A year ago, Rachael Baker of LaGrange found out that she’d won the hunt of a lifetime. She also knew that the person she wanted to share that Colorado antelope hunt with would be unavailable.
Her dad, Joe was in Iraq, serving with the Maine Air National Guard.
Earlier this month, thanks to the flexibility of the contest organizers, the Bakers finally took that trip. And 13-year-old Rachael wound up with a story she’ll tell for years to come.
Rachael Baker originally won the trip to Elkhorn Outfitters in Craig, Colo., by writing a 1,000-word essay that explained what hunting meant to her and her family. The contest was open to 12- to 17-year-old boys and girls who had a parent deployed on active military duty or who had been wounded in combat or honorably discharged. The winners of the contest were to have their hunts filmed for use on TV host Jim Zumbo’s Outdoor Channel show.
The Bakers missed out on the filming because of the year delay, but weren’t complaining earlier this week.
The duo were targeting pronghorn antelope, and spent Sept. 5 through Sept. 9 in Colorado.
They didn’t enjoy instant success, however.
“The first day was kind of tragic, I guess I could say,” the Penquis Valley Middle School eighth-grader said. “The first day we saw a bunch of antelope. They ran up over a hill and [the guide] got me all lined up. I shot, and I shot 15 feet over the antelope. I was kind of frustrated with myself because I shot three shots and didn’t make it.”
The Bakers returned to camp and learned that the sights on Rachael’s gun had been knocked askew. Another guide offered her the use of his own .243 rifle, which was heavier. She accepted, but was still a bit concerned.
The next morning, the Bakers headed back out, hoping to find another antelope.
It didn’t take long before they did just that. And the antelope they found was at a serious disadvantage.
“The sun was right at our back,” Joe Baker said. “We drove right up and there was one eating away at the sagebrush and he’s looking right at us and he couldn’t see what we were because of the sun.”
Rachael hopped out of the truck and quickly learned that she was getting advice in stereo.
“The guide was helping her. Of course, I was also helping her,” Joe Baker said with a chuckle. “Probably frustrating the guide a little bit, or frustrating her.”
Rachael Baker said the frustration was short-lived.
“I blocked out my dad. I was only listening to my guide,” she said.
Then, her dad simply had to wait until his daughter took a shot.
The antelope stood broadside. No shot rang out. It turned head-on. No shot. It retreated into the sagebrush. No shot. And then it came back out and presented Rachael with another broadside shot.
“Pow,” Joe Baker said. “[The guide] asked Rachael, ‘Do you think you got it.’ She said, ‘I don’t think so.’ He said, ‘I think you got it. Let’s go check.’”
Rachael did, in fact, get it, with a perfect shot from about 100 yards. The antelope had run just 20 feet.
The guide and her dad were ecstatic. Rachael said she was a bit more subdued.
“I wasn’t fully awake, so none of my adrenaline had sunk in,” she said. “Dad and [the guide] were all excited and dad basically pushed me over when he got out of the vehicle [after they’d driven to where the antelope had been standing]. But once I got back to the lodge I was fully awake and then I realized what had happened.”
Rachael’s antelope was a good-sized male that weighed about 110 pounds. Elkhorn Outfitters is taking care of the taxidermy work, and the meat has been pretty tasty, Rachael said.
“It’s really good meat. It probably tastes more like moose meat,” she said.
The Bakers have hunted as a family for years, and Rachael and her brother, Jacob, began joining their mom and dad in the woods long before they were old enough to actually hunt.
Joe Baker said he grew up hunting with his dad, and is glad he gets to share that experience with his own children.
“I think it brings us a little closer together,” he said. “We’re able to just be with each other a little bit more.”
And now, after finally filling her first tag, his daughter is even more eager to join her dad afield.
“I’d never brought myself to shoot because I was too scared,” she said. “[My guide] helped me realize that I don’t have to be a chicken. I can be anything I want to be. He helped me shoot the antelope. Now I want to hunt, bad.”
