When I’m in my feels I write, it gives me something productive to do instead of just cry.
Over the last 2 years we’ve done a lot of waving and hugging bye and it still hasn’t gotten any easier, and nothing prepares you.
Nothing really prepares you for the vacancy at home, For waking up to an empty house and being all alone.
The missing sound of tiny feet and all the chatter being gone. Driving away after holidays with empty seats just feels wrong.
Nothing prepares you for leaving them behind, or watching them drive out the driveway to go back to their home, or the feeling that poisons that last day together knowing tomorrow you’ll wake up empty and alone.
Nothing prepares you for the tightness in your chest and the invisible hand around your neck. Just when you think you’ve got the battle won and you can make it, the memories flood back!
The tears cloud your vision at random times in the day, and the pain that comes with missing them dulls but never goes away. It’s not as though they’re completely gone, you’ll see them again, you’ll arrange vacations and visits and burn up the FaceTime calls until you’re back together with them.
The time is never long enough, you hate for them to leave. No one really prepares you for your bigs to grow up or the way it makes you grieve. When the first ones out you begin to grieve the others if they’re close, even though they’re still at home you know all of them leaving will hurt the most. You learn to treasure the moments and the time that you have left, you hold them a little tighter and hug a little longer and don’t explain your eyes when they randomly become wet. Nothing can prepare you for the way letting them grow up feels, even though you know it’s the right way you, just long for those big sit down family meals.
The laughter around the table now is a balm that heals your soul, and the pile of shoes and chaos that maybe used to bother you is let go!
Nothing really prepares you when all of you grow old, maybe something will come along and ease the ache someday like a grand baby to hold.
I’m sure that if you google top things to do or places to go for your anniversary, alligator hunting is not at the top of the list, or even on the list at all. For Shaun and me, we could think of no better thing to do, however. We had had a gentleman who came to our house with the easement company to explain that they were going to have shredders and mowers on our property clearing the pipeline easement that runs in front of our house and down one side of the property. He was talking through how it was going to go and assuring us that they would pay attention to our horses and cattle and make sure that our gates were closed. As we were talking to him, he told us the story and showed us pictures of a 10ft alligator he and his wife had just harvested as standby hunters on a Texas Parks and Wildlife hunt. He was incredibly excited and had even typed up the story which he let us read.
That was it for us, we figured if these two 60ish year olds could go unprepared with no bait or anything and set their line out with rented kayaks that we could improve on their preparedness and do it too! He took us to the website and helped us find the drawn hunts page and the information about showing up to put in for the standby drawing if you weren’t drawn prior to the hunt. We read and re-read his story, watched every episode of Swamp People that was available at the time just in case any of that was actually like reality, and did a ton of research and read forums.
We ordered large hooks and paracord from eBay and practiced setting the line out. While my dad was visiting from Georgia, we returned home from a fishing expedition at the Trinity River to discover a message left on our answering machine. A guy from TPWD had tried to call us about a drawn hunt we had put in for. I returned his phone call and much to our delight, learned that we had been drawn for the alligator hunt on September 15 and 16th, no need to go down on standby we were already in! He said our letter had been returned as undeliverable, but a quick search of our customer info showed the same address, so he was doing his last due diligence to inform us. We also discovered during our conversation that we had both gone to Stephen F Austin State University for forestry and wildlife management and bonded over different amazing assignments and professors as well as crazy assignments from professors. Lumberjacks are instant family in the same way Aggies are even if they’ve never met! He was familiar with the area we were going to be hunting and told us how the hunt would go and where to request to get to hunt based on where he had seen a lot of gators!
When I got off the phone Shaun and I were literally giddy almost to the point of jumping up and down with excitement. My dad, on the other hand, was not nearly as sure. As it turned out, most of the family wasn’t as fired up about us going alligator hunting as we were. Shaun’s dad, of course, was elated for us but he had been in the trenches hog hunting with us for years at this point and he never shies away from something just because it might be dangerous and would never encourage us to. Be prepared and ready, be afraid even, but do it even if you’re scared! My mom volunteered to watch the kids overnight and bring them down the morning of the hunt when the lines had been set out all night over the water so they could be there to see us come in with a gator if we got one.
About a week or so before the hunt, we bought some small whole chickens and left them in a bucket with a lid on it and some other juices and things that when left in the sun for that length of time would be pretty rank. It was, we had gotten to where you could smell it before you reached the bucket! We rented one of the winterized cabins and brought our air mattress and set up camp, launched our little river boat, and went out to do a little scouting. An older pair of gentlemen saw us as we headed out to scout, and we told them it was to be our first time and how we had prepared. They were veteran alligator hunters and shared some tips with us. When we came back in from scouting it seemed they were waiting on us and debating whether or not to go looking for us. They’d been worried about us and upon our arrival, insisted that we come back to their camp to eat dinner. There was no telling them no, and no reason to either. I’m not sure how we ate some sort of alligator soup that night, I didn’t ask questions about it other than what spices he used because it was delicious, he only explained what part of the alligator it had come from and how to cut it up and prepare the crock pot. They were only too happy to share a meal with us and exchange hunting stories and when I shared several hog hunting stories of my own, they visibly relaxed and determined audibly to us that we were going to be alright. We thanked them profusely for the dinner and fellowship and returned to our cabin for the morning’s orientation and release to hunt!
