A question I'm often asked is, “What do you expect from football with the Washington Redskins this year?” This season we plan to take a big step forward based on how we played the last few games of the 2015 season. We plan to take off where we left off last season. Football is a lot like hunting in that the more time and energy you spend on the small details of both sports, the greater your chances are of being successful and/or winning. In football, all five linemen have to be on the same page, and each man has to execute his assignment to the best of his ability on every play. Our line is only as strong as the line’s weakest person. We've got a good quarterback in Kirk Cousins, who was drafted in 2012. So, I believe we will have a really-good team for 2016, and that’s the direction we’re working toward.
For hunting, I'm going to try to hunt early muzzleloader season for deer in Iowa. I hope to hunt as much as I can before, during and after football season. I'm really looking forward to working with Mossy Oak also. They have some great camouflage that allows me to get in close to animals and be able to take them.
So far, we've talked about deer hunting. But to explain my hunting roots and why I love hunting so much, we have to include turkey season. I started hunting turkeys in the seventh grade. The first year I hunted them, I took a jake. The second year I harvested a double-bearded gobbler. Last year I decided to take up a new challenge – bowhunting turkeys, because I'm eaten-up with bowhunting.
Last year I was fortunate enough to take a big gobbler 10 minutes after daylight. I was hunting with my brother-in-law, Mike De Ruyter. We were hunting in southern Iowa on some private land of one of my friends. When we got up, the rain was pouring down, and my friend said, “I think I’ll wait unit the rain stops.” But Mike and I decided to go out in the rain. We really wanted to hunt turkeys. We got to the deepest part of the woods about 5:55 am, set-up a blind and put out a jake and a hen decoy. We were comfortable in our Double Bull blind. I made two soft purrs, and a tom came running in and started strutting 8 yards from the blind. I drew my Mathews Z9 bow, and I had a Rage broadhead on the front of my arrow shaft. When I released the arrow, it flew true. I picked up my gobbler, and Mike and I went home. This was the fastest turkey hunt I’d ever had. The turkey had an 11-1/2-inch beard, a 7-1/2-inch beard and 1-1/2-inch spurs.
I also took my first Merriam’s gobbler this year with my bow. Mike and I were hunting in central Nebraska and had a flock of toms gobbling across the river from where we had set-up our blind. When they finally flew down on our side of the river, they landed just a little north of us. So, Mike and I got out of our blind and hustled up to the north to try and cut the turkeys off and maybe get a shot. We reached a little hill that allowed us to see down in the bottom where we had been hunting. We spotted one gobbler strutting with four hens and four other gobblers on the other side of the river. All the birds were close to our blind. We hurried back and got in our blind, and I gave a few purrs and clucks. Then I shut up and quit calling. In about 10 minutes, we heard a turkey spitting and drumming. A Merriam’s gobbler displaying about 20 yards from us on a sandbar. Mike took the shot and bagged his bird with his Bowtech bow, and I kept calling. In less than a minute, a second gobbler came out to the sandbar, and I shot that gobbler with my Mathews Z9 bow. So, we took two Merriam’s gobblers within a minute of each other. That was one of my most incredible turkey hunts ever. I really enjoyed seeing those white tips on the ends of the turkey’s tail feathers, and the white on the backs of the bird. These turkeys were so pretty, and the hunt was so exciting, I had that gobbler mounted.
To keep up with Brandon Scherff during football season and hunting season, you can go to his Twitter account at www.twitter.com/bscherff68.
The Washington Redskins’ Brandon Scherff Has a Hunting Dream Not Yet Realized
