LAURENCE KESTERSON / Inquirer Staff Photographer

Deer run through a field in Chester County. Five groups have applied to thin the East Goshen deer population.

By Walter F. Naedele

Inquirer Staff Writer

East Goshen Township has decided to thin its deer population and is bringing in groups of archers to carry out a hunt, starting in September.

Five bow-hunting groups met the Wednesday deadline to be considered for the deer hunts, township manager Rick Smith said in an interview.

This followed April 8 approval by East Goshen supervisors of a deer-control plan, including inviting archers, cost-free.

The hunts are to take place in seven periods, corresponding to statewide seasons set by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, between Sept. 20 and Jan. 24.

Smith said the killings, by archers on platforms in trees, would take place on four pieces of township-owned open space.

The pieces adjoin seven developments: Clocktower, Bow Tree, Mill Creek, Grand Oak, the Supplee Valley East and West developments, and Wentworth.

The five hunting applicants are Chester County Trackers, Deer Management Professionals of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Main Line Whitetail Managers, Sportsmen-Landowner Alliance and Tri-County Deer Management Association.

By June 2, East Goshen expects to announce which hunters have been approved.

James McRee, East Goshen’s deer-management committee chairman, said in an interview that the need for the hunt and other anti-deer efforts could be gauged by roadkill.

In East Goshen alone, he said, “Sixty-nine [is] the number of deer picked up dead along the roadside, from July of 2007 through April of 2008.”

McRee said there has been limited opposition to the hunt. At the April 8 supervisors’ meeting, he said, “There were about a half-dozen people who commented, mostly people who had been to our meetings before and had commented against the program.”

McRee said residents had not been surveyed about the deer-control program, but a few responded to an offer to comment, which ran in the township’s April newsletter.

Among 15 e-mail responses, he said, “Two were opposed to hunting, about 10 were in favor of hunting” and three supported other parts of the program.

One of those is fighting deer-borne ticks associated with Lyme disease.

On the township Web site – www.eastgoshentownship.org – a map shows 10 locations identified as “deer-bait stations,” which went into operation at the end of March.

“Deer are drawn by a small amount of corn” to those stations where, McRee said, they stick their heads inside to feed and brush against anti-tick insecticide.

“We’re also encouraging private landowners” to hunt on “their own land or bring in deer-management groups.”

East Goshen is not asking the hunting groups to pay, McRee said, because “the township would incur liability.”

On the night of March 25-26 last year, an airplane surveyor photographed 296 deer within the township and 142 on its borders. The survey cost the township $17,955.

In 1995, McRee said, a similar aerial survey had counted 157 deer in East Goshen.

“The goal of this program,” according to the township’s 18-page deer-management report, which was approved on April 8, “is to return the deer population size in the township to its 1995 level within 10 years” by killing 36 deer a year.

During the last four months the students have become experts on the lifecycle of the Atlantic Salmon and have educated the entire school community The young biologists have researched the long journey that the fish take from their local tributaries to the waters off of West Greenland and then home again using their senses of taste and smell.

“We are honored to be a part of the Salmon in Schools project,” said Connecticut Friends School teacher Suellan Birchard. “It allows us to explore marine biology both in the classroom and outside the classroom. As a Friends school, we strive to provide service learning and teach stewardship to our students.”

On April 21 the class traveled to the Salmon River Recreation Area in East Haddam, Connecticut to release their Atlantic Salmon Fry into the wild. While this is the end of the schools’ time with the salmon, it is only the beginning of a long journey for the 200 fry.
By: The Wilton Villager

3 Liberty Green Bed and Breakfast in Clinton, Conn

Malerie Yolen-Cohen

Clinton, Conn., is quiet study in American history. Colonial homes, such as the “1630 House” (currently the Tourist Information Center), line Main Street. Yale College commenced classes here in 1701, before funds were endowed to build a permanent campus in New Haven. Some residences operating as Historical Society museums were built from bricks used as ballast in merchant ships from England. And none other than Benjamin Franklin, as up-and-coming postmaster general, determined the site for a milestone on the “Post Road” — now Main Street — in the 1750s.

Currently, a kitsch-free center of town features churches, antiques emporiums, coffee shops, a stately town hall and firehouse. Banners spanning the road and many signs along the sidewalks — for blood drives, bingo nights, block parties, U.S. Coast Guard navigational classes, classical music concerts and budget referendums — indicate a populace imbued with civic pride. As if to underline the town’s patriotic bent, American flags extend from every telephone pole like streetlights.