After we were called in to show our licenses and be assigned hunt compartments or areas to hunt which we got to choose, we actually got the area that my fellow alumni suggested, all the hunters sat through orientation and demonstrations so we would all know what to do and how to do it to keep us safe as well as legal. Shaun and I grabbed our bamboo poles and headed out! We set two lines in two separate areas as we each had a tag and came back in to wait. Since we were close to the ramp and staging area we saw a hunter come in with a gator that afternoon and went to investigate. We ended up making friends with him and told him where we had put our lines, he was familiar with the area and thought we had good spots. The next morning, he met us at the boat ramp and told us and the biologist that he passed one of our lines on the way in and that it was down. At the biologist’s suggestion he volunteered to follow us to our line and observe and only help if we were in a bind. I’m not sure if this was out of an abundance of caution for first timers or because I’m a girl or that I was wearing my life jacket and flip flops or what, but I was grateful for someone watching out for us.
As we reached the line, we could see the grass on the bank was pretty torn up and the water around was muddy. When Shaun grabbed the line and slowly began pulling it in fist over fist into the boat, he felt something huge and heavy on the other end. Slowly he pulled the alligator until his head broke the surface of the water as I readied the .410 shotgun standing beside him. In hindsight, my flip flop clad foot being propped on the side of the boat that the alligator was being pulled up on was probably not the safest choice but fortunately I didn’t lose any toes and as his head broke the surface and he began thrashing and fighting to get away, I put it down and we redoubled our efforts. Shaun pulled him back up again as I readied the gun and when his head slightly breached the water the second time, I took aim directly behind his skull and squeezed. Instantly the alligator stilled and water splashed up around us from the shot. Our hunter friends in the boat observing us whooped and hollered, clapped, and congratulated us telling us it certainly did not look like our first gator! Shaun and I tapped his mouth out of an abundance of caution and pulled him into the boat as well as retrieved our pole.
When we got back to the biologist check station at the boat ramp, we were grinning from ear to ear and all three of our kiddos were standing their being tightly held onto by my mother looking on with huge eyes and maybe a little admiration for their parents. We drug him out and the biologist took his measurements and tagged him, he was an 8 foot 9in bull, and we sent him over to the skinners who were there in case anyone needed their services but let us watch and help too!
Our second line had been empty, so we had reset it on the way in with the first alligator. It was time to head back out and check it. Since we had only set it up a couple hours ago, when we tried to go find the area looking for the white line hanging, we couldn’t find it. After trolling around for a few minutes, we thought, what if the line has fallen or we have a second alligator and began looking for the pole instead. We quickly located it and slowly drifted in. Shaun grabbed the line to see if it had just fallen or if we had something on it. To our surprise, as he began pulling in the line and it got tight, a very fresh and active alligator tugged back against him as he tried to get it closer to the boat. This guy was a fighter and drug our boat around a bit as Shaun fought him in. Like the last gator, I began loading and readying the shotgun, when Shaun got the alligator close to the boat and his head breached the surface of the water, it was on me to shoot. In my excitement and fidgeting, I accidentally separated the receiver of the gun from the buttstock. It’s a very old gun and I knew if you torqued it a certain way that would happen. It wasn’t unsafe, just inconvenient. I began apologizing profusely and remember Shaun, who was fighting a very live and very fresh 9 foot 8 inch bull alligator, responded in the calmest and kindest voice, “its ok babe, he’s not going anywhere, just get ready and I’ll pull him up again.” His calmness in the middle of that battle was so comforting and reassuring to me! I quickly slipped the gun back together and got into position to shoot as he again pulled the alligator up. Just like the first one early that morning, the alligator instantly stilled, water rained down around us, and we grinned and high fived….and maybe kissed because, hey, it was our actual anniversary, and then pulled him in to head to the check station where our kiddos were again waiting.
Since this hunt, we have tweaked a few things, but each of our kiddos has been able to harvest at least one alligator from either being drawn for this hunt or going down on standby. Our daughter harvested a 10-foot 10-inch one in a whirlwind of a standby drawing some years later. We have made so many memories hunting alligators together as well as so many friends. Shaun and I were even drawn to hunt another location near the Texas coast some years later which ended up on our actual anniversary date again and we basically had a remake of the first trip and made another lifelong friend! To say that alligator hunting holds a special place in our hearts would be an understatement!
Duck hunting was a natural next on the list of ways to enjoy the outdoors with our family, the trouble is Shaun hadn’t ever been a duck hunter and obviously neither had I. We happened to have a couple of friends who were also a hubby and wife hunting and fishing duo that were big into duck hunting and more than willing to teach us. We had a place to hunt as our deer lease was more of a duck lease since the vast majority of it stayed under water more often than not, so we invited them to come and stay with us over a long weekend so they could teach us the ways of their people!
Cristy brought down an extra pair of waders she thought would fit me and we bought some for Shaun. Before we could ever get out to that field of flooded timber, we were making memories just trying on waders. Cristy is an athlete, incredibly coordinated at all times and picks up literally everything naturally, just like my hubby, Shaun. As she instructed me to put on those waders for the first time, it was clear I wasn’t nearly as coordinated and “a natural” as they are. She literally had to tuck me into them. I am, even if not natural, a very fast learner, and picked up walking in them on land, in water, and in mud, which are actually different, very quickly.
