THAT’S A LOAD OF BULL!
By: Kim David

When you’re born and raised in wild Wyoming, it’s common to have fond childhood memories of hunting excursions, and a natural lust for hunting in your blood. Girls are certainly no exception. When I met Cynthia McCoy to chat about her hunting experience, I discovered that you can’t really tell a hunter just by looking at a person. Cynthia’s about as petite and lovely as can be, and when I shook her hand, try as I might, I just could not picture her camo-ed out and reeking of big game musk. After a few questions, however, I began to see telltale signs of the savage huntress within. Her big brown doe eyes became like those of a lioness about to pounce on her prey as she talked about her love of the hunt.

Cynthia (maiden name Redman) was born 27 years ago in Lander and has lived in the Wind River country all her life. Tagging along on her dad’s hunting trips when she was young, Cynthia couldn’t wait until she was of legal hunting age when she wasted no time in bagging her first antelope. Now, she and her husband Paul McCoy enjoy taking their four children antelope hunting, too: Rachelle, Rylie, Colter and Chance. (You can’t tell a person’s had four kids by looking at them either, by the way.) Paul is Cynthia’s favorite hunting partner; they are very competitive and have a ton of fun together. He goes for the meat and she goes for the antlers! This year, Cynthia’s got her heart set on a monster deer to mount next to the 6-point elk she put up on their wall last year.
It was Paul’s tenth year hunting elk (which he had yet to get) and Cynthia’s first attempt. “We were really ill-prepared,” she laughed. Paul knew of a spot in the nearby desert where he was convinced they would find elk. Cynthia doubted it, but as she usually let him navigate, she agreed and piled the kids in the truck, thinking it would turn out to be a nice drive. To her surprise, elk were spotted and soon Cynthia had felled one. Unfortunately, Paul had no plans on how to get the animal down to the truck, not to mention loading it up! Normally Cynthia guts her own game, but she was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the elk. So Paul took over the gutting chore, and Cynthia helped by holding the legs. “Even when they’re dead, they are strong! I kept falling over because the leg kept pulling me back... I knocked like four of his beers over... it was hilarious and we just had a ball,” she said. They had borrowed Cynthia’s father’s ATV the weekend before; of course they didn’t have the ATV but they did have the ramp used to load it with, so out that came. I was laughing along with Cynthia as she recalled Paul up in the truck bed, tugging on the antlers, and herself underneath the enormous beast, trying her darndest to push the rear end up into the truck. She didn’t know how long it took the two of them, but they finally got her prize loaded up.

With Paul still batting zero for elk, he won’t be so willing to let Cynthia shoot first for that big one next time. He may have to trip her up to get there first, though. “Hunting is just a kick,” grinned Cynthia. “I love it.”