Tragic spring turkey hunt
May 26th, 2005 by Administrator
Dentry: Tragic spring turkey hunt leaves many in mourning
Spring turkey hunting is a remarkably safe activity considering hunters wear green camouflage, hide and make turkey noises. There is a good reason no one ever has been shot in Colorado while actively hunting turkeys in spring. Until now, that is.
No rifles.
Only shotguns and archery equipment are allowed, for obvious reasons. Yet it was a small-caliber bullet that killed Jeff Garrett, of Aurora, on May 14. An investigation is under way, but no suspects have turned up.
Garrett was hunting in heavy brush on a hillside above East Elk Creek, north of New Castle. Two friends called the Garfield County Sheriff’s office when he did not meet them as planned. Before dark, a volunteer’s rescue dog led searchers to the body.
Such a shame. Garrett, 37, a public-relations specialist and assistant vice president at Qwest Communications, was a passionate hunter and one of hunting’s finest exemplars. A gentleman in every respect, he enjoyed taking others hunting and serving as their guide and safety officer.
That’s how I met him, on a pheasant hunt across wide grain fields near Oakley, Kan., in December. Garrett was in charge of a virtual army of pheasant hunters. Those who had not met him before quickly enlisted in his much larger army of friends. He was like that: eminently likable, as well as gentle and quietly in charge.
After a big sweep through a grassy Kansas draw, Garrett noted, without complaint, directing a team of pheasant hunters was something “like herding cats.” But he managed to keep discipline and camaraderie among the troops.
You can tell a lot about someone by the way he treats his dog. Garrett’s companion was Lily, a Labrador retriever on the small and gentle side. The pair seemed to work as one.
I found it curious he took a conversational tone with Lily instead of using standard hunting dog commands.
“Hey, Lily, hunt over there by that man,” he would say, and she would.
Like Garrett, Lily proved to be a communications specialist. There was no doubt she understood every word her pal said, as well as his body language, and that she aimed to please.
That led me to observe she probably was no kennel dog but a beloved member of the household. Garrett smiled and nodded. He was proud of her.
A few weeks ago, he sent me a photo of himself and a friend with an eastern gobbler he bagged in his native Oklahoma. His e-mail was filled with admiration for wild turkeys and the beauty of spring turkey hunting. Then this.
“I think Jeff was one of the finest young men I’ve ever met,” said Charlie Russell, president of C/A Russell Partners, a Denver public-relations firm.
Russell met Garrett about five years ago and was on the Kansas pheasant hunting team in December.
“There are a lot of guys you go hunting with that you like,” he said. “But I can truly say that I had more respect and admiration for Jeff, at his age, than maybe anybody I’ve ever known.”
Ron Souser, Garrett’s longtime friend and hunting mentor, said he taught Garrett to shoot and hunt when he was fresh from college. They were close friends as well as hunting buddies.
“You read about guys who got killed (hunting),” Souser said. “When it happens and you don’t know them, it’s an unfortunate occurrence. But when it happens to you and yours, it takes on a new meaning. It’s a tragedy.”
The tragedy is all the more tragic, not only because Garrett was so likable, but because he was a safety- conscious hunter.
“There’s nobody who comes to mind who is any safer than Jeff has been, which is why I trusted him to run some of my pheasant hunts,” Souser said.
But then, this was not a hunting accident. It appears to have been more like a poaching incident. If the shooter had been safe, and legal, instead of firing a .22-caliber rifle at noise in some brush, Jeff Garrett would be among his friends and family.
dentrye@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5481