We had watched a lot of duck calling videos and done a lot of practicing after learning the differences in duck calls, reeds, and sounds. When Cristy and Cade, who are very experienced callers came down, rather than tell us to just let them do the calling, they listened to us, demonstrated for us, and encouraged us to call alongside them. I’m not an insanely confident person which usually comes as a surprise to everyone so their encouragement to do something I was way uncomfortable with meant the world to me. That was honestly the tone of the whole trip. I’m sure there were times when they looked at each other and probably thought “these yahoos,” but they demonstrated such patience with us even if we drove them nuts with novice mistakes.
Our pack of kids stayed home as the adults headed out for an adventure. We arrived at the deer lease and even standing there unloading shotguns and decoys and shimmying into our waders, we were seeing some birds flying and hearing some too! As we headed out into that flooded timber and got the decoys out and got stationed in our shooting positions, we talked strategy, and they began to call a bit. Up until this point, I had seen duck dogs but never had one and didn’t realize the true benefit of them quite yet. We had a few birds circling and we were trying the calls to entice them back, learning what calls to blow and what sounds to make and when as they circled overhead or flew farther out. We did get a few to come in and since we were stationed in positions a little away from each other they seemed to like where the guys were slightly better than where Cristy and I were.
Shaun and Cade had gotten a few birds and were enjoying themselves as were Cristy and I, both of us admiring our husbands and enjoying the outdoors. Maybe it’s just me, but I think my hubby is insanely attractive and I love watching him do what he loves, it amplifies the attractiveness whether its hunting or building something. I think it’s totally healthy to swoon over your husband while you’re enjoying life and adventures together. I get that’s not part of a normal hunting story, but I never claimed to be normal!
Anyhow, we were hearing some quacking and rasping overhead but they weren’t committed to coming in and Cristy encouraged me to hit them with a “comeback call”, and I did. I was so worried I’d sound like an idiot, but I had a basic idea of what she meant by that, and she stood pretty close to me talking me quietly through it. She and I were keeping our heads down while watching the ducks and she was instructing me and how to call and what to say depending on how they were responding and where they were overhead, just like we had talked about at home. They seemed to be committing and circling to come into where we were, and I was getting excited and nervous as shotgun has not been my strongest discipline. I was hoping I was smart enough and coordinated enough to put all these working parts together! Did I mention that Cristy is a coach? On your first duck hunt, it is INCREDIBLY valuable to have a bonafide coach in your ear! The birds had been talking back and had circled low enough to let us know they were committed to coming in. As they cupped up, we got the go ahead and I raised my shotgun as they came across our opening leading one by about the length of a loaf of bread and squeezed! He went down immediately, and we could see my first duck had been a mallard drake. That green head was unmistakable. There may have been cheering and high fiving!
The process to get those birds to come in was tedious and took patience I don’t usually demonstrate along with knowing when to call and what to say! That was so exciting, and I was feeling my confidence in some brand-new skills build. As a hunter and in life in general, you should never stop learning. This is when we got a brand-new lesson about the value of duck dogs. Shaun and Cade volunteered to go retrieve the birds and as they were slowly and carefully walking through the water out to where my duck had gone down, the water was rising slightly higher on their waders, but they were making good progress. They were being careful not to get tripped up on underwater logs and hazards as they made their way out. We were watching the pair of them sort of wade out when, all of a sudden, one of them disappeared. While the water here was pretty deep for flooded timber and there were signs of beaver activity on nearby trees, the water was really only about waste deep, chest in a couple of areas. As they were walking out, they encountered what was obviously a very slick and well worn trail under the water that was much deeper than the rest of the area. Waders do a great job of keeping water out as long as you don’t wade into water deeper than they come up on your body!
In a lake, topping your waders could be so dangerous, in this situation he was able to gain purchase and his head wasn’t even under water long as he sprung right back up. If he had been sliding down an underwater shelf on a lake or river however, the weight of the water now inside the waders would make it difficult to swim and he would have had to have the presence of mind to quickly unbuckle and hopefully shimmy out of the waders and donate them to the lake. Did I mention the water during duck season could literally be freezing depending on where you are hunting? I don’t think I could shimmy out of mine that easily! Duck dogs don’t have this problem, they just swim right out and grab your bird and swim right back! A duck dog is clearly a valuable partner to have in the field! Lesson learned, wish list started! Also I topped my own waders the next hunt coming back and stumbling in knee deep water! We were getting a dog!
Even though this hunt was years ago, I still consider myself a rookie duck hunter, even once we got dogs. I got better at calling and Shaun of course took to this new style of hunting like a fish to water. We have enjoyed many more hunts together, all of them successful because we got out and enjoyed the outdoors with each other and others, some of them were just more bountiful than others and like all of our hunts, led to life-long friendships and memories! I still have a curly tail feather off that drake and think about this hunt every time I see it!
My first dove hunt was also my kiddos’ first dove hunt and like most of my hunts, Shaun and his dad were the ones to teach us and take us. This story is also not in chronological order because we already had gotten dogs to retrieve and trained them at this point. The getting of the dogs was a result of sliding down a beaver run well over waders on a duck hunt, but that’s a story for another time! Just as an FYI waders do a great job of keeping water out as long as you don’t get water higher on your body than the waders go up.
