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Derrick Wardlaw and Shawn Jones with Derrick's bull elk.
Derrick Wardlaw always dreamed about hunting elk but never had the opportunity. That is until this past fall when the Central Oregon Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) teamed up with many other people and organizations to provide Derrick with his dream hunt.
The chapter worked with the Outdoor Dream Foundation to coordinate the hunt. The foundation is a non-profit organization that grants outdoor adventures to kids who have been diagnosed with terminal or life-threatening illnesses. Derrick (14) lives in Pickens, S.C. and has a kidney disease known as IgA nephropathy. He had a kidney transplant in December 2010 and is now doing much better.
The hunt was conducted on a private ranch in the Paulina Valley. Hunting guide Shawn Jones organized and led the hunt.
“Derrick was introduced to me through the Outdoor Dream Foundation,” said Jones. “The hunt really consisted of a team of guides including Brett Henderson, Jason Jones, Nic Jones and Corey Graves.”
This was Derrick’s first time to Oregon and before this trip the only elk he’s ever seen was on TV. Back in South Carolina he’s hunted white-tailed deer, hogs, squirrels, rabbits and turkeys.
“I love the outdoors and hunting and fishing,” said Derrick. “I watched people hunt elk on TV and it looked like a pretty fun hunt.”
A few days before the hunt Jones had Derrick shoot one of his rifles until he got comfortable with it. On his very first shot at 200 yards, he hit the bulls-eye, which was about the size of a quarter.
“Wow, I think you’re capable of killing an elk with shooting like that,” Jones recalls saying to Derrick.
Jones said he had a few ranches available for Derrick to hunt on. His son Nic spotted a big bull in a large herd of elk on one of the ranches in the Paulina Valley, so that’s where they concentrated their efforts. The first day, they watched the bull bed down, but were about 1,000 yards from him and it was too late in the day to continue the hunt.
“The next morning we were in a great position,” Jones explained. “We had about 300 elk go by us, but the big bull wasn’t in there. We were learning the herd’s patterns, but by that evening, we were unable to locate the bull.”
On the third morning, Jones said he had a few of his guides spotting for him and Derrick as they set out with Jones’ brother Jason who captured the hunt on video. They set up in an area the elk had been traveling, but the herd had a change in plans and went up on a big plateau. After about a half-mile hike, they got to the top to find sparse juniper cover.
“We made it to one lone juniper and pretty quickly, about 250 to 300 elk started filing by us,” said Jones. “We had Derrick pass on several bulls that would have scored over 300.”
Derrick got to experience something few hunters see in their lifetime. The elk were anywhere from 35 to 200 yards away with bulls bugling, stopping to rake on trees, and chasing each other around. Then the herd decided to bed down. Jones said 11 spike bulls bedded down just 50 yards away, with some of them even looking their way.
“All the while, the three of us were huddled under this one lone juniper tree,” Jones said. “This went on for over an hour.”
Suddenly, a big 6-point bull came over and decided he wants under one of the trees, so a few of the smaller bulls got up and walked off. Then the tail end of the herd approached with two monster bulls, and Jones told Derrick to take either one of them if they got close. The biggest bull ended up being the only one close enough for Derrick to get a shot at, but he was walking in amongst the cows.
“I told Derrick not to shoot unless there was an open, clear shot at him” Jones said. “I no sooner got that sentence out and about five or 10 seconds later, the bull walked into an opening and Derrick drilled him.”
It was about a 75-yard shot and the bull went about 40 yards and dropped. Derrick was focused and cool under pressure, according to Jones. He said Derrick made a shot that most of the guys who have hunted with him in the last 15 years couldn’t have done.
“Sometimes it’s a tight window of opportunity in hunting and those windows for a shooting lane open and close quickly,” Jones explained. “And this was one of those shooting lanes. Derrick really needed to be tracking the bull closely and that’s just what he did.”
The 6x6 bull scored 340. It had 54-inch main beams and was very symmetrical. Jones believes Derrick’s bull will undoubtedly end up being one of the top five bulls ever taken by a teenager in Oregon.
“This was the funnest hunt of my life,” Derrick said. “It was definitely better than any of the hunting shows on TV. I dedicated the hunt to a woman named Robin Carter who donated one of her kidneys to me.”
He met Robin a few times at church, but didn’t know that she was going to be the donor until the day that he went into the hospital to receive the transplant.
“It was a successful hunt on all fronts,” Jones said. “I can’t recall a hunt not only going so smoothly, but for us to have experienced everything that we did with so many close encounters with so many bulls, it was definitely outstanding.”
Besides Shawn Jones and his four guides for the hunt, Derrick also wanted to thank Vaughan’s Taxidermy and Quimby’s Independent Meat Market in Prineville
Last year, Dave Vaughan participated in another Outdoor Dream Foundation hunt and ended up caping the elk, fleshing it, salting it, cutting the antlers off, and shipping them to a taxidermist in Florida where the young hunter lived. This year, he’s doing the entire mount for Derrick. The shoulder mount is expected be finished by mid-February or so.
“How could anyone not want to be involved with a kid whose life was upside down and backwards because of his illness?” said Vaughan. “I wanted to do something that would give him some joy and encouragement.”
Shane Quimby, owner of Quimby’s Independent Meat Market, also participated in last year’s Outdoor Dream Foundation hunt in Central Oregon, donating the cutting, wrapping, freezing and boxing of the meat. He did the same for Derrick’s elk.
“I teach hunter safety, so I like to help kids out and see them get involved with hunting,” Quimby said. “It was a dream hunt for Derrick, so I was more than happy to get involved.” He even had the boxed meat ready at 4 a.m. on the morning of Derrick’s flight.
The Outdoor Dream Foundation provided airline tickets for Derrick and his chaperone Herb Strickland, who went along on the hunt.
“There were several things that were rewarding for me,” said Jones. “I was very impressed with Derrick as a person. He’s probably one of the most polite and respectful young men I’ve ever met, and it was great to get to know him.”
Jones went on to say that Derrick stared death in the face and was unafraid of dying.
“I asked why he wasn’t scared by his surgery and his disease. Derrick said, ‘I knew God was going to take care of me either way it turned out.’ I thought, wow, now that is faith. I told him that killing a big bull elk is easy compared with that. A few days later, it turned out it really was.”
