We first met Dallas Judd, last May at the special needs fishing day at Salem Pond. An event the Pritchett family has been putting on for over two decades. While there, Mike struck a deal with Dallas.
Get my hunters safety. That’s right. You get your hunters safety and we are going to go on a wild turkey hunt huh?
Then this past December.
Dallas what are you doing buddy?
We met Dallas again at his families Christmas party.
We come out here tonight with all of my entourage and family and friends, my son. We’ll introduce everybody, but. This little card here is for Dallas and we’ll let him read that.
Dear Dallas, we would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, a special gift from all of us here. You have been chosen to go on a fully guided guided spring turkey hunt, along with a fully guided fishing trip with Strawberry Bay.
He was born one pound, nine ounce, 15 weeks early, 25 weeks along.
He had brain bleeds when he was born, so that’s what caused him to have the Cerebral Palsey.
Like ornaments on a Christmas tree, special people like you are meant to be treasured. We hope your holidays are happy days. Thank you. Thank you guys.
H e wasn’t ever supposed to walk or talk and he does all that. His little sister, they learned to crawl at the same time, walk at the same time.
He’s the individual that walks into a room full of strangers and come out with a room full of friends.
He doesn’t know a stranger. You know that saying. A stranger is a friend I haven’t met yet. That’s Dallas.
What do you think you are going to need to go turkey hunting? Got a shotgun? No.
Jon Larson, the President of Sportsmen For Fish and Wildlife presented Dallas with a brand new shotgun for his hunt.
What we have in here is a brand new Remington 870 Express pump shotgun.
And Kevin Donahue presented Dallas with a tackle box full of fishing gear and new rod.
This is all yours to go fishing at Strawberry bud.
Youth recruitment is a big deal and that’s what gets all of these kids into what we love anyway. But when you have these kids that are challenged a little bit, it’s even that much better. They might not get this opportunity ever. So it’s a real treat to be a part of it.
Very special thanks to all of you guys.
Best Christmas Party ever!
It’s amazing, it’s great that this is happening. I appreciate it, just all the way around.
And that was just the beginning of the early Christmas that Dallas was about to receive.
We are going to go to Sportsman’s Warehouse, if that’s ok with your family. We are going to take you over there real quick and do some shopping.
This is Dallas? Nice to meet you Dallas. Dallas this is our friend Mike Fisher with Sportsman’s Warehouse. You guys ready to go turkey hunting? Yea. Cool. Let’s get you some shoes, some hunting gear. How about it?
I have a lot of opportunity to work with the kids on kids fishing day, so this is a very special thing to me.
It’s such a cool opportunity. The Pritchett family does so many amazing things. They do. It’s a really neat opportunity for us at Sportsman’s Warehouse to be a part of it. Continue to support the community, it’s really cool. It’s a great tradition. It’s a great tradition, it’s awesome. Way cool to get to see these kids every year.
And it changes them, no question. There you go! You got it man.
We’ve got a little bit of turkey hunting stuff here to. Turkey targets, so them guys can take you out shooting some turkey targets. Turkey hunting loads, a couple of turkey calls, mom is going to hate these. And then a couple of turkey hunting videos for you guys to watch.
Thanks. Good luck. Good luck I hope you have a great hunt.
Coming up…
We take Dallas on his hunt and introduce you to the people who let him hunt their land. That just ahead but first lets test your turkey knowledge in tonight’s Burt Brothers quiz question.
Many people know that male wild turkeys, often called toms, or gobblers, grow beards. A turkey’s beard is a cluster of long, hair like feathers. The beard is sometimes thought to be only a male turkey characteristic, but some hens also have beards, usually 7 or 8 inches long, thin, and often with a kink near the middle. Our Burt Brothers quiz question tonight is. Can you legally shoot a bearded hen in Utah while on a spring hunt? The answer when KSL Outdoors, powered by Ford returns to Dallas’ turkey hunt.
Welcome back to KSL Outdoors, back here in the blind. In a moment, Dallas’ hunt continues, but first tonight’s answer to our Burt Brothers quiz question.
