This is a great story!
http://www.komotv.com/news/12536306.html By Associated Press
WOODLAND, Wash. (AP) - Edna Braden has bagged plenty of deer over the years, and even a bear.
At 79, she's finally filled an elk tag.
"It's my first one!" she gushed in an interview at her Woodland home a few paces from the Lewis River. "I'd gone (elk) hunting but not hard because my boys are bow hunters.
"I'm really only 59," Braden said. "I just tell people that I'm 79." Looking at the straight-talking woman with neatly coiffed white hair, you might believe her.
Braden, whose husband Arnold died in 1994, has a treadmill in her living room and keeps busy outside. "I have 30 chickens. I was taking care of my son's horse. I try to eat right. I take all my vitamins."
Braden benefitted from the Department of Fish and Wildlife's decision to reduce the size of the Mount St. Helens elk herd by 25 percent over the next five years. Starting this season, the DFW has greatly increased the number of cow permits, including several hunts for those 65 and older.
Braden was one of 18 seniors to draw tags for the Mudflow hunts in the Mount St. Helens state wildlife area on the Toutle Valley floor. The area is in the Loowit game unit, where hunting is allowed only by special permit.
The first thing Braden had to do was find someone else to care for Floyd Smith, a veteran who lives in her home. He's only a few months older than Braden but has frequent medical appointments in Vancouver. "He can't be left alone," she said.
"I had a little bout with cancer in '96," Braden said. "The Lord spared me so I can take care of him."
She put Smith in a respite care center for a few days last week and got her hunting gear together.
"This .270 I use was my Dad's," she said. "That means an awful lot to me. I always hunted with my Dad when I was a kid."
She loaded up her pride and joy, a five-year-old Ford F350 king cab pickup truck with a V-10 gasoline engine and big tires. "I bought it myself," she announced proudly, along with a 26-foot trailer.
Braden usually hunts in the Siouxon area of eastern Clark County.
For her elk hunt, she enlisted Mark Smith, owner of the Eco Park resort on Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, as a guide.
Smith said he likes to help seniors who have lost their hunting partners.
Early the morning of Nov. 29, Braden and Smith were driving down the 3100 road from the highway to the refuge (hunters who get one of the special permits also get a key to the logging road gate).
"It was snowing that morning," Smith said. "There wasn't a track on the road."
Braden was excited, he added. "We saw 27 bulls. Bulls seemed to be jumping down all over the place, but we needed to find the cows."
The cows, they discovered, were about 1,000 yards off the road that cuts through the wildlife area in the middle of numerous hilly hummocks separated by soggy stretches.
Braden and Smith stalked the wary herd for about 90 minutes. "It was raining and foggy and miserable," Smith said.
At one point, Braden fell into a creek. "I thought she was going to freeze to death," Smith said, "but she was dressed warm."
Braden passed on a couple of possible shots because she didn't feel confident she'd hit the animal squarely, but decided to take a shot at 175 yards. She wanted something to support her rifle. "I kneeled down and plugged my ear," Smith said. Braden rested her 50-year-old .270 on the guide's shoulder and fired.
At first, she was afraid she had missed, but 30 seconds later a cow fell -- the bullet had grazed its heart.
"I packed it out," Smith said. "She was the cheerleader. It was the nicest hunting experience I've had."
As for Braden, "It was one of the most important days of my entire life."
Sons Richard and Darwin Rounds are envious, she said. "They're still crying because they weren't there."
Back home recently, Braden was busy ferrying her friend Smith to medical appointments in Vancouver. During an interview, the phone rang. "I am the sick kid picker-upper," she explained.
She's already thinking about heading into the woods in the 2008 season. "I can't wait until next year. Mark says get a bull tag."
Regards, Guy