Clinton encompasses natural splendors as well. Two bucolic rivers that cut through town — the Indian River and Hammonasset — wind from a protected harbor where lobster boats offload fresh catch and families fish from town docks. Visitors can spend a morning communing with nature by kayaking on these colorful floral and wildlife-rich inlets, then, in the afternoon, sip award-winning wines a few miles north at one of Connecticut’s premier winery, Chamard Vineyards.

Another day can be spent perusing an assortment of downtown antiques shops and Clinton Crossing, an upscale outlet mall just-off I95 and the only venue in this small town where the word “jostling” even applies.

ATTRACTIONS

In town, stop first at the Clinton Visitor’s Information Center, 49 E. Main St., in the “1630″ house in front of the fire station. The Clinton Historical Society (103 E. Main St., clintoncthistory.org), maintains several properties including the 1750 “Brick House” in town and collections in public buildings.

Chamard Vineyards (115 Cow Hill Rd., 860-664-0299, chamard.com) yields 7,000 cases of chardonnays, merlots and cabernet sauvignon each year. Visitors can sample these and other vintages ($10 tour and tasting) in an elegant tasting room within a rustic-yet-refined stone barn or outside on a patio with radiant views of the vineyards.

Rent a kayak at Indian River Marina (58 Commerce St., 860-664-3704, indrivmar .com) by the hour ($12) or day ($50) and ease along with the gentle currents through salt marshes and past swaths of sandy beach brimming with egrets, herons and the occasional osprey. Life vests and laminated maps provided.

WHERE TO STAY

The four-room 3 Liberty Green B&B (3 Liberty St., 860-669-0111, 3liberty.com) ($120-$200 a night), built in 1734 and opened in 2006 as an inn, is situated by the triangle of grass that was once a Revolutionary War muster field. With four-poster beds, luxe linens and Jacuzzi bathrooms, 3 Liberty draws plenty of weekenders. Every afternoon, cookies, tea and cordials, along with homemade appetizers such as spinach in phyllo, is set out for boarders to enjoy. In the morning guests awake to breakfast at a communal kitchen table where they might find egg, cheese and tomato pie and candied-walnut Bundt cake.

In nearby Westbrook, the Captain Stannard House Country Inn (138 South Main St., 860-399-4634, stannardhouse.com) ($135-$185 a night) has been welcoming guests for over 100 years.

In Madison, you can relax in a private English country garden at Tidewater Inn (949 Boston Post Rd., 203-245-8457, thetidewater.com) ($110-$225 a night).

WHERE TO EAT

Lines form quickly at Lobster Landing (152 Commerce St., 860-669-2005, open daily April through December), one of the last (and best) authentic lobster shacks in Connecticut. Just $12 for a toasted roll brimming with fresh-caught-and-steamed chunks of lobster drizzled with butter.

Savor specialty coffee and crepes at the old Major General Horatio Wright Homestead, painstakingly restored as the adorable M. Sarba Fine Art Café (95 E. Main St., 860-669- 5062, sarba.com), meals $6- $15. If asked, owner/artist Marek Sarba will escort guests upstairs to the gallery to see his maritime oil paintings.

Aqua Restaurant (34 Riverside, 860-664-3788), entrees $17-$30, located in Cedar Island Marina, offers good seafood with harbor views. For a burger/wings sports pub atmosphere, Chips’ Pub III, (24 W. Main, 860-669-3463), $8-$22, can’t be beat.

Malone’s Coffee and Sandwich Shop (10 W. Main St., 860- 664-0607, malonescoffee house.com), $5-$10, situated in the old brick town library, showcases local art amid leather couches, crammed bookshelves in a comfy living room setting.

WHERE TO SHOP

Clinton Crossing Premium Outlet Center (20-A Killingworth Tpk., 860- 664-0700, premiumoutlets .com/clinton) — a high-end outlet center — draws budget-conscious fashionistas from all over Connecticut and beyond. Barney’s, Saks Fifth Ave. and Donna Karan, among an eclectic assortment of retailers separate bargain hunters from their Benjamin’s. Downtown Clinton contains a wealth of antiques shops, including the Clinton Antique Center (78 E. Main St., 860-669-3839).

From: Newsday.com

DEP Also Reminds Residents of Open Burning
Restrictions During Elevated Fire Conditions

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) today reminded Connecticut residents the fire danger in the state is “high” due to the dry weather conditions Connecticut has experienced recently. Until Connecticut receives significant rainfall, forest fire danger levels will remain high to very high.

“As spring arrives more and more families want to get out and enjoy the outdoors – we strongly encourage they do”, said DEP Commissioner McCarthy. “However with the recent dry spell we have had combined with low humidity and dry grass, the conditions are prime for brush fires to erupt which, we are already seeing.” “The DEP urges all who will enjoy the use of Connecticut’s parks, forests and open spaces, to use fires with caution and practice forest fire prevention tips – especially at this time when forest fire conditions are elevated.

