Jamie Hartman has seemingly been one with nature in 2019, winning two Elite events before an eventful deer season that’s included the biggest buck of his life.
“It’s been awesome, just straight up awesome,” he said. “It was a good two months off.”
The Bassmaster pro from New York who recently moved to Arkansas has totaled five bucks — three in Texas and two in his new home state — while putting his girlfriend and her son on deer as well.
“We had to get another freezer,” he said. “That’s what I do it for, the venison. We eat the heck out of it throughout the year.”
Deer hunting is a pastime enjoyed by a number of B.A.S.S. anglers, and we’ll chronicle a number of pros and their successes in the coming weeks. Hartman said hunting is a great getaway from fishing, where he’s able to relax on a stand, clear his head and enjoy nature.
“It’s an escape for me. It’s a relaxation,” he said. “I love being out there, and I love deer.
“More so, it’s just down time. I parked the boat when I got back from St. Clair, let it dry out for two days then I covered it and have not touched it since. I hooked it up, and I’m dragging it down to Alabama. This is the first time I’ve touched it.”
Hartman was on the road heading for a lake in Alabama before the Elite preseason meeting in Birmingham this week. He also plans to get back into tournament fishing mode, pre-practicing on Lake Chickamauga for the 2020 Elite event there and on Lake Guntersville for the 50th anniversary Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk.
“I’m still trying to get to the lake this morning to get some fishing in. Just going to mess around do some video shoots, do some fun fishing,” he said.
Hartman has high hopes to pick up where he left off last season. While he started poorly, Hartman won Elite events at Lake Guntersville, climbing from 10th on the final day, and Cayuga Lake, where he rallied from 16th with 22-pound bags on the final two days. He finished 17th in the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings, earning $276,000 in the 10 events and another $11,467 for finishing third in the Basspro.com Eastern Open on Oneida Lake in his home state.
“My goal this season is to do obviously the best I can do,” he said. “I want to have a really good season financially so I can go on more hunts next year.”
Texas trips yielded three of Hartman’s deer, including a new personal best.
“That first one in Texas is 170-class buck,” he said. “Then me and my girl went back down to Texas. She killed a big one, and I killed two big ones. My other two are like 169 and 167. They’re big.”
Perhaps more satisfying was sitting with her son on two hunts.
“That was exciting for me. A 12-year-old and have a deer come out on him — you can see how nervous he gets,” Hartman said. “I had to talk him down, calm him down before he took a shot. It was pretty cool.”
There are five bucks at the taxidermists shop with Hartman’s tags on them, and he visited again just last week to get a full body mount of a rarity — a black coyote.
“That’s why it went to the taxidermist. I have never seen a jet black coyote like that,” said Hartman, who due to circumstances hasn’t taken a photo of it yet. “The taxidermist said that’s at least one out of a thousand.”
While that was sort of dumb luck, instincts played a role in his biggest buck from Texas. Back at a ranch where he had taken an 11-pointer the year before, Hartman was on the third day of his hunt, glad to have passed on a “a big 9-pointer, and a giant 8 that tempted me” that morning.
“I almost shot,” he said. “Boy, oh boy, I’m so glad I let them go to get this.”
In shorts and sneakers on a hot evening hunt, Hartman was at a stand where game cams had spotted several big bucks. Yet, inactivity had him soon asking the guide if they could move.
“A half hour into it I went, ‘Dude, I don’t have a good feeling about this. We might be wasting our time,’” Hartman said. “He said, ‘It’s up to you. It’s your decision. I bet they come back, they’ve been bedding in here.’ I gave them five more minutes. I said, ‘Can we move?’ We ended up moving, snuck into this other deal and we started seeing deer instantly. The whole abundance of deer were in this section.”
There was an even larger buck among them, but Hartman couldn’t get a shot. When he was scoping in his deer, one of the dozen or so does sounded the alarm with a blow.
“She had got close to us, and we didn’t see her. They all lifted their heads up, and he’s quartered away. I said, ‘I got to shoot now.’ ‘You got a shot?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘You solid?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’ It was all really quick because they were going to go, and I just touched off and got him good. I came in behind the rib cage and out the other side.”
The 15-pointer that green-scored 170.5 by far eclipsed his previous best, 12-pointer from Illinois bow hunt several years ago, and it continued Hartman’s outdoors success this the year. It was a great start to his uber successful season in the deer woods.
