SWEETWATER — Around camp, she’s known as “Sure Shot” Sarah.
Sarah Nikolai’s nickname came readily enough. Not through a game-winning free throw or a clutch goal, but after dropping her first mule deer with a single bullet from 188 yards as a 12-year-old novice hunter. The only hesitation was the actual trigger pull.
“She had to put the gun down three times. We could hear her breathing. She just couldn’t get settled,” Paul Nikolai recalled of his daughter’s first hunt in 2012. “Probably 10 minutes went by before I said: ‘Either you’re going to hit it or you’re going to miss it. Don’t worry about it. When you feel right, just pull the trigger.’ “
Apparently it was the advice she needed to lock onto the intersection of the figure-8s her gun was making around the target long enough to squeeze out a lethal shot. The nickname provided by Nikolai’s longtime hunting partner, Rich Leeman, soon followed. As for her dad, well, he’s just plain Paul.
It took the Keenesburg resident four missed shots before filling his buck tag with the fifth one last Sunday. But Paul Nikolai also took his daughter hunting for the third consecutive year this season. And that’s really the only mark that matters to either of them.
“I don’t have as much interest in going out without her and her mom anymore. Honestly, if she and her mother had gotten the only animals this year, I’d be fine,” said Nikolai, also the father of a 12-year-old and twin 8-year-old girls. “I’ve gotten plenty over my life. But it’s fun for me to watch her learn, and to see her make the same mistakes as I did when I was her age.”
Caught off guard in the early-morning hours, “Sure Shot” stumbled on the only opportunity she had to tag an elk last week. But the now 14-year-old freshman at Eagle Ridge Academy in Brighton already has harvested both a buck and a doe mule deer along with a cow elk in her first two years of hunting. Both parents serve as her mentors, although it’s clearly Dad’s passion as a lifelong Colorado big game hunter that feeds the family’s enthusiasm.
“Mom likes the hiking,” Sarah Nikolai said on her way out to the field before dawn last Saturday. “I like the shooting.”
And dad is responsible for the majority of the actual hunting.
For the second consecutive Saturday, that task fell quickly into place last weekend. Just before legal shooting light and perhaps 100 yards from the truck, the father-daughter duo was met by the glow of green eyes emanating from a sage-covered hillside some 50 yards ahead. A quick glance through the range finder confirmed they belonged to the animal they were after.
“It’s a buck,” Paul Nikolai said. “A nice buck.”
“What do we do?” his daughter replied, understanding it would be at least another 10 minutes before she could take a shot.
“Just get ready,” Dad said, and motioned her forward to take cover behind a small tree. Dawn’s reflection in the deer’s eyes soon faded as the animal vanished into the landscape as quickly as it had appeared.
“It’s amazing how they disappear,” Paul Nikolai said. “That’s two weeks in a row where I’ve seen a buck and the situation’s not right. But that’s why they call it hunting.”
The hunt would last four more hours that morning, up the steep face of a ridge that would turn back many grown men, much less a teenage girl toting pack and gun. After the hike back to camp, there would be another mountain to climb for the evening hunt. The process would be repeated the next morning.
“We just try to get the girls exposed to as many things as possible so they can choose what they like. And I think it’s important that she understands where the food comes from. So many people don’t understand that,” Dad said. “Let’s face it, hunting is a declining activity, which is too bad. So the more we can pull in from the younger generation, the better. It’s fun to do with her and it’s something she can do with her kids, carry on the tradition.”
“Sure Shot” wouldn’t get another chance to add to her reputation this fall, as only dad found himself in position to pull the trigger shortly after the sun rose Sunday morning. He claims he “got lucky” by spotting the big buck as he was making his way back down the ridge. But there’s a lesson in that too.
“I just hope she takes the realization that you can’t take it for granted,” Nikolai said. “Things you want, you have to work for. That’s just the way it is.”
Scott Willoughby: swilloughby@denverpost.com or