One of our favorite things to do is share our love of hunting with others and build relationships that usually lead to lifelong friendships, meaningful conversations, and tons of memories. Dad had had a friend of his tell him how much his grandson wanted to go dove hunting and he would be happy for us all to go together on a piece of property he owned. Naturally, we were happy and excited to oblige.
First, we all met together in the field and talked strategy and safety. Dad and Shaun helped us to understand what to expect and how adrenaline and excitement might make us have a tendency to react in an unsafe manner. I talked through gun safety and we demonstrated proper movements and then Dad and Shaun gave us our marching orders!
Tristan and I were stationed away from the pasture the others were walking through and we positioned ourselves where we had seen dove flying in, of course at dad’s suggestion. I remember T’s first dove about as well as I do his first duck although he didn’t get quite as excited. He was shooting my old 20ga pump Mossberg which I think may be called a Maverick and we had our German Wirehaired Pointer, Maverick, with us. We saw the dove headed our direction and T positioned himself to safely shoot, I still remember the huge grin he had on his face when that bird started falling, T’s eyes wide open. We sent Mavie to retrieve it and he rushed over and found it, picked it up, promptly carried it few feet towards us, and spit it out like it tasted bad! Repeated commands to fetch it up were unsuccessful as he would walk over and sit down by the bird and look at us as if to say, “its literally right here, YOU can pick it up.” Mavie was duck crazy, I guess something about the dove feathers he just didn’t like.
We stayed there that evening hearing gunfire across the pasture as the others in our group were getting shots at birds, but the most memorable sound was that of laughter and conversation as they walked through the goat weeds and either jumped birds or flushed birds Ripp found. Ripp, our other GWP, didn’t have a care in the world about what he retrieved. You could tell him to fetch up hairbrushes and bottles and he was just as happy doing that as he was bringing you back a mallard! On the way over to mine and T’s spot he had actually retrieved my first dove and then went with Shaun and the others.
Dove hunting in Texas is hot and since we didn’t want to overheat the dogs, we were giving Mavie a break from finding our birds, while still encouraging him to retrieve them. It was his first dove hunt too, and I took off to retrieve a bird T had shot. We had talked about letting anything that flew in the same direction go while I was out, and that T’s only shot was behind us. About the time I reached the downed bird, I had to search for it. I heard T scream and Mavie yelp. I yelled to him to find out what had happened, and he screamed what sounded like, “I shot Maverick.” Instant horror began building in my gut but there had been no shot, so I was also confused. Running back to him and Mavie I could see T running to me and that they both physically seemed unscathed although Tristan was crying, and Mavie was huddled under his chair. When I finally got him settled enough to repeat himself, I learned that because he was determined to hunt behind him and not put me in danger, he was moving he and Mavie around so they could see behind them.
While petting Mavie, T also touched the electric cross fence on accident! He had screamed, “I SHOCKED Maverick!” I should be a better parent, I should be a better dog owner, my first instinct should not have been to bust out laughing, but I guess I’m neither of those things because, knowing they were both fine, I laughed really loudly and really hard, Tristan didn’t find it all that funny.
A little later T had downed a bird over on the other side of that electric cross fence and shimmied under to retrieve it rather than chancing Mavie again, and besides we could see it and it wasn’t far, which made Mavie and his hate for dove feathers unnecessary in this instance. As T handed me the dove over the fence, excited as he was for his great shot and swift recovery, he began leaning forward and touched that fence AGAIN all while I was trying to gain his attention and stop him! Today this story is hilarious, Tristan is incredibly leery of electric fences, and we tease him mercilessly every time we are around one but even he can look back at his younger self and have a laugh!
This hunt led to years more with Dad’s friend’s grandson and our family, a lifelong friendship between the kids, and more memories than we can count, as well as some really good food! The laughter and tears, the relationships built with the dogs and each other are as priceless as the memories we collectively share.
While definitely not in chronological order, as I sit in front of this computer, this is exactly the time of year we usually leave along with our family and friends who are family to hunt, fellowship, and explore Colorado. I wrote most of this article when we came home from our very first trip from there in 2013, it was published by the company I pro-staffed and instructed for, and since I’m reminiscing and missing the mountains terribly, I decided to skip the chronological order of things and go with the way my mind wanders. The Great Colorado Adventure 2013 In 2013 my family and my best friend and I had the opportunity to adventure to Colorado with the goal of harvesting an elk in our sites. This trip turned out to be so much more than just a hunting trip. I was actually apprehensive and nervous about going because we seemed to be so alone, I kept using the term “winging it” since we were doing a “do it yourself” (DIY) hunt on public land. Just over halfway there from Texas my fears were strengthened as our truck broke down in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. My hubby, quick to diagnose the problem and realize he had the replacement part at home in Texas, sprung into action and got us safely into the cutest little RV park while his dad drove the part up to get us back on the road. I’m leaving out that it was a holiday weekend and all of the part stores said they’d have to order the part and it wouldn’t be in until the following Tuesday or Wednesday, this was Thursday! That next morning after Dad arrived was a rough one as all 3 of our kids woke up throwing up in the middle of the night and now, with Shaun’s dad, the 7 of us weren’t feeling much better. We had headaches and brain fog and later discovered it was acute carbon monoxide poisoning from the propane refrigerator vent! Many medical professionals have told us how close to death we all had been. I’m not typically grateful for my kids vomiting on me, but this night I was!! Had we been able to get on up into the mountains we might have mistaken this for altitude sickness and never returned! Back to the truck, stranded-ish all the way in Santa Rosa. We were not really actually alone because God says He’ll never leave us or forsake us and as God would have it, the manager of the park was a certified diesel mechanic who looked over Shaun’s shoulder and provided the confirmation Shaun needed during the fix. Only God does stuff like that! So, the next day we were back on the road before lunch! I was soooo nervous!
