December 2020( During a time of crisis due to Covid and the ever rising demands for social distancing), I woke one morning and thought to myself. What if I can take my hunters education class online and can finally get my hunters license? At the ripe age of 30, I had been hunting with my husband, maybe, 3 times total. In our 5 years of marriage I think he only hunted probably 5 times.
I remember as a young girl I would stand around the evenings my uncle would come home from hunting and his hunt was successful. They would take the wooden swing off the swingset and set up the gambrel right there. Watching my boy cousins receive praise for their firsts harvest and honestly just all around wanted to be one of the boys. My mom was a single mom so I didn’t have that hunting father figure. I lived in central Mississippi and unfortunately most males weren’t looking to take a young girl to the woods due to possible accusations.
Attending an 8 hour course as a mom of young kids (and I had my children fairly early in age) just wasn’t much of an option. I pulled my computer out.. a few taps of my finger… a card number.. SUBMIT… I was registered for an 8 hour hunters education class online and I had to discipline myself to complete it.
With this hunters education course you must complete 9 units. Each page is timed so you can’t skip throughout it. A short quiz is taken after every section and if I remember correctly one big test at the end. However sometimes you get antsy and just need to stretch your legs. Hubby mentioned I might need some target practice….
My husband’s grandad “Dandy” lives across the road from us. He knows a little about everything and is prepared for any scenario. We walked across the road and my husband had brought his 30-06. Don’t ask me what brand.. or what grain for I have no idea. Dandy of course walked up and said, “ oh no no, Bobby, that gun is gonna kick to hard for her!” Her being a little 5’0 tall freckled woman with a small physique. He recommended me use Mamaw’s new Scout .243. They pulled out this table, and started stacking these old worn foam inserts and slid up a chair.
I really felt like my heart was going to thump out of my chest. I loaded my gun as they had showed me. I rested my barrel and hand on the inserts and I used my scope to find my target. Silly me forgot to put my noise canceling muffs on so I set the gun down and put on my ear muffs.
Okay… I’m ready now… I released the safety.. I was trembling as I’ve only ever shot my 9mm so I have no idea what to expect. I hold my breath and… bang… not a perfect shot but I might have been an inch off. I realized that it wasn’t anything to be scared of and hit right on with my next two shots. We’ve only made it to lunch time at this point and I’ve been able to do a lot of my course online right on my cell phone.
At this point, I was raring to get to the woods. You know I could just sit.. watch nature and hubby maybe could shoot a deer. I thought it was a win-win. I mean I can do that while completing my course. So around 1:30 pm I convinced him to take me out. We borrow the four wheeler and drove to the family hunting land. We are required to “Tag in” when hunting to assure we don’t try hunting on top of each other. We get there climb into the stand and it’s a tall ladder with a box on 4 posts. I get in and sit in the old plastic boat chair and hubby takes his spot on his bucket. He loads the gun and sets it in the corner.
You know to be fair, my husband is an all around great guy but I dealt with a lot of noise. I’m sitting there focusing on reading and completing these units. So if I was going to be able to see a deer I needed to be able to listen to the woods. My husband taps soooo loud on his iPhone. He likes to tap his foot repetitively and oh gosh that constant sniffle. I would ask him to quiet down some and he would try. This man falls asleep and starts snoring. I mean this just is not going to do for me. I kicked him out. I woke him up and told him he had to go sit somewhere else.
I’m sure he was mad as fire at me. He left. He didn’t act upset. I know he thoroughly enjoyed the nap he took and I was able to get a lot of my units complete. I actually had made it to unit 9 and finished my test and paid for my licensing. THANK YOU TECHNOLOGY! As I tell my story please remember that ever since I was a little girl this has been a dream of mine. My husband texts me. There was a doe in the field next to me. We didn’t hunt much or have a use for binoculars so we didn’t own a pair. I raised the gun and scoped her. I then set the gun back down and responded with “Can I shoot her?” TWO MINUTES…120 agonizing seconds and my husband had not responded. I set my phone down on the bucket. I wanted to scope her again. She was beautiful and she was standing broadside this entire time. I’m getting antsy and I see the notification pop up on my phone about a new text. I had no idea what the text said. I’m not sure where my mind was completely. I had released the safety and BANGGGG… she dropped. No big deal right? WRONG!!!! I was excited but I had never been this excited before. My adrenaline pumping.. ears ringing. I mean my gosh what an experience.
I walk over to her and he had already gotten down and was looking at her. I get closer and of course when I least expected it he rubbed blood across my cheeks to honor my harvest. A sense of achievement overwhelmed me. We loaded her up and drove to the gate.
Tagging Out -The Freckled Hunter
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You go girl