“Every day is a good day” Makayla Scott
I watched her scramble up the substantial slope before us and was almost overcome with guilt. It dawned on me that I was possibly doing this remarkable young lady a great disservice. I have written about Makayla Scott before and if you haven’t seen some of those articles I am not sure where to start to explain the amazing phenomena that is Makayla Scott.
Makayla may have had a less than fortunate start in life but she quickly made up for it under the guidance of her Dad, Telford Scott. After trying several different sports and not really clicking Makayla picked up a shotgun and never looked back. She is now at eighteen years old a name in the world of shotgun sports and has won several shooting events, earned a place on the Junior Olympics International Trap Team, and last fall participated in shotgun guru David Miller’s second Guinness Book of World Record event of the most clays shot by a five man team, in twelve hours. That’s right, I witnessed Makayla, Dave Miller and three other teammates shoot almost continuously for twelve hours. You could say Makayla is a shotgun shooter.
With all of her experience with a scatter gun though, she had yet to venture into the turkey woods. Someone told her that I was a turkey hunter (I bet it was Barbara Baird who runs the website Women’s Outdoor News, www.womensoutdoornews.com ) and now I was tasked with getting Makayla a big strutting gobbler. Now don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with taking Makayla hunting, the amount of positive energy exuding from this dynamo of a young girl/super hero is enough to make you want to be around just to soak up some of the vibes in her wake.
But I did have problem. I could not shake the feeling that exposing Makayla to the sometimes dark side of turkey hunting, getting up in the middle of the night to be in the neighborhood of a crazy bird that one day will gobble his fool head off and the next come down with lock jaw. Also there can be long stretches of hunting every day with no sleep, affecting work, school, relationships, and your mental help. So there is all of this and not to mention the danger of being around older, experienced turkey hunters who can be some of the grouchiest individuals known to man. Should I show this extraordinary kid the wonderful, crazy, terrible world of turkey hunting? My soul was in anguish.
I found no answers in the days leading up to the first hunt with Makayla, West Virginia’s Youth Days, April 18 and 19. I started hunting on April 11. I ventured over to Paint Bank, Virginia to hunt with Cody Murphy who runs Potts Creek Outfitters there. (www.pottscreekoutfitters.com) Cody had generously offered for me to hunt with him on the first day of the Virginia season and I jumped at the chance. I love the woods around Paint Bank, and we had a gobbler sounding off on a beautiful morning, but the conversation was very short. This turkey evidently preferred the company of his many girlfriends than us.
Friday, April 17, myself and turkey killing buddy Richie Miller went back to Virginia in what turned into a marathon sweep through Craig County. Hearing nothing at one location we would jump back in the old Chevy and head to the next stop. We put in a lot of miles, saw several wandering groups of hens (girl turkeys) and neither saw nor heard one gobbler. The best part of the morning was stopping at the Paint Bank General Store for hot coffee and pizza at noon.
I was at Makayla Scott’s house well before dawn on the 18th and we soon headed up the hill directly behind her house which puts you on Monongahela National Forest land. It was raining as we entered the woods and it dawned on me that I probably had at least four rain jackets in the truck. Having nothing else to do we wandered progressively higher up into the hills as part of my running patter trying to teach her about turkey hunting was to always get up high so that you may hear better. Makayla took this and all other advice I offered as though I had told her the secrets of the universe or how to buy winning lottery tickets. She was happy to learn anything and everything about this new kind of hunting for her.
I explained I would hoot like a barred owl because gobblers were known to respond to that. “Really? That is so cool!” Once when we heard a hen on a steep slope above us I explained that most often gobblers would rarely come to a call from above but would rather walk uphill towards your calling. All this and much more was taken as most appreciated. It was a humbling experience. When not listening to me rattle on with some inane turkey tidbit, I would watch as she would pick and examine some nondescript plant on the forest floor. Either that or she would get excited about some animal track or even better some kind of animal bone, she is really big on finding bones. Besides turkey hunting she was just happy to take in the day.
We paused on a high knoll, ever listening for an elusive gobble (which we never heard). We were discussing the weather and how it had started raining and now looked like it would clear off and be sunny, so it would be a good day.
The conversation lagged for a while as we listened and then I heard her say wistfully “Every day is a good day.”
Every day is a good day? eighteen years old? I realized Makayla Scott had much more to teach me than I did her.
(stay tuned for Part II of this adventure)
(Authors note: this account is about a hunt I took with Makayla Scott, the shotgun shooting phenomena from Alvon, WV)
Larryocase3@gmail.com www.gunsandcornbread.com