I don’t really know what my expectations were for how it should look once we finally reached Colorado, but as we got closer, the beauty of New Mexico began to amaze me and I was itching to get out and explore. Just when I thought the views couldn’t get any better, we hit Durango, Colorado. The most beautiful little town with the Animas River winding and snaking all through it. It was about 7:00pm as we started winding up into the mountains just north of Dolores towards our camp. As we came around the bend, mountain on the left side, river on the right, we were facing the largest mountain I’d ever personally seen whose slope was covered in the most beautiful Aspen grove. As the sun shone down piercing in spots through the low-lying clouds that were clinging to the canopy of the Aspen grove my breath caught in my chest and tears moistened my eyes. I’m a military brat so I’ve been A LOT of places and I had never seen landscape so beautiful that it made me want to cry. Reliving it as I’m writing now brings tears to my eyes. Standing at the base of the mountains in that breathtaking scenery caused me to reflect on how big God is and how small I am. The majesty of God staring you right in your face has a way of putting you in your place!
I managed to tear my eyes away from my first look at those mountains and capture Shaun’s forever. So many thoughts.
We reached a flat pasture-like area near the top of the mountain where it was time to get out and set up camp. When I say pasture, you think grass but no, this pasture was carpeted by the thickest most glorious squishy healthy fern! A sticker-less fern pasture as large as a football field! To my 3 children’s delight, if you took a shovel to it, every scoop of earth yielded the fattest healthiest fishing worms….or “I dare you to eat that, worms”! I digress! We set up camp and cooked dinner that night and began to get butterflies about seeing elk and exploring the splendor of this new country we were calling home for a week.
The next morning, we awoke and dressed in our hunting gear, packs and bows, and safety orange, kissed the kids goodbye and wished my bestie Shelly good luck with them and set out! My hubby and I were in such awe as we began hiking, I’m not sure if we even looked for elk for the first little bit of the hike. I seemed to be too busy catching flies with my mouth gaping open at all the newness and glory like I’d never seen before! Part of that was a little breathlessness too but not too bad. We started training as best we could back in April for this adventure, we knew we were going to embark on in Aug/ Sept so 23lbs lighter and in the best shape of my life, I knew I could handle quite a bit. We didn’t see anything but a couple of coyotes and some turkey vultures that day but the next day, OH the next day! Noticing that the part of the mountain we were hunting had trails that were open to motorized vehicles we opted to go down our little mountain and over to the next one which had a trail winding up it that was not open for motorized transportation, and we were walking so no worries there! We figured less traffic and noise might mean more animals, we figured correctly! Nearly to the top of this 5mile consistent incline trek I saw my very first grouse! Guess who happened to have a small game license and knew that grouse season had just opened! ME! After I’d harvested it, my hubby just stood in amazement at my confidence. He was shocked that I had taken the shot but incredibly glad for it! Onward and upward though! As we reached the top and broke over the ridge, we descended into a large valley between the peaks of 3 mountains with a decent sized lake on one end teaming with ducks! My breath caught again…for both of the before mentioned reasons! We hiked across and over onto the next mountain and stopped for breakfast just the two of us, him propped up against a tree eating a pop tart and me with my head laid on his leg in an Aspen grove at nearly 9000 ft elevation with the morning sun filtering through the leaves and painting yellow rays all the way to the ground. We set out again after our little breakfast break and it was then, just 100 yards later that we beheld the most amazing site and one we had come so far to see. As we hiked partly up the ridge and around, just below us were 5 elk. A cow and calf, a single cow and 2 small bulls grazing among the aspens. With our eyes as big as saucers and breath we didn’t know we were holding, we crept closer and closer. I snaked the range finder off my neck and slowly passed it to Shaun as I stared on in amazement at the biggest game animals I’d ever seen in the wild. The closest elk, a smaller bull, stood at 62.5 yards quartered away in the “v” of two aspens with gnarly bushes in between. As my husband began to draw back his bow I softly whispered, “do you want to try to get a little closer and get a cleaner shot?” He let it down concerned because it really was a trashy shot. As we began to creep closer, we took exactly 4 steps, one of mine landing on a small twig that snapped, and out of NO WHERE a doe mule deer jumped up just to the left of us and ran into the group of elk screaming in her language “RUN RUN THERE’S HUNTERS UP HERE!!!” and off they went! As we followed them over the ridge, we ran into another hunting party who were all on mules and in pursuit of the elk they had just seen run over the ridge.. On foot there was no way we could compete with them so we decided to hike over to the other peak and see if we could pick up another group of elk. As we hiked around the rest of the day stopping for breaks and snacks and sometimes just to gawk and the sheer splendor of the country we were exploring, our souls just hummed with praise for God and His ability to create. It was getting late by this time, and we headed back for the valley and over to the adjacent mountain with the trail to lead us down. I literally collapsed in camp when we finally returned so grateful to smell that my bestie was fixing dumplings! It had