National Championship Contender

Living on a farm outside of East Freedom is a young man who has recently contended for a national championship. His name is Aden Dively, and he is just 13 years old and is entering eighth grade at Spring Cove.

Aden and his dad are enthusiastic bass fishermen. During the summer they fish for river smallmouths nearly every weekend on a catch-and-release basis. To say that they are successful is an understatement. In fact, Aden has landed smallies over 20 inches long.

As if this weren't enough, Aden has become a deadly crossbow hunter. He has taken a quite a few deer while using his crossbow, including three dandy bucks. The buck he arrowed last autumn sported eight points, with the brow tines being 5" long. The rack's inside spread was 19 inches, which is wider than the widest racks most hunters ever collect. It's hard to imagine how many more bucks he will down in his lifetime.

Even more impressive than his deer hunting is his skill with wild turkeys. In his short hunting career, he has killed seven gobblers, three of which he called in himself. He has had a good teacher. His dad, Jake Dively, owns JD Custom Calls and makes fine turkey calls, specializing in friction calls. Aden has become involved in the business and helps his dad make the calls from special wood.

Turkeys are in big trouble when Aden is hunting them. Aden is a competitive turkey caller and has won a number of prestigious calling contests while using box callers. He showed me trophies for winning the West Virginia Junior Calling Championship, the Virginia Junior Championship, and the Maryland Junior Championship. In addition, he stepped up a level and won the Maryland Intermediate Turkey Calling Championship. This is quite a collection of state championships.

Perhaps even more impressive is that he won second place in the National Wild Turkey Federation's national junior championship in Nashville recently. Aden was competing against age-level callers from all over the country in front of an audience of thousands of turkey-hunting and -calling enthusiasts. It is remarkable that he has been competing for only a year.

His dad started to teach him to call when Aden was only five. His dad along, with nationally known caller Ben Chamberlain of Claysburg, coaches Aden; and Aden practices calling every day, often for hours. Aden demonstrated some cutts and yelps. His calls sounded better than those of a real turkey.

Aden says that calling and hunting are in his blood. He is an impressive young sportsman.