Kelly's 2008 Buck

Sue (rancher) and Kelly (artist/illustrator)

I recently met three nice lady hunters who live in British Columbia, Canada, through the HuntersNetworks, a social site for hunters. Kelly and her twin sister, Kim, are 45 and they have a sister by the name of Sue. Sue is a rancher and they all hunt deer, moose, bear or whatever. Below is Kelly's hunting tale of her 2008 harvest with Sue and with her permission, I'm sharing the hunt with you in our great wild outdoors.

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My two sisters, Kimberly and Sue, have always been my hunting buddies. Between us we’ve worked out some lingo that nobody else would probably understand if it’s not explained to them. Roads are named by us according to things that happened, or things we saw there. If you’re not familiar with theses names you would never be able to follow any route we give you. And tree stumps that look like animals have been named too. In our time we’ve seen many a ‘bear stump’, ‘deer stump’, and from time to time also a ‘moose stump’ or two.

It has been two years since I got my last deer. I kept saying to my hunting buddies that I would love to get a four point buck … or better. Well, as they say, perseverance pays off. I was off with my ‘buddy’ Sue to go hunting. Our other ‘buddy’, Kim, had some things to take care of, and could not join us.

We drove down to where we were going to hunt. We went past ‘Tire Road’, took a left down ‘Ribbon Road’, went past ‘Gas Can Road’, took a left, and drove for another 1½km. You think you would have been able to follow this? Not a chance!

We were driving along, keeping our eyes peeled. There were quite a few false alarms. We saw our share of ‘deer stumps’. Then it happened! “Stop! Back up!”, I said to my hunting buddy. She was totally expecting me to say: “Sorry, false alarm. Just a deer stump.” But it wasn’t! About 200 yards away was this very good four point buck! My heart was pumping, and my eyes could not believe that this was my chance.

I slowly got out of the vehicle, moved into position, loaded my rifle, and got him into my sights. It felt like an eternity, and I’m sure Sue was wondering whether I was going to take the shot or not. I squeezed the trigger and the shot went off. The buck went down. I took a couple of minutes to gather myself, and we made our way over to the buck. It was a good, clean shot. I had my four pointer!

He was beautiful, but he was also pretty big. Here we were, two women, about 200 yards away from the vehicle with some pretty rough terrain in between. We had no idea how we were going to manage. But we were high and hopefully had cell range … or maybe not! We tried to phone for help, but realized that our other hunting buddy was the only one who could actually find us. We did not know any of the route markers on these roads, and only knew them by the names we gave them. Only Kim would know where ‘Tire Road’, ‘Ribbon Road’ and ‘Gas Can Road’ were! We had no winch on the vehicle, and no help forthcoming.

Maybe some other hunters will come along and help us. We always seem to run into them. Well, not today. The buck was dressed out, but it was still heavy! We started to drag and pull him to the vehicle. I’m sure the adrenaline helped us getting him there. We were driving a tracker, and this created the next obstacle. We couldn’t lift him that high. Out came the cell phones again, trying to get hold of our other hunting buddy. Still no luck. We dragged the buck onto some boulders to get some height, and Sue backed the tracker up. With one last effort we got him loaded.

Just imagine two women with this heavy buck, exhausted from trying to drag him 200 yards to our vehicle, and then trying to get it loaded. It was hysterical. The next day our bodies were aching all over.

But it was worth every effort! I was extremely pleased with my buck, and could not stop smiling. He dressed out at 160lbs. What a hunt! I’m still smiling, and even though he is probably not the biggest you’ve ever seen, he is big enough for me. I’m going to have a mount done so I can look at him every day. In years to come there might be better ones to follow, but for now I’m pleased as punch! ~Kelly

(Kelly said that in British Columbia they count racks differently and she is not sure why that is. She liked how we counted our racks and that would make her buck an 8 or 10 point ;)