been a 15-mile day through some rough terrain and most of it had been at a huge incline with a 30lb pack. It was more than I’d ever pushed myself before and I was tired but feeling a HUGE sense of accomplishment. Just seeing elk on a DIY was a success in mine and Shaun’s eyes! The next morning, we rested and spent time with the kiddos and that evening we decided to go back up and give it one more shot. We packed up sleeping bags and food and a little two-man tent and decided to camp the night out there just the two of us at 8900 feet in bear country. How exhilarating! No marriage retreat on the face of this earth could facilitate the kind of bonding experience we had on the hunt. We didn’t see any more elk but saw at least 40 mule deer which we had no tags for and were also not speaking to due to the previous ruined elk harvest because of one of their kind! Waking up that high in the sky that morning, the pink of the horizon as the sun began to wake and rise over the peaks to begin burning off the clouds that had nestled themselves among the tops of the aspens, we knew this was not just going to be a one-time trip. This was a hunt, an adventure that had caused us to leave a piece of ourselves there and embrace a new one that would summon us back year after year. I actually did leave a piece of my leg on a barbed wire fence up there but that’s not what I’m talking about! In later years we were invited to join a group of friends to go a little farther in during rifle season and we’ve bought horses and mules and a new to us living quarter horse trailer. We long for the fellowship, food, fun, fins, fur, and overall laughter and adventure as we return together year after year. We don’t always fill our tags but we do always fill our hearts and restore our souls! If you’ve never experienced this before and you are given the opportunity, you should seriously, hit the door running! This adventure changed our whole family’s lives. We learned so much about ourselves and what we were capable of. We learned just how much we enjoy the outdoors and how we have instilled that in our kids so much so that they were totally in agreement of turning off the satellite and redirecting the money we were spending on television to a hunting trip fund so we can continue to experience the splendor of God’s country. For us it’s not just about the harvest, it’s about the adventure!
Seems like a lifetime ago as the youngest here is now 16 and the oldest 21!
My first season bow hunting for deer was absolutely magical, but if it had ended the way it started, there wouldn’t have been a season at all. Shaun had been into bow hunting for a while, and I watched the guys shoot but I stuck to my guns! This was way before I became a firearms instructor…seems like that was sort of in my DNA now. I went bowfishing with him but just held the light mostly or occasionally fell asleep in an awkward and embarrassing position in the boat, also I occasionally drool a tiny amount.
Anyway, Shaun wanted to get me a bow for our anniversary which is Sept 16, but he decided to get it early because he wanted me to have at least a month to practice and build those muscles before the season opened in October.
We had heard RAVE reviews about a bow shop in Nacogdoches and I had just transferred over to SFA to finish up my undergrad so I was excited to go. When we walked inside there were a bunch of dudes in there standing around talking, and we made our way up to one of them to help us. They were talking hunting, food plots, and hunting gear and my husband told the tech he was hoping to buy me a bow after finally gaining his attention.
This got the whole group’s attention, while there are plenty of female bow hunters, in 2008 we still weren’t nearly as plentiful as the guys. But I wasn’t a bow hunter yet. To my absolute horror (because I’m insanely nervous/anxious and awkward when doing new things) one of the guys that was in this group and turned was none other than Dr. “Deer” Kroll, who at the time was somewhat of a celebrity in the Forestry Dept which I had just transferred to. I was already nervous and the archery tech started asking me questions that I didn’t know the answers to at that time and I was becoming WAY intimidated.
It was made worse by the fact that the tech, who was trying to measure my draw length by getting me to stand a certain way and hold my arms out but without ever communicating to me why or demonstrating, finally became frustrated and dropped the tape asked, “haven’t you ever held a bow before!” It was rather loud and he was rather exasperated. Every guy in the group laughed except my husband who was trying to explain and demonstrate for me so I could be measured. My shoulders sagged, my chin dropped, and I clenched my teeth to fight back tears and told him I had been around them but mainly just tagged along and I apologized for my lack of understanding. He was gruff and short with me, probably wanting to get back to the celebrity and the conversation, he ended up not having anything in my draw length anyway and we got out of there pretty fast. The hubs knew I wasn’t feeling it, I felt a little humiliated and kind of wanted to punch that guy in his adams apple. Fast forward a few days to a little archery shop in Palestine, long closed now, my husband called and asked if they had anything in my draw length and the guy said he had both new and used bows that I was welcome to come try. When I arrived, the guy greeted us so warmly, we told him we had called about a bow in my draw length and then I just told him I had sort of had a humiliating experience with another bow shop because there was a miscommunication of me literally not knowing anything. He remeasured me to make sure my draw length was correct and literally baby stepped me through every little thing. The how and why of all the important parts of the bow, the necessary equipment, and found us a used Bowtech Miranda bow that he set up right then and there for me and let me get comfortable shooting it.
