The Dr. Bob Speegle Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award Committee selected John Hattner as the 2025 Award recipient.
Hattner will be presented with the award at the Saturday evening banquet at the 2025 DSC Convention and Sporting Expo in Atlanta on Jan. 11.
Hattner qualified in multiple categories for the award by completing his DSC African 32, of which 20 are record class; Spiral Horned Antelope of Africa: 15 species, of which nine are record class; and Wild Oxen and Buffalo of the World: 10 species, of which seven are record class.
Hattner started his hunting career following in his dad’s footsteps in the snow in the upper Midwest, mainly hunting small game.
“We ate all the small game we hunted,” he said. “Mostly rabbits, squirrels, pheasants and ducks. My dad and I were very close and always had a rabbit hunt the morning of all the winter holidays. Unfortunately, I lost my dad at a young age when my son was just a year old.”
After a life review, Hattner decided he was getting back into hunting and committed himself to teach his son, Johnny, what hunting was about.
“Fortunately, Johnny took to hunting like a duck to water, as well as fishing, and we were able to spend a large amount of time together hunting,” Hattner said. “Since he was mostly limited to summers for hunting, we traveled to a number of southern hemisphere countries (mostly Africa) where we started hunting big game. Johnny harvested a large number of animals and won the Colin Caruthers Young Hunter Award.”
The most challenging animal on the way to the OHAA award was a North American giant.
“I was challenged to obtain my Western Canadian moose,” John said. “It took me three trips over a 10-year period and a brand-new set of titanium knees before I was finally able to harvest my moose.”
