As a precocious 7-year-old, Brinlee Usdrowski has already had the kind of hunting experience many adult hunters only dream of.
A year ago, during modern gun deer season, Brinlee was six when she took down two deer with one shot. That was only the beginning. She proceeded to down a gobbler in April during the youth hunt weekend. Then came a 300-pound black bear this fall with a crossbow. Only to follow all that up with a nice 8-point buck during muzzle-loader season.
And before you think it's all about the taking, Brinlee is right there helping with the skinning of the harvested animals, her father says.
Her dad, Pat Usdrowski, who lives near the Brady Mountain area off Lake Ouachita, surely has heard from other dads reminding him, "She's daddy's girl now, but just wait until she's a teenager." In this case, Pat Usdrowski might have the female version of the new "American Sportsman" on his hands. Wait until the national reality TV channels hear about this one. Move over, "Duck Dynasty."
"Brinlee can still dress up and be a princess girl, but she's all country when she's with me," Pat said.
She had missed a turkey a year earlier, he noted, so when 2:10 a.m. rolled around this past April, on the first day of the youth turkey hunt, Brinlee was ready to go. "How many little girls would do that?" Pat asks.
"Last year she killed her first deer. She got two deer, a doe and a nubbin buck, with one shot, using a 20-gauge with 3-inch buckshot," Pat recounted. "That's how the big game stuff started."
That's also how the practicing started. It's nothing, Pat said, for Brinlee to want to practice shooting her .22 with hundreds of rounds, as well as shooting the 20-gauge with bird shot. For the turkey season, she was hauling around an 11-87 camouflaged turkey gun.
At Pat's homestead on Brady Mountain Road, they have seen bear around, though he adds that when the acorns begin to fall, the bear leave. Paul keeps a deer feeder filled with food. Brinlee and Pat were in his deer stand late in the afternoon one recent Saturday, hoping a bear might wander past. About 6:40 p.m., one did, coming as close as about 15 yards, Pat estimated. Brinlee, ready with a crossbow, took aim and hit the bear behind the shoulder.
"We have pictures of the bear coming up on the game camera, a 300-pound female. It didn't have any cubs, so I had assumed it was a big male. After Brinlee shot, it ran, but it didn't make it 100 yards before it fell down," Pat said. "We gave it until 7:20 before going to it, and it was laying up there dead."
Pat fixed a Thompson Encore muzzle-loader with a scope so Brinlee could be ready this fall for a bigger deer than the two she killed last year.
NW News on 11/14/2017