This is the first time in YEARS that the Evansville Courier and Press (my home town paper in Evansville, Indiana) has displayed a dead trophy animal on the pages. Please take a couple minutes and congratulate the author John Lucas at [email protected] and thank him for the article AND the picture. Tell him how much a picture adds to the story.
Thanks..
Unlikely hunter bags the ultimate in Ky. big game
Courtesy of Tanya Walker From left, Mike Walker, Tanya Walker and Ryan Walker. Tanya Walker, a Hopkins County, Ky., woman who never hunted prior to this fall, was selected in Kentucky's elk draw and killed an elk in eastern Kentucky.Tanya Walker's first encounter with a cow elk was a rather tame experience. It was stuffed and on display at a Bass Pro Shops store in Sevierville, Tenn.
Her husband, Mike, and son, Ryan, used it as a teaching tool to show her where she needed to aim to bring down one of the massive creatures with a shot from a high-powered rifle.
From there, the learning curve was all uphill — literally.
Before this fall, Walker, who is a curriculum coordinator at Grapevine Elementary School in Madisonville, Ky., had never hunted, never shot a gun.
But all that changed in an instant when her name was drawn from among thousands of applicants for one of the 300 permits issued by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources to kill an elk from a recently re-established herd in eastern Kentucky.
Walker agreed to enter the drawing, along with her husband and son, thinking the permit, if she were chosen, could be transferred to one of them. It was only after her name was drawn that she learned the permits are nontransferrable.
That's when her education as a hunter began in earnest.
Most people start off hunting rabbits and squirrels, observed her husband, a Hopkins County State Farm Insurance agent. But she started with elk, one of North America's top big game species. Until recent herd reintroduction efforts by Kentucky and other states, hunters had to make an arduous trek to the Rocky Mountain states to bag one.
Her firearms instruction began with a .22-caliber rifle and progressed to larger calibers until she finally was drilling targets at 200-plus yards with the Remington .308 she would use on her hunt.
And there was no question that she'd make the early December hunt to attempt to kill a cow elk. Permits awarded are specific as to which sex a hunter can take. This year, 75 permits were drawn for bulls and 225 for cows.
In 1997, Kentucky began a program of reintroducing elk, which once roamed the Southeast but were hunted out in the early 1800s as the region was settled. Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel released some 1,500 wild elk captured in Western states on vast acreages of formerly strip-mined ground in eastern Kentucky over the next few years. Today, the herd is estimated at 6,500 animals that roam primarily over 16 counties.
Hunting by permit has been allowed since 2001. The number of permits issued will continue to increase as the size of the herd grows. Next year, the department is planning to offer 400 permits, 100 for bulls and 300 for cows.
"I just decided I'm going to do this. I'm going to think like a man. I'm going to kill this animal," Walker said of her determination to use the permit.
She knew the terrain in eastern Kentucky would be hilly, but Walker, who is a runner, felt she was in good enough shape to tackle it. What she hadn't expected, though, were the highwalls left behind when the mine land was reclaimed that had to be scaled as the hunters stalked the elk.
After most of a morning of scaling and descending the nearly sheer rock walls — trying to get close enough to a herd of 40 or 50 elk for a clean shot — Walker said she gained an appreciation for Gortex and other outdoor gear favored by her husband, son and other hunters.
Her husband and son accompanied her on the hunt, and her son proved instrumental in her eventual ability to bring down a 520-pound cow. As they finally got close enough for a shot, it was discovered that the bipod Walker was using to steady her aim wasn't tall enough for the terrain. Her son, on his hands and knees, volunteered to serve as a bench rest for the gun, raising it high enough for his mother to get off the shot needed to drop the animal.
They field dressed and quartered it before hauling it back to Western Kentucky to be carved into steaks and roasts.
Now Walker has an unusual tale, a freezer full of meat and an unexpected Christmas card, a picture of the three with the just-killed elk. As for more hunting, Walker jokes now she's thinking, maybe, safari.
Readers can contact John Lucas at 464-7433 or [email protected] .
