A Half Pint Hunt
Kia Gjoraas is the living embodiment of the cliché "good things come in small packages". Her tiny stature earned her the loving nickname "Half Pint" around our house, in honor of both her size and her resemblance to the venerable Laura Ingalls. Kia is a 9th grader at Sioux Falls Washington High School, a two time varsity gymnastics letter winner for the Warriors, and a former student of the month and year at Whittier Middle School in Sioux Falls. Kia always has a kind word for others, is quick to help those in need, and works incredibly hard to maintain her grades in school. One thing that stands out about Kia is her determination and positive attitude, both of which would be tested to the limit when she chose to take up archery.
Kia's story begins in April of 2014 on a Saturday afternoon. Kia and I like to go out and do things together as a way of bonding once a month or so. On this Saturday Kia chose to go to the archery range with me. She had expressed interest in archery prior to our trip and I thought it was time for us to see if she wanted to give it a try. We looked at a few different bows and Kia picked out a Bear bow in her signature pink of course! Her face lit up with a giant smile when I told her it was hers.
After setting up her bow to her draw length and a weight she could comfortably handle Kia sent her first few arrows down range. It was immediately obvious that Kia was a natural. Her arrows grouped together nicely and after some fine tuning and adjustments she was consistently in the bulls eye at 10 yards. She continued to practice throughout the summer and fall working up to the minimum hunting draw weight of 30 pounds for the state of South Dakota.
In the spring of 2015 Kia had finally built up the strength to consistently pull back and comfortably shoot 35 pounds of weight. Her groups were still good and we decided that she would hunt turkeys that spring. Kia worked hard turkey hunting and had a couple of opportunities that spring. The closest of which ended up in handful of feathers but no turkey. Those close calls and time in the woods had lit a fire in little Half Pint though that I never would have imagined she possessed. She was determined to get an animal with her bow, and she was going to work as hard as she need to to get it done.
In the fall of 2015 Kia set out to get her first deer. Unfortunately for her deer hunting, Kia is also a gymnast. Those two loves do not go hand in hand very well. The gymnastics season in South Dakota starts during the peak of the rut, limiting Kia to only a couple of weekends to hunt prior to her gymnastics commitments beginning. Kia was able to get out in the tree stand and saw some deer culminating in one opportunity for a shot. Unfortunately in her excitement Kia didn't execute as well as she normally would and missed the doe low, a clean miss, and the doe scampered away unharmed. Kia was more determined than ever!
As we went through the spring and summer of 2016 I could tell Kia was really coming into her own as an archer. She was comfortable with 40 pounds now, she was far more consistent, and her "bad shots" were much closer to the bullseye than they were as she was starting out. I really felt she would take a turkey in the spring of 2016 but a couple of unlucky things happened to her and she went home empty handed. I could sense the frustration she was feeling in the spring but it quickly turned into a steadfast will to succeed. She practiced intently over the summer, working and working on her form and technique. By the time we approached the fall archery deer season she was better prepared than I could have ever imagined.
Kia's first opportunity to get in the tree stand this fall happened on October 22nd. We headed up to our spot with high hopes. The deer numbers have really rebounded over the past few years with reduced doe harvest. We spent a sleepless night in the camper awaiting the alarm clock's announcement that it was time to begin our hunt!
5:30 comes early when you're a 15 year old girl, but even that didn't stop Half Pint from bouncing out of bed and donning her gear for the morning's hunt. We chatted about deer, the new pressures of high school, and the challenges of her homework so far this school year on the way to the stand. I'm blessed to have a girl with such an interest in the outdoors at her age and such a willingness to openly discuss her challenges, fears and problems. I know not all families are so lucky. It also reminded me of when I was a boy not much older than her, heading out deer hunting in the early mornings with my father, and how my problems melted away in a deer stand. I understood why she loves it so much, and why it seems to refresh her when we get back from our trips.
We climbed up into our stand in the middle of an ocean of switchgrass, a lone cottonwood outpost in a sea of waving cover that held many, many deer. It didn't take long after the gray light of morning began to break over the prairie for us to spot our first few deer of the morning. Does and fawns feeding in neighboring field and slowly making their way back into the grass cover to bed for the day. A small buck had caught our attention and we focused intently on him. He was on a great trail that would take him within range of our stand. I was concerned that his direction of approach would bring our scent to him on the south morning wind. As he moved down the trail about 50 yards away I saw his ears perk up and his nose wrinkle slightly and I knew the game was up. He winded us and bound away into the next draw.
As we turned from the buck we were surprised to see that 2 doe and a fawn had approached our stand from the other direction without our knowledge. Kia slowly repositioned herself in the stand and waited for the deer to approach. Their path would take them behind the tree and out of my line of sight. Kia was going to be on her own for this test! The first doe was quite a bit larger than the other with the fawn, she had the long face of a mature deer and I felt she was most likely an old dry doe. That was the deer I asked Kia to focus on. The doe moved into range behind the tree at 17 yards, well within Kia's 30 yard maximum range. As the doe slipped behind the trunk of the big cottonwood I watched Kia smoothly draw her bow back into position. She settled her anchor and took her time. In the blink of an eye her arrow was on the way!
I could not see the impact but I could tell by the sound and Kia's reaction that she had hit the doe, and hit her squarely. The old girl soon streaked into sight heading back the way she came. I could see from the position of the wound that Kia had made a great shot, and her first archery deer was just a formality at this point. We gave the doe a few minutes to expire and took up the track. She was right where we had last seen her. Kia was extremely excited and overcome with emotion, she had set her mind to taking an animal with her bow and had made that dream a reality. We hugged and high fived and as is customary for us we said a prayer to thank the good Lord for blessing us with the life of the deer.
We proceeded to field dress the deer and drag it back to the truck. On the way I could tell Kia was reflecting on what she had done, how hard she had worked for it, and how much it meant to her. I could also see the wheels spinning in her head concocting her next challenge. She looked up at me and asked "I still have a buck tag right?" Yes you do Half Pint, yes you do. Let's see what we can do about that.
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