king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated April/May 2008 - Index

shooting opportunities. Poor guy
probably never thought he would
be shooting a wedding in a fl ooded
cornfi eld while wearing waders. (A
fi rst for him also.) So, with light
fading and thirty of our closest friends
watching, we got married while duck
hunting. Is Dave lucky or what?
Why get married in a nasty fl ooded
cornfi eld in pouring down freezing
rain on the last day of the duck
season? Our reasoning was pretty
simple - this way the last day of duck
season wouldn’t be so depressing!
3rd “First” – The 2006 archery elk
season was a great experience for me
as I got to be present as Dave arrowed
a nice spike elk from one of our
favorite northeastern Oregon ranches.
While it was a great experience, I was
bummed that I couldn’t hunt because
I had just undergone a major surgery.
However, the memory of that awesome
beast motivated me to practice with
my bow for countless hours during
the off season. I told Dave that this
was going to be my year to take an elk
with my bow. He told me not to hold
my breath as the average harvest rate
“I didn’t have anyone that
could truly baptize me into the
‘faith’ of hunting. That is until
I met my husband David.”
for archers is one elk every seven years.
Low odds or not, I was going to work my
rear end off to get my fi rst elk. The 2007
season was plagued with one fi re after the
next in Oregon and there was a fear that
some areas would be closed to hunting.
As luck would have it, we were able to
hunt and I was healthy. During our week
of hunting, we tried everything from
calling to sitting in ground blinds. Dave
had told me early on that the best odds
of getting an elk would be to sit in a
ground blind while watching a good
game trail. On the next to last day
of the hunt, Dave and I decided to
spend the afternoon in a ground blind
and stay until dark. While it can be
fairly boring just sitting and waiting,
we enjoyed the time together and
got to see all kinds of animals from
5PREDATORS5 April/May 31