And our question is…Can you legally shoot a bearded hen in Utah while on a spring hunt? and the answer is yes. The proclamation states you can shoot any bearded turkey. During the fall hunt a person can harvest a turkey of either sex, bearded or not. These bearded ladies of the spring are often the dominate female, but they also breed, lay eggs and raise broods. As far as we know, bearded hens are just as sexy to spring gobblers as those without.
There they are. Welcome to Kings.
Welcome back to KSL Outdoors. You know, the hunt just around the corner, Dallas, his dad and his grandfather were all invited down to Kings Camo to outfit them, head to toe, for the hunt.
Have you been practicing? Yes we have. How has it been going? Good. Really good. Lots of fun.
There’s nothing better than this, turkey hunting in the spring isn’t it?
We are excited. This is what we look forward to.
And finally, last Saturday, we all met on the Child’s family property for the hunt.
Good morning, good morning. Morning. Good to see you. Morning
This young man is ready to go. I hope so.
This has got to be the biggest crew we’ve ever had. Yeah, if we pull this off today. I think it will set a world record for the most people in one turkey blind. Next year we are chartering a school bus.
Did you bring the duct tape for somebody? Yeah, I’ve got some out there, Saran Wrap so. Like I’m the problem! Yeah really! I don’t know what you are talking about. She forgets we are turkey hunting, we are not at the Jazz game.
Round them up. Ok word of the day. We get up there, don’t slam doors. No flash lights. No talking. I hate, it’s just… Yeah Tonya. I heard that Dallas. Get on her dude. Tell her quiet!
Then it’s silent walking across. Everybody split across. Make sure your blinds, the sun is not coming through the back.
I’m so excited. I’m trying to be real quiet.
The guys have positioned four double bull blinds and a Kings Camo Turbo tent to hide all fifteen of us. Dallas will be hunting a field we’ve had success in years past.
Sit right there. We’ve been up here several years, we know where they are roosted here on a traditional roost site and we are way, way back behind it, not setting up close on it and we are just letting the birds come down out of the roost and work up their natural path for the day.
You know the whole time. I was just thinking if we don’t get a bird the whole experience has been great. We didn’t do this to get a bird. It was for the experience. It’s the trip, not the destination what’s important here.
Get him ready!
We can tell that the birds are out of the roost. They are on the ground, they are starting to call. They are off down the hill behind us. So we’ll just have to wait them out see if they come up. The rest of Dallas hunt in a second but first back to the guys at Fish Tech for tonight’s Fishing Report.
Hi, I’m Dan Smith from Fish Tech Outfitters. I get this question all the time. How come I can’t cast a bait casting reel? How come I get back lashes? The main reason is because you don’t understand the principle of the reel. On a spinning reel, the lure actually pulls the line off the reel. On a bait caster, when you push the thumb bar which releases the spool into free spool, the spool will start turning when you cast, the lure has to keep up with the line coming off. In order to adjust that, there is a little knob right here on the side. That puts pressure on the side of the spools so that it doesn’t overrun. Also, on the other side, there is a magnetic adjustment and what that does is it moves those magnets closer and farther away from a hub and that slows down your spool so when it gets out on the end of a cast, your lure can keep up with it. Another reason that you are having problems with a bait caster is you are releasing the line at the wrong time. On a spinning rod, you release it at 11 o’clock. On a bait caster, you release it at 2 o’clock and follow through. If you have any problems, come on down and I’ll go outside and demonstrate it for you. Now for tonight’s fishing line.
Welcome back to KSL Outdoors and Dallas’ hunt. You know, we’ve only been in the blind for maybe an hour and already, the turkeys, well they’re heading right towards us.
H e’s right behind us strutting.
He was real silent just sitting here on the ridge strutting and stuff and I gave him that real soft little purr call.
And he gave us a gobble that scared us all in the tent and then it was game on safety off.
He just came strutting right in.
I’ve been on a lot of turkey hunts and I can probably count on two hands how many times that’s happened to get them to come out of the roost and come to you that quick.
Get him ready. Get him ready.
