Hunter Kaden Achor may not be able to walk. But he loves to hunt and refuses to let his disability define him and stop him. The hunter recently went big bull elk hunting in Wyoming.
Since he can't walk due to cerebral palsy, Achor ended up crawling 75 yards to get the perfect shot. He was elbows with prairie cactus, but all of that paid off when he took a 500-yard shot.
"Of course, I had my adrenaline going. I had to sit there for maybe 20 minutes. Just to calm myself down before I took the shot," he told Cowboy State Daily. "I knew I had a task to accomplish and something I wanted to get done. I came to Wyoming for one thing, and one thing only: To kill an elk."
Achor was part of the "Putting the 'U' in Hunt" program. It invites several youth with health issues out to the state to bag some big game. The organization Muley Fanatics get special permits that allow disabled hunters to go out five days early in the state. Achor went with his father Gary to Wyoming for a chance to hunt the elk.
Up until now, he was used to hunting whitetail deer down in Indiana. Following the kill, they'll be eating well.
Hunter Bags Deer
"We went and bought another freezer to put all that elk meat in," he said. The hunter explained that his kill came down to the wire.
"We were in double overtime. I had probably 30 minutes of legal shooting light left. It really came down to the wire. "It was surreal. I miss it already. I miss being out there in the desert."
He was far from the only hunter out there enjoying the outdoors. 14-year-old Aeriana Quinteras also can't walk due to cerebral palsy. The organization gave her a chance to hunt that she may not have otherwise got.
"It was huge for our family. We don't have elk around — We don't have the wildlife around like you do in Wyoming. We see turkey and deer sometimes, but we don't have the variety of animals that you do," her father said. After carrying her wheelchair 50 yards, Aeriana took the shot by using a straw-like attachment.
Meanwhile, Stacey O'Neal' says her son Matthew also shot a buck. Matthew just had a heart transplant back in April.
"Going out to Wyoming and going on that hunt was exactly what our little family needed after the journey we've been on for the last 12 years," she told Cowboy State Daily.
