Young Mom Arrows Doe With Her Baby Daughter on Her Back
Russ Chastain 11.21.19
Regular readers here probably know the name Beka Garris, the young lady who made a name for herself as a bowfisher and bowhunter who posted photos and accounts of her adventures on her Facebook page. Recently, she’s been hunting with her young daughter, and because she is a bowhunter who uses traditional archery gear, it’s been challenging.
Happily, she recently connected with a nice big doe, which she shot while wearing her little girl on her back. Bowhunter did an article about it.
While Beka knew the hunting process this year would be harder, she also kept believing it would not be impossible either. But as the hunting weeks began to accumulate during the fall of 2019, the young mom’s confidence slowly eroded away.
Knowing it was November and anything was possible, Beka took another opportunity to hunt a few days ago, loading up her gear and her daughter, and heading for her nearby hunting ground.
An hour later, she began to make her way back towards the parking area, disappointed that another fruitless hunt seemed to be the day’s inevitable outcome.
But that’s when everything changed, almost as if divine intervention had suddenly shown up in the Ohio deer woods as a huge doe eased through.
‘As I was spot-and-stalking my way back towards my Jeep, I saw this doe,’ said Garris. ‘It was pretty dry, and I actually heard her first, something walking through the woods. Where I was still hunting, there was a big field, some brush, and a bunch of hardwoods [nearby]. The way it all came together, I knew she would pop out of the woods and come across the trail I was on.’
When that exact scenario unfolded, Garris quickly moved her Bear Super Mag recurve into position, pulled the 45 pounds of draw weight back, briefly anchored and took aim, and then let the 10-yard shot go as the big doe paused briefly on the trail.
When the 3 Rivers shaft and 125-grain Woodsman broadhead found it’s[sic] mark, it wasn’t long before the woods were still again. After the near-perfect bow shot produced a quick recovery, Garris was left to ponder her bowhunting journey from being a kid in the Ohio deer woods with her father to taking her own young daughter into the woods with her and continuing to live out the whitetail hunting and bowhunting passion that started so many years ago.
Somehow, even if she had to overcome steep odds to find her deer hunting success this fall, the effort was worth it, and the result made the circuitous journey almost complete.
‘Basically, for the last month and a half, I have emotionally exhausted myself trying to figure out how I was going to get this done,’ said Beka. ‘I’ll admit, I hit a wall that day and thought to myself ‘This is never going to happen, and you need to accept that.’
‘But 10 minutes later, it actually happened, and it was awesome.’
I can identify; on my 2019 muzzleloader hunt, I went from asking myself why the heck I had gone to that crappy stand to shooting one of the most unique bucks of my life.
Beka posted that, after she hurt her back hoisting the hefty doe into her Jeep, it didn’t fit! So she had to call her husband to bring his pickup truck.
‘He was happy to do that because we’ve both really been wanting some venison,’ she laughed. ‘Now I’m just hoping that one of us will get at least one more deer this year for our freezer.’
Yep, that’s the way we hunters have to be… ever hopeful, even when doubt begins to creep in.
Her daughter Isabella loves hunting with her mom.
Nice work, Beka.