I practiced every single day, most days twice a day, until we got my draw weight maxed out and I was accurate. Shaun and I hunted A LOT during bow season and either didn’t see anything or didn’t see anything legal or in my bow range. The last week of bow season he was working nights and the kids were all at my mom’s which was near the deer lease. I finished my Monday lab early and made it to her house in time to beg her to let me go hunting. The absolute craziest thing happened when I drove up to the gate. I was sitting there in the truck putting on my release and a doe came walking up and jumped the fence right beside the truck. She walked on the other side of some tall bushes and briars and began to browse like the truck wasn’t RIGHT THERE. I decided to see if I could slip out of it and stalk up close enough to her to get a shot. I eased the door open slightly and slipped out of the driver seat. I hunkered down leaving my fingers in the door as I eased it closed but not shut, I eased the back door open and carefully slipped my bow out and hid behind the back tire with her between the shrub/brush pile, then the truck, and me. I was trying to get control of my breathing, my shaking, and my heart rate! I could hear her moving down the lane at a leisurely pace stopping to nibble random things. I crept out from behind the truck watching her and moved from concealment to concealment thankful for the dense carpet of pine needles to quiet my steps. I managed to advance, always keeping trees or bushes between us so she couldn’t see me as I stalked closer to her, but I was running out of foliage. I eased barely around the last tree just enough to range her because I still wasn’t, and honestly still am not great at guessing distances, and started to shake even harder when I realized she was only 25 yards! I eased back, slowly lowered the range finder down, and drew back as I slowly eased out behind the tree. She walked a couple of steps forward browsing on some foliage and was perfectly broad side. About the same time I squeezed the release, she spotted me, but at that distance she didn’t respond fast enough as I had already let the arrow fly. She ran off and I watched until I could no longer see her and waited several minutes, not because I was cool and collected and knew I’d made a good shot and needed to give her time. I waited because my legs were shaking, and my heart was racing, I couldn’t breathe and my ears were pounding. I slowly crept to where I shot her, looking around for blood and my arrow and I found both. According to my arrow I had made a great shot. I tried to wait longer and slowly tracked the blood and ended up jumping her because I didn’t wait long enough.
I backed out and went back later and was unable to track her. I was heartbroken and felt so dumb. I knew better. This was not my first deer. It was just my first with a bow. It was incredibly cool that evening thankfully, and there was a hard frost that night. After telling the hubs and wanting to cry, we got up the next morning and drove out there and I took him to where I shot her, where I tracked her to, and where I jumped her. My husband has blood hound DNA I think, and he managed to find her blood “trail” (maybe a drop here or there) immediately and her in a mere few minutes! It was plenty cold enough to save the meat and after we celebrated, and I cried happy tears, and Shaun swore she had to be deaf and blind, we loaded her up to take her back and process her. I knew she couldn’t have been blind because she A- jumped the fence and B-finally spotted me! I was excited and feeling confident with a cooler full of venison!
After happy tears for finding her in time to save the meat!
Fast forward to Saturday which was actually opening day of gun season. Even though the moon was full we still went out before daylight and got in our stands. I call this the butt-crack of dawn, later when I was introduced to duck hunting I began to experience the pre-butt-crack of dawn. We both decided to stick with our bows and as I started off in the direction of my stand, Shaun told me that since the moon was full, it was more likely for the deer to move later in the morning since they likely moved in the middle of the night. So he wanted me to sit as long as I possibly could. I took that as a challenge to stay longer than he could, and it paid off.
I was sitting in my “lucky ladder stand” that morning and listening to what sounded like deer chasing each other near my stand. Suddenly, a decent sized buck popped out long enough to get my attention and then right back in the thicket. I was excited and a little bummed because I wondered if I wasn’t watching the stupid squirrel dance up and down to my left would I have seen him sooner. I was also figuring that was probably my one and only chance at a legal buck in my range. I’m sure it’s not physically possible but it felt like I held my breath for about 20 or 30 more minutes so I could hear better, and a different buck popped out and started quickly walking across my area. I had to use the concealment of the trees to rotate my body around on my ladder stand and into a shooting position so he wouldn’t bust me. I’d rotated all the way around from right to left with my bow up and I was running out of space. He was about to go behind me where I wouldn’t have a shot. I hooked my feet into the sides of the ladder and twisted around as far as I was comfortable with and drew back hoping he would stop, he seemed intent on passing through like he was trailing something, so I did what all of those hunting show dudes do. I gave him a MEEEHHHH. He stopped with a stomp and jerked his head up looking right at me just like the doe, but again, I was ready, he was slightly quartered but I knew I’d hit him based on the wild way he leapt up. As he was trotting off, I actually saw the arrow come out and fall and could tell it had blood. Instead of having a repeat of Monday, I sat, and I sat and I sat, I was shaking and doing the heart pounding breathless thing anyway. About 30 minutes had gone by and Shaun came walking up and asked me what the heck I was doing because it was well after 11 by this time.