“We want people to enjoy the outdoors but urge everyone to obey local laws regarding open fires, carefully dispose of hot coals, and completely extinguish smoking materials”, added Commissioner McCarthy.

DEP’s Division of Forestry constantly monitors the danger of forest fire to help protect Connecticut’s 1.8 million acres of forested land. Forest fire danger levels are classified as low, moderate, high, very high or extreme. In an average year forest fires scorch approximately 1,300 acres of Connecticut woodland.

The DEP reminds all state residents that if they have received a permit from their local Open Burning Official to burn brush on their property, the permit is not valid if the Forest Fire Danger is rated high, very high or extreme and they are burning within 100 feet of a grassland or woodland.

Anyone spotting a forest fire should go to the nearest telephone and dial 911 to report the fire as quickly as possible to the local fire department.

Forest Fire Prevention Tips

The DEP encourages residents of Connecticut to protect their families and homes from forest fire by:

• Making a fire safe zone around your house. Clean flammable vegetation and debris from at least 30 feet around the house and any outbuildings;
• Pruning away the lower limbs of evergreens that are within the fire safe zone. Evergreens catch fire easily during dry periods and burn quickly;
• Removing any limbs which overhang the roof or chimney;
• Regularly removing leaves and needles from gutters;
• Not storing firewood in the fire safe zone;
• Using fire resistant roofing materials;
• Making sure firefighters can find and access your home. Mark your house and roads clearly and prune away limbs and trees along your driveway which do not allow fire truck access;
• Have an escape plan and practice it;
• Following state and local open burning laws;
• Staying with outside fires until they are completely safe and dead out; and
• Disposing of wood ashes in a metal bucket, soaking them with water before dumping them.

For those who enjoy the use of Connecticut’s parks, forests, and open spaces, use fires with caution and follow these recommendations:

• Obey local laws regarding open fires, including campfires;
• Keep all flammable objects away from fire;
• Have firefighting tools nearby and handy;
• Carefully dispose of hot charcoal;
• Drown all fires;
• Extinguish smoking materials with caution.

Photo by Bob Child • California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks Friday at a conference on climate change at Yale University in New Haven. Behind Schwarzenegger are Nobel laureate Rajendra K. Pachauri, left, and Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

New Haven — Concern about the environment and body-building have something in common. So declared California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his address to a capacity audience at Yale University’s Woolsey Hall on Friday, the climax of the two-day Conference of Governors on Climate Change.

“Like body-builders, environmentalists have been seen as weird fanatics who are no fun, like prohibitionists at a fraternity party,” said Schwarzenegger, who rose to fame as an actor with the 1977 film, “Pumping Iron.” “For too long, the environmental movement has been powered by guilt. Guilt is passive. It’s inhibiting. Successful movements are built on passion and confidence that galvanize action.”

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, after outlining various initiatives his state is taking to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, told the 2,700 in attendance that the environmental movement is becoming “forceful, cutting edge, even sexy” and that he and other state leaders are taking actions “because Washington is asleep at the wheel.”

California, with the seventh-largest economy in the world, can have a significant effect on pushing various sectors of the economy, he said, citing the state’s effort to force U.S. automakers to meet mileage targets for new cars, an initiative challenged by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The message to the Michigan-based U.S. auto industry is: “Arnold to Michigan: Get off your butt” and start manufacturing more fuel-efficient cars, he said.

Before his speech, he joined Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine in signing a climate-change declaration, committing to new efforts to curtail emissions that are contributing to global warming and calling on the federal government to enact policies to do the same on a national level. The declaration was signed by an additional 14 states whose governors sent representatives to the conference.

“What we desperately need is a clear national policy” addressing climate change, said Sebelius, a Democrat. But, like other speakers, she said states are filling the vacuum left by Washington and creating a framework for a new policy direction certain to emerge with the next administration.

Rell, a Republican, said actions to reduce greenhouse gases through energy conservation, greater use of renewable energy sources and new technologies will not only help save the planet, it will also help create a new kind of economy.

Rell did not mention a bill pending in the state legislature that would make Connecticut’s voluntary greenhouse gas reduction efforts mandatory. Environmental groups are pushing for passage of the bill, which they say is needed because voluntary efforts are not moving the state toward the goal of reducing emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80 percent below by 2050.

Joining the governors and other representatives of various states at the conference were the premiers of two Canadian provinces, Quebec and Manitoba, that have taken steps to reduce their carbon emissions, and the governor of Mexico’s Sonora state and the environment minister of the Czech Republic.

Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Center for Law and the Environment, said the gathering illustrates the how state-level leadership “is providing a safety net” against the failure of the Bush administration to take an international leadership role in addressing climate change.

Esty noted that the event coincides with the 100th anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Conference of Governors that launched the conservation movement that spawned the National Park System and the U.S. Forest Service to begin meeting the environmental challenges of that era.

Yale’s own efforts, said Yale President Richard Levin, have cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent since 2005, at a very small cost overall.

“We’re demonstrating that reducing our carbon footprint is not only feasible, but also affordable,” he said.

•••••

While many of the speakers at the conference focused on actions they have taken and future actions targeting global warming, R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, laid out the problems facing the planet because of the buildup of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels and other sources.

“In our drive toward industrialization,” he said, “we have pursued a pattern of development that is unsustainable” because of excessive consumption of natural resources including fossil fuels. Climate change, he noted, is no longer a theory, “but is something observable” in quantifiable rises in average world temperatures, sea level rise and other measures.

The effects of warming, he said, are more floods, droughts, heat waves, chronic water shortages in parts of the world, more diseases carried by insects, declines in agricultural production. Future predictions are similarly dire: 20 to 30 percent of wildlife species are at risk of extinction due to rising temperatures, he said, and crop failures could become severe in some areas.

“There is no part of the globe that is immune,” he said.

“We know we will have to adapt to climate change, but some countries have no choice but are having to take immediate adaptive measures, and we need to help them,” he said. “Emissions will have to peak at 2015 and decline after that” to stave off more catastrophic effects.

He called for the United States to take a leadership role in reducing carbon emissions and providing financial incentives for research into new environmentally friendly technologies.

“Society might actually benefit by taking these measures,” he said.

Individual actions are also important, he said.

“People should eat less meat. You would be healthier and so would the planet,” because of the tremendous resources used in raising and processing meat for consumption. Curtailing use of lighting and burning less gasoline would also help, he said.

“If you can think of one thing every day by which you can reduce your carbon footprint on the planet, there would be such an accumulation of these efforts,” he said. “After all, we all live on one planet, and we have to face this challenge together.”

j.benson@theday.com

The Connecticut River Valley Branch invites you to attend a FREE educational seminar on “Assessing & Managing Deer Habitat on Small Acreage Properties” and “More on Food Plots – What, How & When to Plant.” All hunters, landowners and anyone interested in Quality Deer Management (QDM) are invited to attend this FREE seminar. QDMA, New England/Canada Regional Director Matt Ross will discuss both topics in depth as well as answer any questions attendees may have.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday, May 14th. at the Cabela’s in East Hartford. The seminar will be held in the 2nd floor conference room and is open to the public. Doors open at 6:15p.m. and the seminar will run from 7-8:30p.m.

As with the seminar in March, we are expecting an excellent turnout and seating will be limited. Please RSVP by email or phone to Ron Reaves by April 30 to confirm a seat.

Governor Rell Announces Great Park Pursuit
Contest Back for Third Straight Year

Additional enhancements to “No Child Left Inside” also previewed

Governor M. Jodi Rell today announced The Great Park Pursuit – Connecticut’s state park family adventure – is returning for a third season along with other new programs being added to the state’s growing “No Child Left Inside” initiative.

“The Great Park Pursuit provides children with an opportunity to go outside and have fun,” Governor Rell said. “More than 1000 families over the last two years have come to experience the excitement of the Park Pursuit, and we hope that this year’s contest will be bigger and better than ever. I encourage all families to start gearing up for this unique family outdoor adventure.

“Building on the success of the Great Park Pursuit, we will be adding new programs to reach even more families. We will have programs specifically tailored for families headed by grandparents and by older caregivers and we will have programs that introduce families to Connecticut’s farms. These new efforts will strengthen Connecticut’s reputation as a leader in the campaign to reconnect families with the outdoors.”

Details: The Great Park Pursuit

The Great Park Pursuit, The Connecticut State Parks Family Adventure, is a central element of Connecticut’s No Child Left Inside initiative. The game will take Connecticut families to seven different state parks and forests this spring. Families can register for the game beginning Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at: www.nochildleftinside.org

The Great Park Pursuit kicks-off on Saturday, May 10 at Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison and concludes on June 21 with a day of activities followed by a family campout. Some of the events in the contest will take place on specific Saturday’s and will be guided by DEP staff. Other activities are “self-guided” and families in the contest can visit these locations anytime during the seven-week contest period.

