7-year-old earns a 'Triple Trophy' from Pennsylvania after tagging a black bear, buck and gobbler this fall

When autumn arrives, the Roberts family disappears into the woods. Danny Roberts, a 37-year-old father of three from Titusville, Pennsylvania, is a self-employed logger who sets his own schedule. His daughters take turns leaving school to go hunting with him, and on October 25 it was his youngest's turn.

'When hunting season comes, we don't work. We hunt,” Roberts says. “I never pressured any of them to get into it. Only when they were ready were they ready. Jojo has been involved with it from a young age and is really interested in it. She always enjoyed helping me cut venison and bear meat. She is just involved in everything, in the whole process.”

Until a few weeks ago, Jojo had been unlucky with warm weather, slow days, and one miss with her crossbow. But that Friday, the second-grader was excited to stretch her legs for a bear ride on state wildlife land with her grandfather, her father and a dozen of his friends.

“Me and Jo were on the hill and started pushing and we heard some gunshots,” Roberts said. Another youth hunter, 10-year-old David Spear, had shot his first bear. “We went over to help him look for blood and we looked and here was another bear coming out of the driveway.”

A 185-pound boar fell out of sight of a hill, came back up, and stopped in about 70 yards. Jojo stood ready with her .243 clamped to a tripod. She pulled the trigger and the bear disappeared from view. Roberts was initially unsure if she had made a good shot, but the bear only made it 60 yards. She had hit the top of the heart and both lungs.

“She's one of the calmest people I know,” Roberts says of Jojo's mentality during the recording. “I was shaking so bad and I looked at her and she was just ready. I think it helps that me and her mom [Amy] work with them all summer. They shoot, I don't know, 5,000 rounds of .22 a summer. They constantly have their .22s on the DeathGrip [tripods] so they know what they are doing when the time comes to do it.

Jojo, 7, says she was just “reacting” to the bear in front of her, and that while her legs were shaking and she started talking a minute after the shot, her father “was the shaky one.” Actively participating in a bear campaign – the first time she visited one – also appealed to her.

“We weren't just sitting there waiting,” says Jojo. “We had to move so I could shoot my bear.”

Tagging a black bear is an achievement for any Pennsylvanian, let alone a youth hunter like Jojo: Less than 3 percent of Pennsylvania black bear hunters are successful each fall, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Roberts and three other hunters tied her bear to a game pole and walked it a mile out of the woods.

“It took forever, but I cheered them on the whole way,” says Jojo.

A few days later, they found Jojo and her father at the stand again, this time sitting in a raised blind on private property, waiting for a dollar to appear.

“It was hot that day and we saw almost nothing,” says Roberts. “She got a little discouraged about it [trying to tag a] Buck, but eventually they got hot and started running a little.

The two had been hunting all day with only one break for lunch, when a doe finally trotted by around 4:30. Jojo had a doe tag, but she was determined to shoot a buck.

“I said, 'Jo, something's going on, she's not just running away for nothing.' About two minutes passed and then the buck came. He lowered his head to the ground and entered. It was only a small four point, but she was happy.

Jojo made a great shot with her crossbow and while Roberts saw the deer go down, Jojo couldn't. So as they climbed down, she picked up the blood trail and followed it herself.

“She's always been into that kind of thing, anything she could do to make hunting more fun,” Roberts said. “I gut it for her and she holds it, all I need. If I want her to hold a rib cage open, she reaches in there and grabs it. They always take some of the animal's blood and put some under their eyes, a kind of war paint. My eldest daughter started it, I don't know how she did it [picked it up].”

Jojo examined her deer, amazed by all the foaming lung blood and entry and exit wounds.

“It's huge!” she says in a video of the recovery. “Well, not huge, but – wow!”

Roberts recorded Jojo chasing her buck and getting it back.

A few days later, the Roberts headed out for a flock of turkeys they had seen while deer hunting. After sitting in a pop-up blind all day, three longbeards finally marched through 25 yards away that afternoon. For the third time this season, Jojo calmly pulled the trigger and neatly folded the first tom. This time she shot a TSS charge through her .410, also clamped to a tripod.

“Her greatest strength is simply paying attention to what is happening around her. I told her recently, as we sat in the stands, “You are my most patient fighter.” My middle daughter [Amelia] is the quietest, but Jojo, he stays there all day. We were trying to get a turkey and I said, “It might not happen today, Jo, but we'll get one for you.” She said, “Dad, I just left school because I wanted to hang out with you.” It's fun hunting with those kids.”

Jojo's bear will be made into a standing, full-body mount and placed in the family dining room along with other taxidermy. The eldest Roberts daughter, 12-year-old Milli, wants to be a taxidermist when she grows up, and plans to try to get Jojo's money under the guidance of a professional.

“That will save me a lot of money,” Roberts jokes.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission praised Jojo for her efforts “triple trophy”a state tradition of tagging a bear, antlered deer and wild turkey in the same licensing year. That performance could turn into a Grand Slam if she tags a gobbler this spring. Although Jojo still has to fill out doe tags this fall, she and her father agree that the bear hunt has been the highlight so far.

“The bear was her favorite because she had never killed one before, except for the whole experience of all the guys coming up to her, congratulating her and giving her high fives,” Roberts says. “She hung out with my dad for the whole four hours [the bear]. I think she really enjoyed the camaraderie of it all.