Spring of 2010

Your average high school sophomore girl would spend spring break at the beach trying to get a tan, or at the mall shopping for swim suits, maybe on the phone and painting her nails. Well, I was not your average high school sophomore girl. I love the beach and have spent spring break there, but I can get just as good of a tan while fishing. Which is mostly what I did, plus some mudriding, turkey hunting, and horseback riding.
I made a mudhole at the beginning of the year by running the hose in my backyard and cutting donuts with my racing fourwheeler. My mom loved it..HA not! Looking back I don't know how they allowed me to keep my mudhole for months, but I'm grateful that they did because it was fabulous.
I went turkey hunting for the first time with my dad and our friend Tony Vidrine (wildlife biologist & expert turkey caller). We were out all day with him, taking naps against trees, moving decoys around, listening to turkeys, and just having a good time. I tell you what though, those birds are very smart, especially the big fat ones. They gobbled around us in circles, but never came in sight.
I also went to the camp in St. Francisville with Kelsie for a hog hunt, which turned into more fourwheeler riding, some fishing & laying out by the pond, and shooting the .22.
Oh and then I did some mudriding with Stacey, followed by riding her horses. But not just riding them around the pasture, we also rode/swam them through the pond, which was so much fun--even when we fell off!
Hallie and I went mudriding too, in Sherburne WMA (wildlife management area). Where we got stuck and un-stuck more than a few times. We went through high water, and rode along the Achafalaya. We saw a couple snakes and a lot of alligators, but we weren't scared of a single thing.
My family & I made a short trip to a friend's farm in Alabama, where you will never guess what I did. Okay so you probably did guess it...I rode fourwheelers, drove a big Dodge Ram turbodiesel around, caught some nice 'bama bass, and shot a lot of big guns. This is when I broke my fishing pole. I had a big bass on the line and he tried to swim under the dock, so I put my hand out on the pole--big mistake. It snapped, but I still got the fish so its okay!! I then got my ugly stik and open-faced Shakespeare/Shimano that I also love.
This is what my Spring looked like:

How It All Started

Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by every aspect of nature. The more time I spent outside or with animals, the more in love I fell. I would spend hours of daylight playing in ditches after a long rain, catching bugs, minnows, crawfish, turtles, tadpoles and frogs. I would sneak stray animals into the house and separately convince each of my parents that the other was okay with keeping it. I had rabbits, dogs, cats, snakes, ducks, chickens, the list goes on. We didn't live on a farm, but to me, we did. I remember every once in a while my dad would go with a friend on a hunting or fishing trip and I always wanted to go, but Mom & Dad said "not this time." What they didn't know, was that this little girl was born for this. However, my dad did take my sister, Rebecca, and I deer hunting when I was two years old. That was a bust due to me hollering "I see one!" or "I have to potty!" every two minutes. This is most likely why I never got to on Dad's trips anymore. When I got to go fishing with my dad, I loved it and would want to stay 'til dark, catching or not catching. It was a bit longer before I got to go hunting (and actually understood what I was doing), around 7th grade. My first real experience was coon (raccoon, for you yuppies) hunting. We brought a beautiful champion blutick coonhound, Blu, out with us and let her loose in the woods. While we waited for the dog to tree the coon, we built a fire to keep warm. We finally heard the dog and she had treed. Now, I was not prepared for the long hike we had to take to find the dog, and of course I had to pee. We killed the coon and sold it...I wasn't real sure about all of this, but I thought it was fun enough to go again and kill one myself! Then deer season came along. My brother-in-law, Tim, and sister, Rachel, took me out a few times and we didn't see any deer, but for some reason I wasn't ready to give up. One evening Tim and I were sitting in a box stand and nothing came out. As we got down he told me that deer are almost always standing at the bottom of the hill, and sure enough, two big does stood there and stared us down. It wasn't past legal shooting hours, but it was getting close and kind of hard to see out of his old 30-30 scope. Heart throbbing, knees shaking, I pulled the trigger..."did I get it!?" We rounded everyone up with flashlights and searched for blood, finally we found the bullet in the dirt. It was a miss. I had no idea that I had just become addicted to this way of life. The next deer I had the opportunity to shoot was a spike, with my Dad's crossbow. I heard the crunching of the leaves behind me and started going crazy inside. It walked right under my tripod, where Tim was sitting on the ground with a compound bow. They were face to face and surprisingly the deer was not spooked, he kept on walking. When he got to the fence line, he turned and looked, I shot. Long story short, it was another miss. Time passed and I finally had another hunting opportunity...my first deer, and my first buck. Keep reading :)