Editor’s Note: No, Taylor Drury, the daughter of Mark Drury of Drury Outdoors, wasn’t wrapped in Mossy Oak when she came home from the hospital. But according to Taylor, “There is a picture of me hanging at home of me in Mossy Oak when I was 6-months old. So, I feel like I was born in Mossy Oak.” Now 18-years old and a freshman in college, this week Taylor Drury will talk about growing-up as a hunter.
Don’t get me wrong. I really love to hunt, but if I am really honest, what I love most about hunting is being one-on-one with my dad, Mark Drury. Our company, Drury Outdoors stands for family. There is no way to get more quality time with my family, especially my dad, than our being in the woods together. Hunting is such a sacred activity to my family. Hunting means so much to my dad, and I love to be with him. My dad and I are best friends. I always have had a very-close relationship with my parents while I was growing up. Now that I’m in college, we’re still just as close as ever. I think having hunting as a common interest and a common passion for our family is neat.
Hunting has given my dad and me so much in common, and so much to talk about and do. My dad is gone a good portion of the year pursuing the passion that he loves, which is hunting. My mom, Tracy, and I support my dad’s love of hunting and the hunting business. So, the one-on-one time I get with my dad is very precious to me, especially when we go to the woods together. When we’re sitting in a ground blind or our tree stands, we get to talk about things important to both of us, and we get to re-live other hunting trips or adventures that we’ve spent together. My dad has been a tremendous role model to me – seeing how-much effort he puts into his hunting and his work, and how hard he tries to be the best he can be. Growing up, I really didn’t realize all the things that my dad was teaching me. I just thought it was neat to ride the 4-wheeler with my dad and check trail cameras.
Before I could hunt, I remember how much fun we had shooting my gun, blowing-up pumpkins that were my targets, busting the balloons in the basement that my dad would blow-up and stick to a backstop. I just saw all those things as fun activities that I was doing with my dad. At that time, I didn’t realize he was teaching me to hunt and to love to hunt. As I got older, I began to realize that every little fun activity that Dad created for me he was teaching me how to hunt and how to live. Today I can apply everything that he’s taught me about the woods and hunting. I feel I’m a well-rounded hunter with tons of experience. I have come to realize that I wouldn’t enjoy the sport of hunting as much as I do, if my dad hadn’t blow-up all those hundreds maybe thousands of balloons for me to shoot with my bow, put those hundreds of pumpkins out for me to shoot with my gun and spent thousands of hours in a ground blind and in a tree stand with me. I truly appreciate all the time he’s spent helping me become a hunter, and teaching me life lessons in a tree stand and a ground blind. I feel truly blessed to have a family that hunts.
