Since I began archery 4 years ago I’ve slowly been doing more and more hunting. It started with a few months of practice followed by harvesting my first goat. I’d slowly spent more and more time in the field over the years and I quickly went from a passionate beginner to a skilled target archer and passionate bowhunter.

Unfortunately due to work commitments my fiancé had a lot less opportunities to spend time in the field. For me, this meant two things. The first is that if she gets an opportunity to hunt it’s my responsibility to put her in the best position to success, and the second was that it was her turn to shoot every time and I wanted to help her with her first harvest.

During a club hunting masterclass washer first opportunity to hunt and after a very skilled stalk she shot her first hog. Barely bigger than a piglet it was a small victory, but I made the effort to butcher and dress the back legs and we ate her first harvest that evening. It was a terrific day in the field which lit a fire inside of her and she expressed to me that evening after dinner that she wanted more hunting opportunities.

Over the next few months we had very few chances to get into the field, but then some friends invited us to join them on a goat hunt. This is exactly what Stephanie was looking for, she was motivated and excited to succeed in the field and we spent the next few days making sure she had the gear she needed.

An old hunting pack of mine, a handful of gear, fantastic new camouflage clothing, and some borrowed optics and she was ready to roll. Not being a morning person I was surprised at her eagerness to wake at 3:30 and go on her first goat hunt and before we knew it we were on the way to our first goat hunt together.

By this time I had successfully hunted several nannies, a few small billies, and my first deer. Stephanie was 1 and 1 with her pig (one shot, one kill — pretty impressive) and she was ready to add to this. Her Hoyt Charger was fantastically tuned, her arrows were perfect for the game we were hunting and her archery ability was without question. Everything was in our favour.

We spent the morning being shown around the property by the hunter who the property belonged to. A few hours later we found ourselves with an opportunity and I was a few metres behind waiting patiently to watch her at work. And I was impressed.

Two nannies sat approximately 60m in front of us as we made sure they had no idea where we were. I followed her patiently as she closed to 50m, and then to 40m. The goats were blissfully unaware of our presence, but Stephanie did everything right and only moved when the goats were engaged in grazing, facing away, or otherwise distracted. Watching a newbie put all of the advice she’d been given to use was amazing and before I knew it she was inside 30m and readying up.

I ranged the first nanny for her. “28 metres,” I mimed. She looked at me with confidence and closed another few metres, pulling herself into about 22m. She waited for the nanny to put her head down, came to full draw and I watched as she controlled her shot with the expertise I’d come to recognise at archery practice and competition.

As the arrow snapped out of her bow and directly into the small kill zone I couldn’t help but admire her patience and skill under pressure. I was glad for her that she had her first nanny and I was even more glad that I had stayed out of the way as she did all the hard work herself. Quickly she put a second arrow on the string, which I assumed was for a very unnecessary follow up shot, and the stillness resumed. A second goat was in range and Stephanie wasn’t done.

Without ranging the second goat and using the first goat as a marker she knew the goat was only 15m away and she quickly dispatched the second of two nannies for the day. Another perfect shot straight into the kill zone and her face looked elated. A goal of 4 years was achieved, she knew she had achieved something terrific, and together we knew that spending as much time in the field like this as possible would be one of the most important things to us.

Last modified: March 27, 2017