Leanne Witney
Leanne Witney
I grew up in a town where people owned SUVs so they could drive on the grass. The only use they had for animals was fur coats. But if you looked at my parent’s home, there was always a Ford Pickup in the driveway and pictures of big game animals on the wall.
In our Northern Suburb of Chicago, opportunities to hunt were limited to killing rabid raccoons or throwing rocks at squirrels. So any “hunting” memories I have of growing up are of my dad leaving for an elk hunt, coming home two weeks later with a new beard, and unloading his bag-which included his red and blue flannel shirt with blood on it. I didn’t really know what went on when he was gone, other than he was playing in the mountains with his adult friends in Utah and Wyoming.
I have vivid memories of my dad opening the gun vault in the house. I would rush in to see what kind of gun he was looking at. Even though I didn’t understand what he was talking about, I loved holding and eyeing the guns. In the summertime, Dad took the family to our cabin near Duchesne, where I grew to love the outdoors. Dad would always bring some type of gun and let us shoot at empty cans across the meadow. In high school, I took an outdoor education class and grew to love the outdoors even more. We had a rifle unit where we were tested our abilities to shoot targets. I did fairly well, but it wasn’t until I met Scott (my future husband) that I picked up another gun.
After meeting Scott and learning we had all the same interests, we decided to be at least friends so we could do a lot of fun things together. One of these “fun” things was shooting. Then Scott educated me about hunting (i.e., you can’t just go out and kill as many deer as you want!) That same year I took the Hunter Safety class, then drew tags for the next two years. I was unsuccessful on both hunts, but when I drew a CWMU tag this year, I really hoped to harvest a deer. Scott actually drew the same tag, making our travel plans for the hunt easy.
We traveled to southeastern Utah several times during the summer, scouting and getting to know the area. When the landowner called to let us know we could hunt in September, I was ecstatic at the chance to kill a deer in the velvet. On our first morning hunting, we saw several large bucks worth shooting, but after fumbling around with my bipod, I missed the chance to shoot. My husband, brother-in-law, Coby (our guide) and I were really disappointed, thinking that we might not have another chance at a buck that big. We returned to Coby’s parents home to eat, rest and get our spirits back before going out that evening. After being home all afternoon, we were becoming antsy-so we loaded up the guns, bullets and tags. Between two trucks, we had five adults and four kids, ages two and under.
After driving around awhile, we decided to go back to a spot we had been to several times before. As soon as I asked Coby how often he had seen deer here, we spotted two nice bucks eating. We drove past them so I could get out of the truck unseen, but they spooked. We did this shuffle of bailing out of the truck with gun in hand three times before I felt comfortable about taking a shot.
Standing 180 yards from the two deer, I got buck fever so bad that I didn’t even know which one to shoot. I finally threw the gun to my shoulder, put the crosshairs on the deer on the left, and tried to hold my breath to get a steady shot. I pulled the trigger on the count of three, and heard a huge bang. As I prepared to throw another round in the chamber, I heard laughing. Scott was giving me a “thumbs up” while he wore the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on his face! I could hardly catch my breath when it finally sank in that I had killed my first deer! We walked down to where the deer lay. It wasn’t until then that I knew it was a 4×4 in velvet! I was SO happy!
On viewing the footage Coby took with his video camera, I learned that my deer went down as soon as the bullet hit him. Scott tells people that the deer was dead before it hit the ground. This hunt will forever be a favorite memory for me, my husband and my daughter.
After my deer was tagged and cleaned, Scott and Coby walked into the next field, where he tagged a huge 4×4! We had both filled our tags within an hour of each other. I am looking forward to putting in for another hunt and getting behind a gun again. Shooting and hunting are now two of my favorite things to do. It all began with a curious little girl wanting to see the guns her dad took out of his vault.
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