12-year-old Clarkston girl hunts down big mule deer

LEWISTON – Brittany Walden missed the buck of a lifetime. The 12-year-old from Clarkston took a long shot at the big muley and he didn’t drop.

Instead the old buck looked back and then trotted up a canyon with his does.

The young hunter thought her chance was lost. But her mother and stepfather came up with a plan.

Her mother would climb up the steep canyon and try to head the buck and his does off at the pass. Perhaps, they thought, if the deer saw someone above him, he would turn around and head back toward Brittany, giving her a second shot.

So Ranae Converse headed up the canyon and Brittany and Bud Converse hid beneath a tree. Brittany said later she didn’t think it was a very good idea, but she was willing to wait.

Brittany had already waited a long time for a shot at this buck. She first saw him while riding horses in June when the six-pointer was still in velvet.

Her grandfather, Dick Gahagan, taught her to look for game. Now her family says she seems to have a gift for spotting animals.

“She has a really good eye. She can spot them better than most grownups can,” says her grandmother, Mary Gahagan.

Being from a family of hunters, Brittany signed up for hunter education about the same time she first saw the buck. According to Dick Gahagan, she did well. She was the only student to hit two clay pigeons during a shotgun shooting exercise, he says proudly.

Her dad and grandpa made plans to take the first-time hunter out on opening day and pass on the family’s hunting tradition. It was not to be.

Her dad, James Walden, died of a heart attack about a month before the season opened. Despite her loss, Brittany still wanted to hunt.

“I didn’t think she would be enthusiastic,” says her mother, “because it was always going to be her dad and her grandpa.”

When fall came and Washington’s short deer season opened, Dick tried to convince his granddaughter to shoot a doe. He figured it was a good goal for her first hunting season.

She disagreed and held out for a buck.

“I think it’s mean,” she says of shooting does.

Following an unsuccessful morning hunt, Brittany decided to look for the buck. Her mother and stepfather went along.

Using Bud as a rifle rest, she took a shot at the buck from about 250 yards. That’s the shot that missed and sent her mother hiking up the canyon.

The deer saw her and headed back down the draw, just as she planned. They walked right toward the tree that hid Brittany and Bud.

Down the canyon, the hunters waited and wondered. After a while without seeing deer, they began to worry about Ranae and decided to see if she was OK.

Up on top, Ranae watched the deer get closer and closer to the tree and wondered why her daughter didn’t shoot.

Down below, since the deer kept coming straight for them, Bud counseled Brittany to wait.

At about 75 yards she was ready, and asked Bud if she could shoot. He asked if the shot was clear. Brittany told him there was some grass in the way, but nothing else. He told her to stand. She did and took a shot.

The buck, with antlers 17 inches high and with a 26-inch spread, is at the taxidermy shop. She plans to hang the trophy in her family’s living room.