By ERIC S. SMITH, Staff Writer
CALN----The opportunity for a dream hunting trip was presented to Michael Ciarlone, an avid outdoorsman from the township, but he was unsure about going.
After all, the trip wasn't set up for him; he wasn't the one who was supposed to be hunting.
The trip was organized by Hunt of a Lifetime, a group that sets up hunting trips for children with terminal illnesses. And this particular elk hunt in New Mexico was supposed to be given to Michael's son, Matthew, who has leukemia.
But Matthew died Jan. 9, before he had a chance to take the trip. But local Hunt of a Lifetime organizer Jason Say still wanted to make the trip happen. So he reached out to U.S. Outfitters and secured funding for Michael to do the hunt.
Yet, Michael was hesitant.
"I had to think about it for three or four weeks," Michael said. "This wasn't my hunt; it was Matt's hunt."
After contemplating the offer, Michael went to a half-million-acre ranch outside of Albuquerque, N.M. for five days to
make Matthew's dream come true.
"I knew if i didn't do it, Matt would kick my butt," Michael said.
Michael, who is in his 60s, walked 10 to 14 miles a day across rough terrain and shot at two elk during the entire trip.
He fired his first shot on the next to last day of the trip. From about 150 to 200 yards away, Ciarlone fired a shot that missed the animal.
"It would have been a good shot; I don't know how I missed it," said Ciarlone, who carried a picture of his son in his shirt pocket during the entire hunt and has a tattoo of Matthew's likeness on his left arm. "I don't usually miss."
But Ciarlone thought nothing of it when he arrived back at camp for the night about 8:30 p.m. and never checked the gun.
Everyone at camp knew that Ciarlone was on the trip in place of his son, but no one dared ask about Matthew. On the last morning of the hunt, Ciarlone stood up and told his story.
"There wasn't a dry eye in the place," Ciarlone said.
Everyone was determined to get Ciarlone an elk because he was the person in camp to not have have made a kill.
With just two hours remaining in the hunt, Ciarlone fired a shot and immediately knew he had hit the elk as it reared up on its legs just a bit. He continued to stalk the bull and fired again, missing the animal. Then from just 40 yards out, he fired another shot and also missed.
On the fourth shot, he hit the elk in the belly and made the kill. But bewildered by his lack of accuracy, Ciarlone looked down the barrel at a point on the ground and then when he looked through the scope, the point was inches away. Ciarlone estimates that the gun was off by 4 or 5 feet at 20 yards away.
Say realized they never shot the gun when they arrived at camp and Ciarlone had been using a misaligned gun during the entire trip.
Yet he nailed the elk from 150 yards. When asked how he did it, Ciarlone simply pointed directly upward.
"I now know he was watching," Ciarlone said. "I cried and looked up and said, 'Matthew, this one is for you.'"
Everyone was so overwhelmed with emotion when the kill was made that it never dawned on them that a gun was calibrated so far off, and yet Ciarlone hit the shot.
The Ciarlone family suffered for more than a year as Matthew battled leukemia, and they later mourned his passing. Yet somehow, on that October day, Michael was able to take a bittersweet trophy.
Community support in the Downingtown area in the wake of Matthew's death was overwhelming. Since Matthew was a baseball player at Downingtown West High School, the family sponsored a softball tournament, Bats for Matt, in his honor and established a scholarship for a baseball player at his former high school.
They also gave money to the Downingtown Little League to build dugouts, and a memorial was placed at the field in his honor.
For more information about Michael's hunt, "Wired Outdoors" is scheduled to air 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 24, on the Sportsman Channel on Verizon FIOS.
