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Jeana Mitchell of Country Camo Outdoors
Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. We’re heading east today and we’re going to talk to Jeana Mitchell. Now Jeana is an interesting lady. She has a number of companies and a blog. Talk about Country Camo LLC, Country Camo Outdoors, and she’s a blogger for Queens of Camo. Jeana, welcome to the show.
Jeana: Thank you, Bruce. It’s nice to be here.
Bruce: Well, in the warm up we talked about a lot of different things and let’s just talk about the hunting tradition. Where did that come from in your life?
Jeana: Actually when I met my husband. As a child I wasn’t allowed to hunt. My father just thought the woods was no place for a girl so it wasn’t anything that I was allowed to do, although as a child I was always playing in the woods and wanted to be there, it’s just that I wasn’t allowed to hunt. So when I met my husband, he encouraged me to go out, he got me my first bow. Of course, I had served in the army so I knew how to shoot so I had that on my side. Ray bought me my bow, we went out. My first year, I shot four deer so he said I was a natural and it just rolled from there.
Bruce: Wow, wait a minute, your first year you put four deer down with your bow?
Jeana: I did. I shot a buck and I got three doe that year.
Bruce: Okay, let’s just stay right there. Ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of ladies listening, there are a lot of young hunters listening, old hunters that are just thinking about taking up the sport and so let’s sit and explore just exactly what happened because obviously your husband taught you pretty darn well and you’re a good student. So let’s talk about what you did to be proficient in getting those animals. Just talk to me about it.
Jeana: I practiced. I didn’t want to let him down, I didn’t want to let myself down and in our family we have the rule that you only hunt what you’re going to eat and we practiced to make good ethical kills. So I waited for my shots and I was only good at that time at about 20 yards so I would have to sit and I’d watch deer far away from me and it was so aggravating to see these deer like 30 and 40 yards and know that I couldn’t take the shot. But I was patient and it paid off and I had good shot placement and I don’t know, I was just super excited, the feelings that came over me. And I thank God because every time that I got in my stand I would pray that God would provide meat for me and my family and allow me to make good ethical kills and he came through for me that year. Now since then, I’ve only taken one more deer so I think it may have been because of luck.
Bruce: How old were you when you picked up your first bow?
Jeana: I was 40.
Bruce: Forty years old.
Jeana: Yeah. So it was only seven years ago and so I was older than a lot of people but I guess younger than some people, too. So you’re never too old to learn something new and if you’re passionate about it, you can become proficient.
Bruce: Let’s talk about any barriers that you had to get through, and this is for our listeners to hear what a lady 40 years old, married, husband loves to hunt and is investing time. So let’s talk about how your husband taught you or allowed you to embrace the outdoors and embrace hunting and embrace harvesting game, killing game.
Well, I guess I was lucky because our children were pretty much grown at that time so we didn’t have to worry about being at home
Jeana: Well, I guess I was lucky because our children were pretty much grown at that time so we didn’t have to worry about being at home. They were both in high school so I didn’t have to worry about staying at home with them or finding baby sitters so we had the time to go out. They were at the age to where they could take care of themselves so I had the time to go out and I know that that’s a problem for a lot of both men and women because in today’s world, there are a lot of single men out there that are raising children as well as single women. So that was on our side.
He just taught me that if I wanted to do it, all I had to do was put my mind to it. He had extraordinary patience with me. I was not the easiest person to teach because I am very strong willed and hard headed and I love him for taking the time with me.
Bruce: That’s just awesome. And how did he teach you because you hadn’t hunted so did you start off with a 30 pound pull? Talk about your gear.
Jeana: We went on vacation to Tennessee and we were at the Bass Pro Shop and there was a Parker 5 Kit XP bow and it was on sale and I told him I wanted it. And he said, “Are you going to shoot it?” And I said, “Of course I’ll shoot it.” And he said, “I’ll go buy it for you if you promise that you will take some initiative and shoot it.” And he bought it and we came home and it was set up for, I think, 30 to 50 pound lens [SP] to start with so he cranked it up as low as it would go and that was in, I think, the spring before hunting season. By the time hunting season came around, I was up to 40 pounds which 40 pounds is the minimum in Ohio that you can hunt with. And we put 85 grain broadheads on there.
