, we always returned home the same way: tired, muddy, and grinning from ear to ear.
As adults our trips together became less and less frequent. My brother went to college, I joined the Marine Corps, and my father still serving as a Chaplain in the military, we were not able to coordinate our schedules. When I returned home from the Marine Corps disabled, I assumed that my hunting days were essentially over. I resigned myself to sitting on the banks of the family pond and fishing as the most I would be able to do. My father refused to accept the fact that my disabilities would in any way limit our time hunting together. My father designed a deerstand that backed up to a hill in order to allow for a wheelchair ramp. My brother purchased a ground blind for hunting turkey. The more time I spent outside the more my mobility improved.
My dream hunt would be an opportunity to thank them for giving me back something I had greatly missed. My father has traveled the world during his time in the military. The one place he has never been is the one place he has always talked of taking us. Scotland is my family’s ancestral home. It is a place built up in my mind as a nearly mythical land. As a child, my father would describe all of the things he would like to do on this dream vacation to Scotland. Riding a train through the highlands, sleeping at a bed and breakfast in a small Scottish town, fishing the lochs, and most important of all the chance to hunt the Red Stag. To my father the chance to take a Red Stag with his sons in Scotland would be the ultimate hunting experience, and for me the perfect thank you from a grateful son.
My family is the most important thing in the world to me. Hunting is a family obsession. The time we have spent together outdoors have provided some of the most lasting memories of our lives. The opportunity to pursue such a majestic creature in one of the most picturesque settings on earth would be my idea of a dream hunt.”