6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Brian Garls, Ohio
“October 2003, I have the Mule deer doe in my crosshairs. I take a breath and slowly release it, pause, and squeeze the trigger of a borrowed .25-06 rifle. The doe rears up and stumbles forward into a gully. I gather my gear and walk to the last spot I saw her. There she is, laying at the bottom of the gully, dead, one shot. Now I know what my brothers have been experiencing for all these years.
Just moments before while trudging along a ‘hillside’ of the Thunder Basin National Grasslands in Wyoming, I was debating with myself the merits of hunting. Waking up at predawn hours, freezing in morning chill, sweating to death in the afternoon heat, walking over miles of rugged terrain and freezing again at nightfall just to do it all over again the next morning. You have got to be kidding me!
All those thoughts were replaced instantly with the exhilarating feeling of the hunt! The deer was unaware of my presence! My heart was pounding so loud, I couldn’t hear anything else! My only thought was ‘make a good, clean shot!’ One shot and I had meat in the freezer and my first trophy, a doe skin rug.
I was 43 years old then and now I live to hunt. I never thought I could ever ‘pull the trigger’ and kill an animal the way my three brothers have done all these years. I have always just enjoyed watching wildlife, but understood the reasons behind hunting as a way to help control populations of game species. I never knew what my brothers were feeling or experiencing...until now. Only two things make me feel prouder of myself than that first successful hunt, my marriage and the birth of my daughter.
My brothers are scattered across the U.S. There is also a ‘generation gap’ of 14 years separating us. We only get together for holidays, graduations, weddings, and funerals. And then, not all of us make it to these events. We don’t always see ‘eye to eye,’ but we all, now, share the passion for hunting. My three brothers have taken a variety of game species large and small, but no one has a caribou.
My dream hunt would be to go to Alaska or Canada and take a guided hunt for caribou with my brothers. We all like different styles of hunting whether archery, modern rifle, or historic rifle. A hunt for caribou, camping out on the tundra, struggling against the northern elements would unite us with an experience none of us would have thought possible. A trophy mount on the wall would be nothing compared to the stories of the blown stalks, the missed shots, the biting flies, the howling wind, and the perfect shot. The chance for all four of us to share this hunt is my dream.”