Clues to activities and locations of the contest will be available at the end of each week’s activity and on the “No Child Left Inside” website. At each location, teams will be asked to complete at least one activity that highlights the vast opportunities in Connecticut’s state parks and forests such as hiking, letterboxing, fishing, and more.

Participants will be eligible for prizes of outdoor equipment, donated by local retailers. The contest is open to families – which must include one person 18 or over and one person under the age of 18. In the past Connecticut families consisted of grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and uncles with nieces and nephews, and even Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops.

Success of No Child Left Inside

“No Child Left Inside” and “The Great Park Pursuit” have been well received, not only by Connecticut families, but throughout New England and the nation.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire are now offering “Great Park Pursuits.” Vermont is offering outdoor adventures under the “No Child Left Inside” umbrella. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts and CT will be working together on a Fall Foliage Adventure.

DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy said, “The ‘No Child Left Inside’ initiative and ‘The Great Park Pursuit’ contest are fun and exciting programs for our agency. There is, however, a serious side to it all. Today’s youngsters do not have enough opportunities to get outside. We need to help make that happen. We also need to encourage youngsters to love the outdoors and our natural resources. If we fail in this mission, there will be few adults in the future willing to speak up and fight for our environment.”

“It has been inspiring the past two springs to see families enjoying the outdoors together during ‘The Great Park Pursuit’ contest,” Commissioner McCarthy said. “The success of the contest demonstrates that we can get people back outdoors and that we can interest people in our environment. Other states have watched what we are accomplishing. With the Governor’s help, we are leading a national movement for families to reclaim the outdoors.”

Additional Details About the Great Park Pursuit:

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

According to Pope & Young records, Jim Kostroski’s monster 17-pointer from Minnesota is the archery world’s highest-scoring velvet whitetail of all time. Photo by Pat Reeve.

The 2003 season was filled with great bucks, but few of them can match this one’s historical impact. Here’s how a dedicated bowhunter arrowed the world’s top velvet buck by bow!

By Scott Bestul

For whitetail fanatics, 2003 might well go down as the “Year of the World Record.” The most obvious reason for such a designation is, of course, the famous non-typical that young Tony Lovstuen shot in southern Iowa with his muzzleloader last September. That monster is apparently the world’s top hunter-killed non-typical ever; in fact, as this issue goes to press, his 319 4/8-inch entry score is being checked by a panel of Boone and Crockett measurers.

The Lovstuen buck is one of the all-time greats, regardless of his exact score. But over two weeks before Tony downed that giant, another world-record whitetail was tagged in the Midwest.

The hunt for this Minnesota buck, which now reigns as the largest non-typical velvet whitetail ever shot by a bowhunter, shares many similarities with the Lovstuen buck: a multi-year quest; some close calls and near misses; a teamwork approach to unraveling the buck’s pattern; and, in the end, an emotional roller-coaster ride for the lucky hunter.

One of these deer will be the new state record for typical whitetails. The deer on the left was killed by John Ehmer. The one on the right was taken by Jason Boyett.

Pushmataha county always has been Oklahoma’s best for trophy deer, at least in terms of numbers.

It has grown more Cy Curtis bucks (the state Wildlife Department’s awards program that recognizes exceptional deer) than any other county in the state.

Now, Pushmataha County has produced two potentially state record deer in the same season.

Both deer were taken during the 2007 gun season and will score higher than the state typical record of 185 6/8, which was killed in 1998 in Bryan County by bow hunter Larry Luman of Atoka.

Jason Boyett, 29, who was hunting near his hometown of Rattan, killed one of the new potential state records. The other was taken by John Ehmer, 57, who was hunting near Clayton.

These two impressive sets of antlers are now dueling for the new state record for typical racks.

The Wildlife Department’s policy is that a buck must be scored by a Boone & Crockett panel of judges before it can be certified as a state record.

Alan Peoples, chief of the wildlife division for the state Wildlife Department, said both racks likely will be panel-scored sometime this summer with the results announced at the Oklahoma Wildlife Expo in September.

Both racks unofficially have measured better than 190 and are reportedly only inches apart.

Both deer are on display today at the Backwoods Hunting and Fishing Expo in Oklahoma City. Today is the final day of the show which is being held at State Fair Park in the Travel and Transportation Building.

Boyett said his enthusiasm is not tempered by the fact that another hunter’s buck might keep his from being a state record.

“I’m still excited about it,” he said. “I’m happy either way, but it’s always a plus if he is (the state record).”

Ehmer, who admits he is primarily a meat hunter, expressed similar sentiments.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime buck,” he said. “It’s something you don’t expect to happen.”

By Ed Godfrey
Outdoors Editor