In the hunt together

LEXINGTON - Eleven years ago, on only her second trip into the woods, Kelly Reynolds was armed with a shotgun, looking for a turkey.
Excitement came upon her as she aimed and bagged the turkey she wanted.

As she went to check the turkey in at Ace Hardware, she came upon a fellow hunter.

"Why are you tagging that in for your husband?" the male hunter asked Kelly.

She told the man it was hers, and it was hard for him to believe.

"I was so taken back by that," Kelly said. "It kind of lit a fire under me. I thought, ‘I'm going to prove to everybody that I could do it.'"

During the trip, which she took with Henry Reynolds, whom she had been dating for about three months, the hunt was captured on video.

Later on, again with Henry by her side, she harvested a five-point buck with a bow.

"I couldn't have done it without the guidance of Henry," Kelly said. "I'm lucky that I had a very experienced person that helped me."

Kelly and Henry married in 1997. Kelly gained more hunting experience, and over time, she was able to get her animals tagged with no one raising their eyebrows.

"They accept me and know it's all done right," she said. "Videoing helped me establish that."

They use video about every time they go hunting, and stories of their hunting trips have been on the Internet, on television, in magazines and in newspapers. Outdoor writer and photographer Brad Herndon of Brownstown has included the couple in several of his publications.

At 7 p.m. today, for the second year, Herndon will discuss quality deer management at the Superbuck Seminar at the Apostolic Pentecostal Tabernacle in downtown Seymour. Like the Reynoldses, Brad and his wife, Carol, are a hunting couple.

Henry produced and marketed his first video, "Less Talk, More Action" in 1993, before he met Kelly. It was the first whitetail hunting video ever made in Indiana, he said.

"It was one of my big accomplishments," Henry said.

Over the next two years, Henry completed two more videos. Then, in 2002, the Reynoldses sent some video to Jay Gregory for "The Wild Outdoors" show on The Outdoor Channel.

The Reynoldses are now working with Realtree Outdoors on an episode of "Midwest Whitetails" on realtree.com.

"They are looking for people who could gain a reputation with certain deer and could go out and harvest those deer," Henry said of Realtree. For the past several years, he has consistently harvested a mature deer, which Kelly said is "almost unheard of."

Henry has gotten used to videotaping, but it gets on Kelly's nerves at times.

"When you have two people in a tree, it's double scent, it's double movement, it's double nerves, it's double everything," Kelly said. "Videoing is a completely different element to deer hunting. It's a lot more challenging, and there is a lot of pressure."

Some people have the deer hunting process done for them, but the Reynoldses choose to do all the work, including finding their own places, hanging tree stands, planting food plots and setting up infrared surveillance cameras, which are heat- and motion-sensored and track deer movements.

For about eight or nine months out of the year, the Reynoldses are involved in hunting in one way or another. Bow season runs from Oct. 1 to mid-January, and Henry said they will spend about 60 days in a tree stand. For the Reynoldses, a day of hunting ranges from four to 13 hours.

Last year was Kelly's most memorable hunting season. That's when she harvested her biggest deer, a 140-inch, eight-point buck in Illinois as well as a Kentucky bobcat. She got the deer all by herself.

"I felt like it was my own accomplishment through and through," she said.

Even though Henry has harvested more than 75 whitetails and more than 30 turkeys during his 24-year hunting career, he said his most memorable moment was Kelly's first harvest of the turkey.

"It was just that I introduced her to hunting and she was just overwhelmed with excitement that she did it," he said.

For the Reynoldses, hunting has always been more for the love and respect of the sport rather than the thrill of the kill. They are almost always together when they hunt, too.

"Very few times are we hunting without each other," Kelly said. "I couldn't imagine hunting without him in the tree stand. I started out doing this to spend time with Henry. Now, it's something I love to do."

By making videos, the Reynoldses are not only capturing deer on video, but they get to relive times they have together, as well.

"There's a whole new world you walk into when you're able to sit out there in the solitude of nature. You don't know what it is until you experience it," Kelly said. "If we never had that on video, we could never go back to that moment. It's actually recording the memories."

Kelly said people who know her would have a hard time believing she hunts. That's a misperception she is trying to eliminate.

"I think I am who I am, and I don't plan on changing for anybody," she said. "If you lose yourself or try to be something people want you to be, you're doing an injustice to yourself."

Kelly, who hunts with her makeup and nails done, doesn't mind doing what hunters do.

"I have a very feminine side, but I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty," she said. "I think that's a good thing. I truly enjoy hunting. I see more and more women like me getting into hunting. I think I can kind of inspire women because I am what I am. I think that it's out of the ordinary, but it doesn't have to be out of the ordinary. It's becoming more of a norm than when I started."

Outside of their hunting life, Kelly is a third-grade teacher at Lydia Middleton Elementary School in Madison, and Henry owns a contracting business, RMC Construction.

They have three daughters, Brooke, 12, Holli, 11, and Madyson, 8. Henry and Kelly have taken the girls on hunting and fishing trips, but they are more involved in other things, such as basketball.

The Reynoldses have learned to balance work, family time and hunting.

"Even though I spend thousands of hours looking for deer and hundreds upon hundreds of hours sitting on tree stands as an individual," Henry said, "I still keep my priorities in order and always make sure my family comes first."

Of Henry, Kelly said, "I can never remember an instance where he went hunting over family priorities. We have a family bond that's important and we always put our family first. A lot of my best memories have been in a tree stand spending quality time and having long conversations and getting to know him as a person. It's just me and him and nature. It's definitely made our marriage stronger."

If you go

What: Superbuck seminar

When: 7 p.m. today

Where: Apostolic Pentecostal Tabernacle, 301 Indianapolis Ave., Seymour; doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Cost: $15, including a chicken dinner catered by The Pines