OUTDOORS
love eating fresh dove, turkey and other game that enters his
crosshairs. “My roommate’s mom showed me how to slice it
thin, soak it in pancake batter then dip it in flour and deep fry
it. I would like to do that but my mom will probably buy a
Butterball turkey when they visit me.”
Hayden-Kaplan is a junior at Bethel University in Tennessee,
studying business on a shooting scholarship made possible
by his stepfather’s early encouragement of his proficiency
with firearms and the 10-year-old Young Guns scholastic clay
shooting team at Quail Creek Plantation in Okeechobee. He
joined the Young Guns as a high school sophomore and went
to national competitions twice, contests in which shooters
are faced with 600 moving targets over 8 days. He has since
landed a summer job at the preserve helping to set up the clay
shooting course, which he likens to “golf with a shotgun.”
“If we miss a shot, we tell each other ‘focus on it harder,’
because it’s more of a mental game than a matter of skill,” he
says. Shooting turkeys is just as challenging as clays, he says,
contradicting their reputation as dumb birds. “They’re very
smart; they can spot movement very well.”
HUNTING ON THE RISE
Hayden-Kaplan is one of about 242,000 licensed hunters in
Florida, a number far outmatched by the state’s 3.1 million
licensed fishermen, according to census data. The number of
residents hunting in Florida rose by about 20,000 from 2006-
2011 (more recent numbers are not available).
State Fish and Wildlife spokesmen say nobody tracks
the number of out-of-state hunters who visit the state’s 181
preserves, which do not require any sort of hunting license to >>
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SAM HAYDEN-KAPLAN
Shooting at clay targets won Hayden-Kaplan a scholarship to college and
has put food on his family’s dinner table as well.
QUAIL CREEK PLANTATION
Shooting clay targets and birds remains popular at Okeechobee-area preserves where out-of-state residents can also hunt exotic animals without licenses.