Son guides mom to hunting success

Photo courtesy of Tom Tatum: New London’s Jamie Branham, left, wields the flintlock she used to bag her first buck with the help of her son Justin.

A mother of three, New London’s Jamie Branham is anything but a stay-at-home housewife. Branham, 48, spends most days teaching science at Kennett Middle School, but autumn afternoons and weekends you’ll most likely find her stalking the wilds of Chester County in quest of deer and other game. On most of those forays, her 18-year-old son Justin is there to guide her. Although Branham is a newcomer to the sport, the rest of her family (with the exception of 17-year-old daughter Katy) has long been steeped in the hunting tradition.

Branham’s husband Dave began hunting in his youth, but gave up the sport until sons Justin and Matt, 21, reached their respective 12th birthdays and expressed their desire to hunt. With the men in her family all so immersed in hunting, Jamie, who was already an avid angler, decided to learn why they were so fascinated by the sport. When she purchased her very first hunting license last year, she was about to find out.

After a few earlier miscues during Pennsylvania’s 2006-2007 archery season, Branham finally got a chance at a fat doe. This time a perfectly placed shot dropped the deer within 30 yards. Her primitive weapon of choice was the crossbow she inherited from her husband. “I get all the hand-me-downs,” she notes. The day she arrowed her first deer, her son Matt, who was hunting nearby, downed another nice doe within minutes of his mother’s success. Younger son Justin was then summoned to provide a lesson in field dressing the animals.

A major benefit Branham found in taking up the sport of hunting was the opportunity to get closer to her sons, especially Justin. “Ever since he was little he always wanted to fish,” she says. “Later he developed a passion for guns and hunting, so I signed him up for hunter safety class. Encouraging his love of the outdoors was a way to motivate him to do well in school.”

A 2006 graduate of Avon Grove High School, Justin was then inspired to enroll in guide school. Last summer he sojourned to Cripple Creek, Colorado, where he attended the Colorado Outdoor Adventure Guide School (COAGS) for three weeks of training in subjects that included orienteering, basic horsemanship, first aid and CPR, and outdoor cooking. In early fall he returned to the COAGS campus, this time in Gonzales, Texas, and completed more advanced training. When he returned he was well equipped to provide his mother with expert advice as she began her quest for her first buck.

Justin mentored Jamie, working extensively on her marksmanship both with crossbow and assorted firearms. Under her son’s tutelage, Branham hunted the entire 2007-2008 season, and although she scored on another doe with her shotgun and had a few close encounters with bucks, she balked at taking any questionable shots. “Passing up those bucks was very frustrating,” admits Branham, “but I never want to take a chance at a bad shot.”

After each such excursion, Justin would counsel his mother and offer pointers on what she might do differently next time. “She’s the kind of person who prefers hands-on learning,” he explains. “I can tell her about the importance of reading the wind, getting on stand early, and using pinch points and funnels, but until she actually gets out there and finds out first hand what I’m talking about, she really doesn’t appreciate how critical my advice is.”

Thanks to Justin’s coaching, by the time black powder season arrived after Christmas, Branham had been well schooled in the intricacies of hunting with the finicky flintlock. “By that time everyone else in the family had filled their buck tags,” says Branham. “Dave got a 7-point and Justin and Matt both got 8-pointers. My daughter Katy doesn’t hunt, so the pressure was really on me.”

Well aware of her determination to finally tag a buck, Justin loaned his mother the .50 caliber Thompson Center flintlock that his Grandfather gave him when Justin was just six. “By then it had become an obsession,” admits Branham. “I didn’t sleep the night before the season opened and when I went out the next morning I was fighting a cold and high fever.” Nonetheless, Branham was not to be denied, knowing the first day of black powder season would be her last best chance to finally nail that elusive buck. Limited to a primitive weapon, Branham, like a modern day Danielle Boone, faced an even tougher challenge.

But Justin had done his homework. He had prepared a 16-foot ladder stand in a location where he had sighted a number of bucks while scouting the previous three weeks. Branham climbed into the stand just before daybreak. She wouldn’t have to wait long.

“After just 40 minutes I heard something coming up the trail to my left and pulled the hammer back as a spike buck walked into view,” Branham recounts. “I was shivering so badly from my fever I was afraid it would spot me, but fortunately, it didn’t. About two minutes after the spike walked by, an 8-point buck with palmated antlers appeared.”

As the 8-point sauntered into range, Branham raised the gun, placed the open sights squarely behind the buck’s shoulder and, once the deer put its head down, she pulled the set trigger. When the buck raised his head again and offered a wide open broadside shot, she fired the flintlock and the buck disappeared in the ensuing cloud of smoke.

Remembering Justin’s instructions, she made no attempt to follow up the shot. Instead she reached for her cell phone and attempted to call her son with the news. But in all her excitement, she mistakenly kept ringing the phone of her confused daughter who may have begun to question her mother’s sanity. After several attempts, Jamie finally punched the right buttons. “I think I got a buck!” she exclaimed. Justin, who was hunting antlerless deer on an adjacent property, assured her he would come right over.

Branham dutifully remained on stand until her son arrived some 20 minutes after her shot. Justin’s tracking training kicked in and the two recovered the buck within 50 yards. The patched round ball had found its mark. “She was so excited,” recalls Justin, “hopping up and down and screaming and yelling, ‘I got a buck! I got a buck!’ She kept shaking me like I was a rag doll.”

Without a doubt, that was Branham’s most memorable hunting moment to date, and the fact that she was able to share it with her son made it that more special. The venison from that deer ended up on the Branham dinner table. Other parts of the buck are now at the taxidermist. “I’m having a European mount made and the hide tanned,” smiles Jamie.

But Branham’s hunting horizons are not limited to deer. “Justin also took me goose, turkey, and dove hunting this year and that was a lot of fun,” she says. “I didn’t shoot a turkey or a goose, but I did get a lot of doves.”

In the meantime, the hunting exploits of this unique mother-son team have brought them much closer together. “Now we have a mutual bond between us that we didn’t have before,” explains Justin. “It’s opened up more avenues of conversation between us – mostly about hunting, of course.”

“What’s different for me,” adds his mother, “is that I’ve learned to take advice from my son after a lifetime of giving him advice. And now that the shoe is on the other foot I’ve grown to greatly value what he says since it’s pretty much been right on every time.”

Justin looks to the future with an eye on eventually putting his professional guide training to good use. He can see himself going down south in a few years and guiding year round for turkey, quail, deer, hogs, or whatever is in season.

His mother has set her own sights more on the immediate future. “I just can’t wait until next year,” she grins, “so I can shoot a bigger buck.”

Tom Tatum: outdoors columnist for the Daily Local News