Paula Wiggers is mighty proud of her 2005 bowkill, a huge Kansas 10-pointer that tallied 187 2/8 B&C points! Photo by Marc Murrell.

You often read or hear about brothers who hunt deer together or father-son duos taking to the woods. But it’s not often that you hear about a brother and sister who enjoy the same outdoor activity. And the chances of them killing huge whitetail bucks in back-to-back years might be even more remote.

But that’s exactly what Kansas siblings Paula Wiggers and “little” brother Matt did during the 2005 and 2006 archery deer seasons.

Just to see Paula, a 38-year-old schoolteacher, walking down the street, you wouldn’t necessarily assume that she was head over heels in love with bowhunting. Her long home-sewn dress and the black prayer covering on her head identify her as of the Mennonite faith; her polite, quiet demeanor draws no attention to itself.

Although she’d killed plenty of deer by means of a rifle, she wouldn’t consider any of them huge. After years of trying it with one method, she decided to try archery hunting for several reasons.

“I was a little bored with rifle hunting and a little disenchanted with the cold weather in December,” she admitted. “And since I was teaching school, it gave me a little bit more time with a longer bow season, warmer weather, and a new challenge.”

Matt, who had bowhunted for years, helped Paula get started. “We went out to Bass Pro one February and he bought me my first bow,” Paula said. “He set me up with a bow and all the equipment, and we practiced all that summer.”

Anxious to start her first season, she would have to miss the eagerly anticipated opener.

“Matt got married in Wisconsin on Oct. 3, so I didn’t get to go,” she laughed. “But I had asked off from school for a week thinking in the back of my mind that I would get home a day or two early and have some time to hunt.”

Paula returned to Kansas late one evening with plans to go to her stand the next morning. She climbed into the tree about 10 a.m., and it wouldn’t take long for her first arrow loosed at a live animal to find its mark. “I shot a doe at 12 o’clock,” she said with a laugh.

Paula added another doe to her tally, and so her 1999 season became a memorable one in her bowhunting career. She spent her 2000 and 2001 seasons out of the country teaching missionary children in Belize, but picked up right where she left off when she returned for her 2002 Kansas archery season, arrowing a beautiful record-book buck.

“The next year I didn’t take anything because nothing looked quite that good,” she said, adding that she quit shooting does on their property, owing to low numbers. “And then in 2004 I hit one (which was even bigger than the year before) that we lost and didn’t find until March when we were shed-hunting.”

That was a tragic loss, but the buck had escaped detection after he got down in a creek.

Even though Paula doesn’t fit the stereotypical bowhunter image, she can converse as an equal with anyone interested in the sport. And if the talk turns to the deer she killed during the 2005 Kansas bow season, all ears strain to catch every detail.

That successful encounter with a once-in-a-lifetime whitetail will likely be etched forever not only in her memory but in that of her favorite hunting partners, her father Orlin and her brother Matt, as well -- and rightly so, as it’s likely the biggest typical whitetail killed by a female bowhunter, and one to be proud of regardless of the hunter’s gender.

“Matt and I always have this fun competition going and he always ends up shooting his deer before me,” Paula laughingly remarked. “I always say I wait until he shoots his, as I don’t care how big mine is -- as long as it’s bigger than his.”