Christian Brown and Scott Wier almost didn't get to do one of their favorite things this year, but then circumstances brought them together and both had a grand time on April 14.
Brown, a 33-year-old disabled Marine from Munford, Tenn., just north of Memphis, won the prize for biggest bird taken by any of the hunters in the 2018 Tennessee Governor's One Shot Turkey Hunt in Middle Tennessee. Wier was his guide and won a new Beretta shotgun along with Brown because he killed a turkey also and they had the day's largest combination.
Wier, 27, grew up in Chattanooga and graduated from Baylor School in 2009. He now lives in Hermitage, Tenn., and is in a master's program in nearby Madison to be a nurse anesthetist. He has a nursing degree from the University of Tennessee.
Like Brown, Wier has been a hunter since childhood, and the Governor's One Shot has been part of his enjoyment. It annually begins the state's spring wild turkey season and is the main fundraising event for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Foundation.
The foundation bills it as "Tennessee's most famous hunt," and it costs $1,000 for someone to enter or to sponsor a wounded veteran's entry. A guide doesn't pay - his obligation is to arrange for the land for a hunter's use and to provide a good experience - and if his hunter scores a turkey he's allowed to try for one of his own.
The hunt happens anywhere within range of a 3 p.m. weigh-in deadline in Franklin, where the day ends with a banquet that includes silent and live auctions of outdoors merchandise, activities and travel packages - and awards for the top hunters.
"I go every year. It's one of my favorite hunts," Brown said Tuesday by phone.
Wier was unavailable for the 2017 event but two years ago guided for a hunter whose turkey was in the top five. And he was asked some time ago to be a Governor's One Shot guide again.
Although he started deer hunting with his father and his brother when Scott was 8, he was 16 or so before he tried turkey hunting. It became his favorite kind, and he's continually on the lookout for places to try it.
There was a snag last month, however: Despite extensive research into the area and a lot of "knocking on doors," Wier couldn't line up a place for his One Shot hunt. He had to tell TWRF development director Johnny Allred to count him out.
But then a woman in the Gallatin area made her property available - about a week before the hunt - and Wier checked back in and learned it was not too late: Brown's scheduled guide had backed out because of family obligations, and the legless veteran needed a substitute or he would be left out.
"I had never hunted with a person like that, but he was experienced as a disabled hunter," Wier said. "It turned out great. It was definitely a one-of-a-kind experience that I'll always remember. It was special in so many ways."
Wier scouted the property for turkey roosts and the best locations for a hunter in a tracked wheelchair. He prepared the sites ahead of time, and he and Brown arrived well before daylight that Saturday - mindful also of a forecast for heavy rain and thunderstorms starting about 8 a.m.
"I had to have a place to get him in early and get the chair hidden," Wier related. "It was like a 100-acre farm, so I had a plan A, plan B, plan C and plan D. I had kind of cut a hole in the brush and had a little pile on the side to use to cover the chair."
The place he picked worked wonderfully, and Brown's turkey calling and shooting expertise paid off quickly with a 19.5-pounder sporting an 11-inch beard.
Other nearby birds naturally were spooked, so Wier "belly crawled" across a field to get his turkey - a 24.7-pounder with a 10.1-inch beard.
"Christian got his at like 6:30 and I got mine at like 7:30," he said. "Literally a few minutes after we got done, there came a torrential rain."
"It was a great day," Brown said. "Absolutely we were on the roost. You couldn't ask for better than that. We even got out of there before the rain started.
"Scott had us right in the living room where those turkeys lived."
Brown grew up hunting deer and ducks but didn't try turkeys until 2013 - after the December 2011 explosion in Afghanistan that cost him his legs, among other injuries.
"This was the first (kind of activity) I got into after the injury," he said. "Everybody's got to find their own niche, their own thing that makes them want to get up in the morning. For me, being able to get back out in the woods and do something I always loved meant everything."
Of Wier he said, "I'm just excited to know there are people who care in the younger generation who are stepping up to keep that event going. It's important. I have friends who got their first turkey in (the One Shot hunt), and it's good to know that people of that young age are getting involved."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.