I told him I was waiting on the buck I’d just shot. He looked at me incredulously as I began to recount the story to him. We waited another 30 minutes and the ole bloodhound went to work. We were both trailing and at one point sort of lost blood and decided to circle in opposite directions from last blood. Shaun yelled to me when he found him, still in disbelief, not because he was a monster deer, he wasn’t, but because I had had an incredible week hunting! Bow hunting for me has been both exhilarating and down right frustrating when what I can see is outside my bow range and way in my rifle range, especially when the freezer is empty. I still love the challenge and especially the food! I’m still grateful to the hubs for introducing me to archery hunting too and for buying me that first bow!
When Shaun and I first got married at 18 and 19, we weren’t swimming in money as you can probably imagine, and from early on learned to be very resourceful. One of the ways we could use the money we had for other essential necessities was to adhere to the motto “kill it, catch it, or grow it” in regards to our groceries. We have never been trophy hunters even though we do have some precious and impressive memories on the wall.
My first successful deer season where I had the privilege of filling one of our doe tags and contributing meat to the freezer for our family will live forever sketched on “my favorite moments in hunting trail” on memory lane. It was my second year to hunt not having seen anything legal the entire season the year before. My father-in-law picked me up on his way to the deer lease for an evening hunt while my hubby was working nights. Dad and I hunting together while Shaun was at work would become a regular occurrence for which I am forever grateful! At the time, Shaun and I were sharing his Winchester lever action .243 which I had brought with me, unloaded of course until we actually got to out of the truck to hunt. I don’t remember how or why it happened, but I ended up with Dad’s .243 a Remington Mohawk which was the gun I later shot my first hog with and all 3 of our kids shot their first deer and hogs with as well. Priceless for it’s sentimentality as even a glance evokes a flood of memories of time spent with our family in the woods together.
Dad decided, due to my inexperience in hunting I’m sure, to forego going to his own stand and instead hunted with me. He watched me as I climbed up in my ladder stand, still to the dismay of my husband who prefers a climbing stand, made sure I got up safely and got seated and then made sure I loaded a round into the chamber of his rifle after I got settled. He then went behind and to the left of me to climb in Shaun’s climbing stand much higher than I would ever feel comfortable! We sat there in the cool air, a fortunate thing because hunting season in Texas is often still incredibly hot. I practiced being still and moving my eyes only and ever so slightly my head. I sang songs in my head, I distinctly remember having that song from the movie Hocus Pocus stuck in my head, the one when they are trying to lure the children and I adapted the lyrics to fit my current hunting adventure. I was feeling pretty satisfied with my creativity, and stillness, sitting there in that oak bottom as the sun was slowly going down for the day and the bottom seemed to glow the orange you see in those hallmark movies.
I couldn’t see dad because he was behind me but I was sure he was watching me for movement and everything else so I was on my game making sure I applied every hunting strategy I had been taught or seen as well as being safe. In reality, the man was asleep way above me in that climbing stand probably watching a continuous feed of hunting shows behind his eyelids! I only found this out after I shot one of the does that came busting in. While I sat and silently partied in my head to my song and how good I was doing and how proud dad was going to be of me, 3 does came from the other side of the bottom directly in front of me walking cautiously as does do, but straight in my direction. I later surmised that they caught a whiff of something not quite right even though we had sprayed with scent killer because they turned circling left when they reached the spot right about where we walked in. As they circled out there to the left I began the torturously slow practice of raising my rifle and getting into position as they passed behind trees. When I was in position I waited for my moment and as the largest doe out front paused to inspect the acorns on the ground, I was positive I had a good safe shot, I breathed in and began to slowly release as I took aim, stopped and slowly squeezed the trigger. It was instantly obvious I had made a good shot. It wasn’t far probably 80 yards or so and she ran about 30 after I hit her and I watched her fall.
I’m not really sure if I made any noise other than the sound of my labored breathing because of my RAPIDLY beating heart. I knew I was struggling not to shake as I squeezed the trigger. I sat there for several minutes trying to control my breathing and also being extremely excited, I tried to lean around behind me to see dad, but his back was to me, and he was starting his descent to the ground. When he reached me, he wore a giant smile bordering laughter and gestured for me to make sure I had unloaded the gun before I climbed down. I remember trying to get my legs to work to climb down and they were shaking so badly both dad and I were sure I was going to fall, so he made me turn back around and sit down for a few more minutes. Then this man had the audacity to ask me what I had shot at and scared him half to death! This is when I found out he was taking a nap and that my shot had scared him awake and he never saw the does. I explained and pointed to where the doe was laying, you could just barely see the white of her belly from where we were but when he looked back to me, the pride on his face was unmistakable and his smile could not have gotten any wider. He coaxed me out of the stand slowly and gently, I’m sure he was gentler with me at this particular time because we had just learned that I was pregnant with his first grandchild, I don’t think we even knew the sex yet. When I reached the ground there was hugging and high fiving and since I was still shaking, he insisted on me wearing his jacket in addition to my own!
We tagged her, my first time ever getting to fill out a tag at 20 years old, loaded her up and headed for the truck. When we got home, Dad was adamant we take a picture before skinning and quartering her into the cooler. We didn’t have cell phone cameras quite yet. I still have that picture and I think of all of these words and more every time I see it, it is true, a picture really is worth a thousand words. I felt such a sense of accomplishment knowing that I had been able to provide food for our family and safely participate in a time-honored way of life that my husband’s family had been handing down for generations.
Actual pic dad snapped with a real film camera! Still wearing his jacket!
Raychel Writes 