Saturday, February 16, 2008

Firsts #2 - Scotty




Hunting with your brother is super cool. The first pic is Scotty with his first elk when he was 17. He'd drawn a special youth hunt tag and I got to go chase wapiti with him and dad on a Christmas trip back home to Oregon. He killed this cow in an absolute hole. Dad proudly sat back and watched as I instructed Scotty on how to take care of that elk. I think it was his first glimpse of how I'd matured as a hunter since moving to Alaska. Watching your boys put into practice the things you've instilled into them must be a highlight of fatherhood.

The next pic is Scotty's first Alaskan animal, a trophy Dall ram. I gave him a mileage ticket to Alaska for Christmas in 2004, with the promise to take him on a guided sheep hunt in 2005. We experienced the lowest of lows and highest of highs together on this hunt. You can have an intellectual knowledge of an attribute of God, but its not until you experience that attribute that it sink in. When the tears started flowing when we found this ram, it was one of the most perfect moments I've ever had in the mountains. Scotty calls this hunt his greatest life achievement so far. It makes my heart swell to know I helped give that to him. It's still one of my all-time favorite hunts.

1 comment:

fishinpox said...

You definitely have been around for some of the more memorable firsts in my hunting life. Hopefully not the last of them either, and hopefully I can be their when you get your first wapiti someday.