That’s what he started me with and I was able to pull it back. It took everything that I had to be able to pull back that 40 pounds that first year but I was doing it. It took me a while to get adjusted with the peep sight and everything because I had never done any of that before. Just practice. I practiced daily. My arm was a big factor because I am double jointed in the elbows so my elbow extends in so I have to curve my elbow out a little bit. I have a little bit of a deeper bend in my arm when I hold my bow than most people so it looks like my form is off. But it’s where I’m comfortable. That way I don’t back my arm with the string and have this big bruise on there. But it’s comfortable, it’s what works for me, and I think that’s important. Not everyone has the same form and you have to find what works for you.
Bruce: You use a release?
Jeana: I do. I use a wrist release and I use a [inaudible 00:08:03] size wrist release because I have tiny, tiny hands and my draw is really small.
Bruce: And what type of sight do you have?
Jeana: Now I’ve went away from the peep sight and I use sight by Archery Innovations, the no peep sight bowing [inaudible 00:08:25] which resembles a gun sight. It has cross hairs and a small dot on it and you look through it, wind it up, and it also tells you if you’re torquing your bow or not. That way you can keep it straight. I just went to that this year. I’ve had remarkable results with it.
Bruce: So ladies and hunters just starting out, one, good equipment, two, somebody that’s going to be patient with you to help you get through the initial barriers or, “I don’t know how to do this, let’s go slow on it.” Plus if you heard a couple of minutes ago, she had a 20 yard limit. She had bucks and does 30 yards, 40 yards, but with the equipment she had, if she was proficient, she could have shot. But she had her own limitations because she knew where she was going to make the correct shot and she set up her own limit. So listen to that. Those are great lessons learned, tremendous lessons learned. Let’s talk about how hunting has wound itself through your family and the core values of your family.
we only hunt what we will eat
Jeana: We have taught both of our sons to hunt. Only one of them has stuck with it but we have the rule in our house, as I had mentioned before, that we only hunt what we will eat. We believe that God will provide us what we need to eat, what we need for nourishment in our family so that’s why we have that rule. My son’s girlfriend also is getting into hunting. She is not a big deer meat eater but we have told her if she wants to hunt, then she’s going to have to learn to eat it so she has started eating a little bit of it. It’s just one of those things. We just don’t believe in wasting and just going out. I’m not a rack hunter. My first buck was a scrub buck. My husband had him mounted, he hangs on the wall with his 8 points, his 10 points, and I am just as proud of him as if he was a 200+ deer.
Bruce: Yeah, we had Brenda Valentine on the show plus Barbara Baird and they both spoke to that, because the trophy is your trophy, it’s not anybody else’s trophy.
Jeana: Right.
Bruce: In our society today, so many people say, “I’ve got to get the biggest buck,” and just a quick story, last fall I was in a farm in Iowa. We took a 192, which I didn’t but one of the guests did, Bruce Parcy [SP] from Kentucky took a gorgeous, gorgeous 192. My friend took a very nice deer, 140 to 150, and I took the smallest deer. It was still…hoping it qualified. It’s in the 130s and everbody asked me, “Why did you shoot her?” I said, “Because he was a pretty deer.” The light was right, he came out at night, he had [inaudible 00:11:52] brown tines and that’s what I saw. I saw the brown tines and all so…
Jeana: Oh, wow.
Bruce: G2s G3s, 2, 3, and 4, were 8 to 10 inches and I went, “Oh my goodness,” but he was a young deer so he didn’t have any mass, his width. If you look at the scores, but everybody asked why I shot that deer because it was a young deer and I said, “Because it was pretty.” And he sits downstairs in my room where I have some of my other mounts and he’s right in with my [inaudible 00:12:25] buck, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it was my trophy and it’s a pretty deer and that’s what I told them. I said when he came out, it was a pretty deer, I shot him and it’s one of my best trophies ever.
Jeana: Oh, that’s the same with mine. I am so proud of him. I named him Bucky. He hangs on the wall. I point him up to everyone. He is gorgeous. He was a big bodied deer. He’s probably about three years old. He wasn’t going to get any bigger and plus he was one of those that had bad genetics so he really needed taking out of the population anyway. And he tasted good so, you know. And it was my first one and I was so excited. I couldn’t contain myself. My husband has always told me, “Wait after you kill him. After you shoot him, wait and make sure he’s dead before you climb out of your stand.” I could not contain myself. I watched him, he went down, I knew he was dead. I stayed in my stand and waited for my husband. I was so beside myself. I don’t know how I was able to stay in that stand for like 45 minutes before my husband got there.
Bruce: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.
Jeana: I was jumping up and down. If another deer came by, I would have scared them off because I was so excited. It was unbelievable. He could have been a 190 or 200 deer and I would have not been any more excited.
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