By Bernie Hunhoff
It takes a lot of people to produce and publish South Dakota Magazine, about a dozen to be exact. And we’re proud of every one of them — both for what they do during work hours here at 410 E. Third Street, and also for all they do after hours.
Our staff includes two yoga instructors, a marathon runner, several great chefs, a hockey mom, a Girl Scout leader, etc. They are also dedicated community volunteers, super moms and dads, and all their children are above average. You get the point.
But we have only one deer hunter. That would be Jana Jonas Lane, a mostly-quiet and reserved young lady who runs our circulation department. If you get the magazine by mail (as most of our readers do) then you can thank her, because she manages our 43,000-name mailing list.
Jana and her husband Jim have two young daughters, so you can imagine how busy she is. She occasionally likes to do a little hunting, but Jim teases that she “shoots like a girl.” He hasn’t said that for a week now.
The story goes like this. All the local hunters east of Yankton have been watching and waiting for a big 5-point buck that appeared on game cams in the Jim River valley over the summer. The whitetail was very cagey, and wasn’t often spotted in daylight.
On opening weekend of the East River season, Jana spent a few Saturday hours in the cold and howling wind, wondering why she wasn’t indoors with her two little girls, Rain and Rose. She saw a few does and a big buck with a broken antler, but eventually she went home to warm up.
Sunday dawned with a shining, warm sun. The wind was down and pheasants were cackling. Geese were flying overhead. “It’s amazing what sunshine will do for the soul after a cloudy day,” she said. “I saw a couple of does pass through our CRP and I looked over and saw a really nice buck as he was headed into a tree line.” It was the big Jim River buck!
She says her heart started racing, and she told herself to relax and be ready. Minutes passed but he didn’t reappear. Meanwhile, a second buck walked by. It stopped to watch something. Then a doe appeared and crawled through the fence between a pasture and trees. The second buck chased after her.
Jana heard crashing sounds and saw a blur of motion in the switch grass and big blue stem. Eventually, the big buck appeared. He paused about 150 yards in front of her.
Then a young buck came along. It looked at Jana and slowly walked into the trees. A fourth buck came along, chasing after a doe, and they disappeared into the tree line.
Jana took aim at the 5-pointer, through the scope of her .308 Remington, and fired. Just like a girl. She got the Jim River buck.
She’s not a braggart, but nothing’s stopping the rest of us from telling everyone we can.
