The Dawson Hunt

The Dawson Hunt

Amid flash floods, altered terrain and a lot of soggy food, the Dawson clan by the grace of God stayed safe and has returned home from their Northern Arizona Elk hunt. The silver lining is, there are some great stories to tell!

Reading The Dawson Hunt 1 minute
By John Roy
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"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you."

Isaiah 43:2

The Dawson clan recently ventured out of the shop taking some of the awesome knives we make and using them for the purpose that many of them were intended for - hunting!

After rolling into the sweet-smelling Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines in the mountains of Northern Arizona, camp was broken excitedly in anticipation of a delicious camp cooked lunch (lunches on Dawson hunts are a big deal). God however, had other plans…

The sky opened up and began to pour on us. It rained. and it rained. and it rained. And it didn’t let up. After receiving severe flash flood warnings on our phones, the decision laid before us: did we abandon camp and the hunt or did we tough it out and trust in the good Lord to keep us safe. The smart thing to do probably would have been to head out. But us Dawsons never have been accused of being smart, we are pretty damn tough though. So, we decided to trust God that he would take care of us and we stayed.

There are two things we know unequivocally about hunting in Arizona, one - always choose a high a dry camping spot, the weather can change on a dime, and the territory is famous for deadly flash floods. And two - unlike states that receive more yearly precipitation and have a greater abundance of wildlife, here in Arizona elk are scarcer and the competition is fierce - if everybody else is leaving, staying might mean the difference between harvesting meat or going home empty handed.

So we did the best we could to round up some grub and get everyone fed in the pouring rain, then we all ducked into our tents to wait it out for the night. Many prayers were said from our little campsite that night. The storm continued to dump on us all through the night, loudly blowing and pattering against the tents, around 11:00pm one of the tents sprung a leak and we all scrambled to pitch tarps over the top to shed the water away. Soaked we went back to our tents and cranked our Little Buddy heaters to get warm and try to get some sleep. Around 3:00am without warning there was another BOOM! a flash of brilliant light directly overhead shocked us awake, the atmosphere above the camp shook, we felt the percussion in our chests, we felt the hairs stand up on our necks and we knew that one was close!

In the morning, we got a slight reprieve and the downpour turned to a drizzle so we grabbed the gear and headed out to see if we could pick up a trail. When we stepped outside the tents in the morning a tree not more than 20 yards from the camp had been stripped of its bark and was black on top, we knew this must have been the flash and boom we heard so close to camp that night. As we looked around, we heard the sound of rushing water nearby, 50 yards from camp a river had sprung up out of nowhere.
After exploring briefly around camp, we headed out. We split up into to two teams, Dennis and two of his children and John and two of his boys. Dennis’ daughter was able to spot an Elk early on and took down a beauty that morning. Later, back home at our meat packing “party” they packed up over 130lbs of meat into the freezer. Mmmm, nothin’ like Elk meat for dinner!

After two days of drudging through the mud and rain, the sun came out and John’s youngest son was finally able to take a shot. To hear John tell the whole story of what happened next, check out the By Fire & Faith micro-podcast here.
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