For this local girl, there isn't much sweeter than spending a day outside on the hunt.
Shayna Hamilton was recognized at the Estevan Wildlife Federation's awards dinner on Feb. 1 for the elk she shot while on her first hunt alone last year.
The 17-year-old was featured on Maximus Outdoor Adventures, a hunting show hosted by Stoughton's Kris Cheater. The show includes a gladiator of the week segment to showcase Saskatchewan hunters, and he got wind of her elk hunt experience through Facebook. They set up a time to come to Estevan, and they filmed a segment with her, as she told the story of the hunt.
The elk's antlers were seven-by-seven, and the non-typical antler score was 272 7/8" while typical score was 247 3/8". She noted her elk's antlers were very symmetrical, but said the non-typical score comes from a pair of points coming from the antlers that aren't normally attached to the species.
It was on Sept. 20 when Shayna shot the elk. The local teen's face lit up at the opportunity to recount her story during an interview at the EWF dinner.
She drove to Kenosee Park Boundary, Zone 33, after school, and she drew an elk tag after entering into a lottery to hunt an animal that wasn't in open season. It would be her first time hunting elk.
"I was planning on hunting the whole weekend. I was lucky enough to be drawn for (the elk)."
She was hunting late in the season, but she said she could still go into the park. She didn't have to.
"I was walking on that fence line at the border of the park, and we had tree stands set up, probably three miles from where I shot it, but wind is a huge factor, if they can smell you, they aren't going to come in. The wind wasn't right for sitting in the stand," Shayna said. "I decided to just be alone instead of sitting in the stands, so I would walk so the wind was in my face."
She walked until hitting a clear spot in the trees and gave off a few calls. She kept walking, and with a map on her phone she could see there was a river five miles from where she started.
"I wanted to get to the river and sit on the river and let anything cross. I was walking on my way there and I got to this canola field and gave out a couple more calls. There was a bit of a ravine where the water ran through, so I went down into that."
When she reached the top on the other side, the elk was standing in the field in front of her.
"It caught me by surprise. I was trying to get to a certain place and I didn't expect to see anything. It was 5:30 at night and usually they're a little more active closer to sunset. Then adrenaline hit," she said. "It kind of takes control of you, but you know what you have to do, and you do it."
She pulled her gun up and made the shot. She was positive the shot was within her range.
"It ran over the top of the hill, so I ran as fast as I could to make sure that my shot had hit properly. When I saw that it had, I just kept with it to make sure I didn't lose it. If need be I had a second shot in the chamber. I knew I had hit it, and it was losing blood."
Within about 80 yards, she said the elk dropped and expired.
"After that, I just shake," she laughed. "Shake for probably half an hour after every time."
The next thing she did was call her parents, who were in Estevan, so she tagged the animal and waited in her truck for backup to arrive and help her move the animal.
"It was way too big for me to do anything about it," she said.
She said it takes a lot of practice on the range in order to remain controlled when standing over and targeting an animal.
"Practice your routine, control your breathing, but if you can do all that and know you can, it's fairly easy to control everything, even in intense situations."
Though still in high school, she has already had years of practice. It was Shayna's dad who introduced her to hunting.
"I started right when I was 12 years old. The first thing I ever shot was a black bear," she said, noting 12 is the minimum legal age to begin hunting. She shot her first deer, a mule deer, in November 2008, which she shot with a black powder rifle. She was 12 years old on that hunt as well.
"After that, I've been hunting ever since. I just go after whatever I can. The big game draw is awesome. It allows you to hunt a lot of different things in a lot of different places, and because of that I've taken a lot of animals," she said with a smile.
She started shooting guns at first, beginning to hunt with a bow once she was able to meet the draw weight requirement of 40 pounds. In the past few years, she has shot much more with bows.
"I do a little bit of both. I really like hunting with my bow, because it is a little more difficult. I've never taken more than a 20-yard shot of an animal I've hunted. It provides that challenge that you can't really get when you're shooting from 200 yards away with a gun."
No matter what she's shooting with or what animal it is in her sights, Shayna will be continuing to hunt in the years to come.
