13-year-old on target as a hunter
Zachery Johnston won the Youth Hunter of the Year award for 2011-12. The award is a belt buckle that Johnston has sported at school on occasion.
An addax is just one of the many animals 13-year-old Zack Johnston bagged during his hunting expeditions.
Zachery Johnston is a 13-year-old hunter who has bagged big game in Texas and Africa. Johnston stands next to an impala, bottom left, and a blesbok, top left.
One of Zack Johnston’s latest kills was a 10-foot alligator in Lake Okeechobee, Fla.
At 13 years old, Zachery Johnston has developed into one of the country’s most accomplished young exotic animal hunters.
Already, the Trinity Middle School eighth-grader – an honor roll student, baseball player and skier – achieved a Super Exotic Slam and a Texas Slam, joining an exclusive club of hunters who string together a group of species or subspecies kills to accomplish what are called “slams.”
He earned the Jason McCullen Memorial Youth Hunter of the Year award from the Trophy Game Records of the World in 2011-12. On a hunt in South Africa in July, Johnston killed a 600-pound lion, and in December, he shot a 10-foot alligator at Lake Okeechobee in Florida.
“He’s really come along as a hunter. He’s probably about 15 years ahead of the curve. Most people who complete slams are at least 30 years old,” said Aaron Bulkley, owner of Texas Hunt Lodge, who was a guide for Zachery and his father, Dana, a financial planner, a half-dozen times at his lodge just outside of Kerrsville, Texas (on the Guadalupe River in Texas hill country), and in Africa. “He’s extremely interested, and he’s growing in his hunting career. He’s polite, a sharp kid, intelligent and a pleasure to be around.”
Zachery started hunting when he was 9, accompanying his father on a deer hunting trip to Ridgway.
One of Dana’s clients suggested the pair accompany him on a trip to the Texas Hunt Lodge, and after Zachery bagged exotic game large enough to land him in the Safari Club International record books, he was hooked.
“I like spending the time with my dad and having my mom with me when we travel,” Johnston said. “I just like the rush and the fun and the excitement of hunting.”
He comes from a family of hunters.
His grandfather, Robert Johnson, who owned Robert Johnston Kitchen & Bath, spent one week each year hunting – the only break from work he took – and planned to travel out West to hunt with Dana after Dana graduated from college.
But Robert Johnston died in 1990, while Dana was a student at Washington & Jefferson College, and they never got to make the trip.
So Dana is happy with the father-son time.
“I get more enjoyment out of watching him hunt and just spending time together with him. I get a lot of comments about how good he is, people will say, ‘It’s amazing how good your son is,’ and I enjoy that,” said Dana, who bagged world-record game himself on their trips to Texas and Africa.
In the family room, more than a dozen mounted trophies Zachery and his father bagged on their trips include an impala, blesbok, wild boar, Corsican ram, a warthog shot by Zachery with a crossbow, oryx, African porcupine, jackal and sika.
In the African bush near Botswana, he shot the lion from about 65 yards away, with a Winchester rifle with a suppressor attached.
“He had no idea we were following him, and as he turned around and faced us, he smelled us,” said Zachery, pointing out that Bulkley later told him that lions can cover 100 yards in four seconds.
The lion’s meat was given to villagers, as is custom with animals shot on the property of the Africa Hunt Lodge, where food and funds go to the local community. Fees for the expeditions can cost thousands of dollars.
Exotics hunting is big business in Texas, supporting thousands of jobs. More than 100 species of exotic animals, including some endangered in the wild, live on ranches there and can be hunted for sport. Texas Hunt Club offers more than 60 species.
Zachery and Dana are planning additional trips to Texas and Africa and want to head West for elk.
“He’s never been a kid who will stay inside playing Xbox,” said Dana. “He’d much rather be outside doing something.”