A lady who enjoys freedom to hunt

By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
July 16, 2004
Ann walked with her husband, Fredy, to a field where they expected to find a turkey gobbler. Fredy had spotted the big bird in the field earlier and spoke to it under his breath, "You just wait right here and I'll go get Maw Maw and she will come take care of you!" The pair call each other Maw Maw and Paw Paw from the habit of speaking to their grand children.
As they approached the field, Ann stopped and aimed her Winchester autoloading shotgun. Fredy was confused because he couldn't see anything at which she could have been aiming. Ann fired and killed the gobbler. The bird was so far away that Fredy had not seen it. He was shocked at the distance his wife had downed the bird.
It was a typical outing for the husband and wife team that hunts around their home near Ward, Alabama. Ann Reeves usually gets what she goes after. She started hunting for deer with her husband some 25 years ago "because he needed a hunting partner." Fredy asked her to go hunting with him one afternoon and she thought, "Why not?" She killed her first deer on that hunt and got two more that season, all with a .243 rifle.
Hunting spots
Ann eventually got a .270 rifle and expanded her hunting to the mountains where she took mule deer and elk. On one guided hunt, she shot a cow elk that fell and then got up and took off. Before she and her guide could get close enough to finish the animal, it ran again. Fredy stayed behind on a high spot and could see the elk when it stopped the second time. The guide told Fredy to shoot and he made the long shot to finish the cow.
Fredy's shot impressed Ann and her wounding the cow displeased her. On the way back to Alabama, Ann said to Fredy, "I want a rifle just like yours." She was seeking a rifle that would drop her game animals in their tracks. Fredy's gun was a Browning A-Bolt in .300 Winchester Magnum caliber, quite a powerful rifle which is popular with elk and moose hunters. Fredy bought her the rifle.
Ann's rifle has Browning's Boss fitted onto the barrel. This device reduces the huge recoil of the .300 down to that of a .243. Though very noisy, the recoil reduction is amazing. She has used the big magnum for deer and few travel far after taking a round.
Big bull
Ann's most exciting hunt was when she bagged a bull elk in Colorado's Uncompahgre National Forest area. "I had to run a mile to catch up with him," she said. "And there was snow up to my knees." When she downed the bull and approached him, she recalls, "I had never seen an animal that big or with antlers that big. I was just beside myself."
Ann Reeves is a lady with outdoor hobbies who embraces them with enthusiasm and dedication to the point of achieving mastery. She is an accomplished angler, preferring bass, and appreciates all the blessings of the woods and waters.
Perhaps the source of her interest in hunting is from her childhood. She was the youngest of 14 children, five girls and nine boys. And her father would not let the girls hunt, reflecting the thinking of the day that considered hunting unladylike. She saw her father and brothers collect all the family's meat either by hunting or butchering farm animals.