Basic HTML Version
11 -14 Year Old Boy Group Winner
Student Name: Triston Hasty-Grant
School: Owasso 8
th
Grade Center
Grade: 8
Age: 13
Teacher: Frank Blair
The Feel
Have you ever felt silence? Have you ever heard tranquility?
You might think those are in reverse of each other. That’s
the feeling I get when I am bow hunting. That’s what it’s like
when you are one-hundred percent in sync with nature.
Hunting in my family is tradition. The land has been passed
down through the generations since before the Great
Depression, and will be passed down for many generations
to come. My father and grandfather are extremely
knowledgeable and skilled hunters. They have taught me to
never take more from the land than we can give back. We
plant food plots and use corn feeders in an effort to
promote and develop wildlife on the farm.
When I go to the farm, I feel an enormous amount of pride
and self-worth. I feel that I am part of something bigger
than myself. Although, I get another feeling when I head off
into the woods. I sense that I am miniscule among the
ancient oaks and all the stories they have to tell. I feel out-
manned by my quarry, whose ability to survive is far
superior to mine; whom can see with binocular vision, hear
minute sound, sense any movement, and bound more
gracefully and agile than I could ever hope. Those are the
challenges I must overcome.
I wake up early, clothing myself in my layers of warmth. As I
walk into the trees I can feel their grandeur. I hike to my
tree stand and sit as still and quiet as humanly possible.
Then, I see it… I see the sunrise, that’s when I get that
feeling of absolute tranquility. It can, at times, be hard to
contemplate that this is the land that so many of my
ancestors before me walked and witnessed the same
magnificent sight. Never the less, I still sit motionless and
quiet. Then I hear something walking behind me. I turn as
slowly as I can. Just out of the corner of my eye, I see the
monarch of the woods. The male whitetail deer. He was an
extraordinary animal, probably a one-hundred and forty-
five inch deer. He was forty-three yards away, ten yards too
far. I stood as discretely as I could. Then came the question,
do I sling an arrow just a little further than I normally
would? Or stick to my morals and let him come in range? I
stuck to my morals, even though my heart was racing and
my emotions wanted desperately to harvest this animal.
At the end of the hunt, even though I didn’t harvest the
animal, I left with pride. I knew I stuck to my family tradition
of being an ethical hunter. At the end of the day that’s what
it boils down too, your family, your tradition, your heritage,
and sticking to your morals. That’s the feeling I strive for
over all, to now I did what I needed to do the way it needed
to be done.