Have you ever thought something was impossible but tried it anyway? I was looking through my North American Hunting Club magazine when I saw a sweepstakes fundraiser ad for Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH). While lying in bed I couldn’t help but think how great of an idea FHFH really was. The thought of all the families it affected and the lives that it had saved was overwhelming.

I woke up the next morning and went straight for that magazine, opened it to the page that the ad was located and started to cut it out. I filled it out and sent it in never thinking I would win anything at all because that just wasn’t my luck.

A few months later my mom asked me if I had ever seen “Mossy Oak Hunting the Country” on TV. My mom doesn’t hunt or even watch hunting shows. I knew something was up but I had no idea what it was. I thought she just got a good deal on a video and wanted to make sure I liked it.

Later that night my mom got a phone call and talked for a while with a huge grin on her face. Finally, she called me over and handed the phone to me. I asked her who it was but she didn’t say a word. After I said hello a really nice guy named Rick Wilson told me I had won an all expenses paid hunting trip to Alabama to hunt with him and the Mossy Oak Staff and that if I got a deer on camera it would probably are on their TV show. I have to admit I was a little skeptical at first and had to raise the question, “What’s the catch?” Mr. Wilson told me that they would fly me down to Alabama and set me up at the lodge with some Mossy Oak Camouflage and provide me with a room at the lodge we were staying in and everything else I could have asked for. Then Mr. Wilson said there was a problem. I was a minor, and he wasn’t sure if I could accept the prize or not. It turned out that I could bring a legal guardian along with me because the hunt I had won was for two people anyway.

He also told me that he had called the night before and talked to my mom about me winning the hunt and not being sure if I could accept the prize. This is why my mom asked if I had ever seen Mossy Oak’s TV show, but not wanting to get my hopes up she didn’t tell me why she had asked that question.

The first person I called was my dad because he was the one going with me. I told him everything about the hunt and how I had won it and he just answered back with sarcastic remarks. He thought I was just joking with him and making everything up. I insisted I wasn’t joking but he still didn’t really believe it until later when I showed him the article in North American Hunter magazine a few months later where it showed my name next to the grand prize hunt.

About 7 months later I got another call from Mr. Wilson with more information on where the hunt would be and how everything would work out. We called back and forth over the next month or two planning the trip and telling each other hunting stories.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, I was on my way to the airport with my bags packed and ready to go hunting. This is when the reality of it finally struck us that we were really going to go on the hunt. We met up with Rick Wilson in Atlanta, Georgia and flew together to Columbus, Mississippi. We were there. We finally made it!

My dad and I stepped off the airplane in Columbus and looked at each other and grinned wider than we have ever grinned before. Here we met up with Justin Flaherty from Mossy Oak. He drove us to the Lee Haven. Lee Haven is an old plantation house in Alabama that was built by General Robert E. Lee’s brother Edward. We later found out by word and experience that Edward and his granddaughter Bessie haunted the place. Bessie raised Dalmatians at Lee Haven until two of them turned on her and killed her. This little twist in the hunt just added to the growing excitement.

The first day was my day with the cameraman (Justin Flaherty), it was a three-day hunt and there was only one cameraman. That morning I was set up in a saddle between a creek and a little pond. We were sitting there awhile when I noticed a flock of cardinals. This was a good sign because my high school mascot was a cardinal. We didn’t see any deer that morning, so we headed back to the lodge for some lunch and to set up the game plan for the evening hunt.

Walt Simmons, one of our guides, drove Justin and me out to a Biologic field they named as the Honeyhole, and for good reason. There he showed me the old hog trap that I would be sitting in as a blind. It was really cool - there was no way that the deer were going to see me in there but I could see them perfectly. We were sitting there about an hour when I noticed a doe coming to the field to feed right across from were I was sitting. I was watching her for a while and noticed she kept on looking over towards the far corner of the field. I followed her gaze and spotted a much bigger deer making its way into the field. I took out my binoculars and spotted it was a nice buck - an 8 pointer. He was out there about 175 yards and was feeding his way towards us. He had no idea we were there and the wind was in our favor so we let him work his way in closer for a while.

The longer I sat there the calmer my nerves became, by the time I was ready to take the shot I was no longer shaking. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to take him soon. I put my crosshairs behind the shoulder, clicked off the safety and slowly applied pressure to the trigger. BANG!!! He ran 50 yards and went down.

We decided to wait until my dad and Mr. Wilson came to pick up to retrieve the deer. While we were waiting a pair of hogs came in the field. At Lee Haven they have a really big problem with hogs, you couldn’t find an area of the woods that the hogs haven’t ripped up while feeding. Justin told me that I should take one. I pulled up my rifle put the crosshairs behind the shoulder and squeezed. BANG!!! In a matter of minutes I got my first buck and my first hog.

We sent word back to camp that I had shot a doe. When dad and Mr. Wilson came upon the field they saw Justin and me waiting for them with big grins. We told them to follow us and led them to where we saw it go down and sure enough, there laid my first buck. There was a huge feeling of accomplishment all around. Not that a doe wouldn’t have been great – but a buck – and what a buck!

We had everything going just right. As Mr. Wilson said, “God provided us with great weather, great hospitality, great food, great hunting, and no haunting.” What more could I ask for. I got my first buck - a nice 8 pointer. The whole hunt was recorded on videotape for a Mossy Oak TV show. The meat from my deer and hog were used to feed over 200 nutritious meals to people who needed it. Justin even took us on a visit to the Mossy Oak TV Production Center and the Mossy Oak Shopping Mall. Wow…it truly was my hunt of a lifetime. I guess the impossible is possible.

Josh Rabska