Wait until he gets to the decoy.
Ready? Wait until I tell you. Now! Oh my gosh. You got him buddy! You are done buddy! Grab that bird! Oh my gosh, that was fast! You are done buddy.
It was all I could do was contain myself from jumping over and going out with Mike to pick up the bird.
Grab him! Woo hoo!
Good job buddy, awesome. Look at that dude, You are done man. Look at the beard on that. That’s a dandy man.
Nice job buddy. Feel good about yourself? Thank you very much. You are welcome very much.
People ask me what are you hunting this year and to me it’s not what I’m hunting it’s when I can take these kids and hunt. That’s… I get twice the joy out of it as shooting one myself.
Yeah that’s by far the fastest hunt. One gobble, he’s in there and he’s done. Good job Dallas.
Thank you. You’re welcome bud, you did an awesome job. Couldn’t ask for any better. No. It was perfect huh. Couldn’t ask for a better group of people to bring him up here too.
I didn’t even know the group existed until I got involved with it and I think this is so neat. You know… There is hope for humanity. People out here trying to do good things and these young kids with disabilities kind of get left by the way side so much.
These are the greatest group of people I’ve ever met.
Aren’t these guys good guys? Yeah. They’re real good dudes. You know why they do it? Because you are a good guy to. That’s why they do it. You are a good kid. Real nice kid, and good family so. Hey we’ll have more here from Dallas’ hunt in a moment, in fact we are going to go get your buddy Brandon, remember Brandon. Give him the same opportunity, see if he can make the same shot. Sound good? Alright, that in a moment, but down a different trail now in tonight’s Utah Field Guide.
Many hunters are familiar with the term “slam,” which refers to harvesting a group of species in a certain time period or location. Last year the DWR started a new slam in Utah called the Upland Game Slam.
Here in Utah we have 20 different upland game species so we wanted people to get out and experience some of those species that they may have not hunted in the past. In addition to that we wanted to be able to fund upland game projects here in the State of Utah. So a person pays $20.00 as an adult or $10.00 as a youth to join up for the program and that money is then spent on upland game projects here in Utah.
Essentially you sign up for the program, you get what is called an upland game slam card.
And you go out and you try and harvest the different species within slam program.
If you are successful in harvesting the species for the slam, you take your picture with you, your slam card and the animal you harvested and then you can redeem those in for collectable slam coins that are unique for the different slams in the state.
The five different slams will challenge hunters to harvest anything from pheasants, turkeys, chukars, dove, even cottontail rabbits.
So far only 376 hunters have signed up for the program, that’s less than 1% of all upland game hunters in Utah. Jason hopes to get more people involved to raise more money for projects for upland game species.
One of the best things about it from our perspective is the money is what we call match-able. So we can use this money to match other funds, to really increase the buying power of this so we can do more and better projects throughout the state.
If they have questions they can visit our webpage, wildlife.utah.gov, go to the upland game page and look for the upland game slam.
Boy what a beautiful spring morning. The kid gets his bird, the sun is coming out, it’s actually is starting warm up, beautiful blue sky. Let’s check that recreational forecast for your next outdoor adventure, by turning it over to the guys and gals in the weather department.
This might be one of the highlights of his life. I know it is of mine. Yeah. So I can’t say thank you enough to this group. They are great individuals. There is still hope for humanity. There is. There is. Nice job dude, did really good. Thanks. Did really good. Hey we’ve got one more. We are going to try and do what now? We are going to go pick up Brandon, get him up here. He’s down waiting for us down in Springville. Bring him up and see if we can get round two done. Griswold…Adventures…Continue. Yea, it’s how we roll.
Look at that, dude! This is quite the crowd, large group of people to have a three minute turkey hunt. That was, that was about a three minute job and the kid did good. Hey we are going to have more next week. We’ll show you Brandon’s hunt up here on the Child’s property up Spanish Fork Canyon, until then I’m Adam Eakle KSL Outdoors, reminding you to get out with your family, your friends and make some memories outdoors. Say good bye Tonya. Bye. Bye Tonya. Good job, buddy.
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