Pennsylvania Game News - November 2010 - 26

deer within 30 yards. Her sporting arm of choice was the crossbow she inherited from her husband. “I get all the hand-me-downs,” she smiles. The day she arrowed her first deer, her son, Matt, who was hunting nearby, downed another doe within minutes of his mother’s success. Younger son, Justin, was summoned to give a lesson in field-dressing. A major benefit Jamie found in taking up hunting was the opportunity to get closer to her sons, especially Justin, who had been struggling with school. “Ever since he was little he always wanted to fish,” she says. “Later he developed a passion for hunting and guns, so I signed him up for a hunter education class. Encouraging him, and taking an interest in his love of the outdoors myself, was a way to motivate him to do well in school, and it did just that.” Justin’s grades improved markedly, and when he graduated from high school in 2006, he was inspired to enroll in guide school. That summer, with Jamie’s blessings, he sojourned to Cripple Creek, Colorado, where he attended the Colorado Outdoor Adventure Guide School (COAGS) for three weeks of training in subjects that included orienteering, basic horsemanship, first aid and CPR, and outdoor cooking. In early fall he returned to the COAGS campus, this time in Gonzales, Texas, and completed more advanced training. When he returned he was well equipped to provide his mother with expert advice as she began her quest for her first buck. Justin mentored Jamie, working extensively on her marksmanship with the crossbow and assorted firearms. Under her son’s tutelage, Jamie hunted throughout the 2007-08 seasons, and although she scored on another doe with her shotgun, and had a few close
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encounters with bucks, she balked at taking any questionable shots. “Passing up those bucks was frustrating,” she admitted, but then quickly added, “but I never want to chance a bad shot.” The critical importance of prudent shots and clean kills were two lessons her young son had ingrained in her. After each excursion, Justin would counsel his mother and offer pointers on what she might do differently the next time. “She’s the kind of person who prefers hands-on learning,” he explains. “I can tell her about the importance of reading the wind, getting on stand early, and using pinch points and funnels, but until she actually gets out there and finds out firsthand what I’m talking about, she really doesn’t appreciate how critical my advice is.” Thanks to Justin’s coaching, by the time flintlock season arrived after Christmas, Jamie had been well schooled in the intricacies of hunting with the finicky flintlock. “By that time everyone else in the family had filled their buck tags,” she sighed. “Dave got a 7-point and Justin and Matt both got 8-points, so the pressure was really on me.” Well aware of his mother’s determination to fill her buck tag, Justin loaned her the 50-caliber Thompson Center flintlock that his grandfather gave him when he was just six. “By then, getting my first buck had become a total obsession,” Jamie admitted. “I didn’t sleep the night before that season opened, and when I went out the next morning I was fighting a cold and high fever.” Nonetheless, the lady was not to be denied. She knew that the first day of the flintlock season would be her last best chance to finally nail that elusive buck. Limited to a primitive firearm, Jamie, like a modern day “Danielle” Boone, faced an even tougher challenge. Justin had done his scouting homework well, though, placing a ladder stand in a location where he had sighted several bucks during the previous few weeks. Jamie
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Pennsylvania Game News - November 2010

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