Guide Life: Guide Wife - Jessy Shaver
Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED
Most of the people in the hunting industry have heard about Stanfield Hunting Outfitters, and in turn, have come to know Andy Shaver. Andy works as a guide out at Stanfield, and is the co-host, along with Jeff Stanfield, of The Big Honker Podcast. Andy has climbed to a level of stardom in the waterfowl hunting community, between his ability to run a speck call, pile up honkers, and banter back and forth with guests on the podcast. However, most people might not know the better half of the Shaver household, Jessy.
Most guides in the United States don’t enjoy the perks of having a family. Not many women can put up with their husband being gone for days, weeks, and even months on end. Luckily for Andy, the circumstances were right, and a hungover Jessy said yes to a teddy bear in a dog crate (we’ll get to that story later).
Jessy is a native to Knox City and has known Andy since she was in the second grade. “I always had a crush on him,” Jessy admits. She says that in their living room, they have a picture of the two of them dancing together in junior high. “We started dating my Freshman year of high school, and my sister worked out at the lodge, and then I started working out there my Sophomore year and worked there all through high school and then worked out there a little bit in college, and that really is how things just got started for me out there”. Jessy and Andy also went to the same college, Texas Tech, together. Needless to say, a future together seemed pretty solidified.
However, Jessy decided to leave tech and pursue her dream job of becoming an esthetician. Because most of our readers probably have no clue what that is (I didn’t), Jessy explains, “that probably sounds like Spanish to you, but it’s skincare. So I do facials, waxing, trimming, all that crap,” she says, putting it into layman’s terms for us. She also is in the process of opening up her own salon. “I went to Tech for a year, because my dad made me, and he said my dream job was bogus. Then I begged my mom to let me go to aesthetician school, and I’ve been doing that for about 10 years now,” says Shaver.
As newlyweds, Jessy and Andy lived out at the lodge in the famous ‘skunk house’. “We lived there for about 2 years, and the skunk house was tiny! I mean it was probably only 200 square feet. Our bedroom was literally only big enough to barely hold our full-size bed, we barely had room to walk around”. Jessy says that in their first few years living in the skunk house, she would have to go to the main dining room in the lodge to cook each night, and do their laundry at the lodge as well. “I talked to Andy about having our first son, Reese, while we were in the skunk house, and he would say, ‘there is no way in hell I’m having a baby in this tiny, 200 square foot house!’” After a couple of years, they found their way out of the skunk house, and are raising two little boys. Reese, and Jameson. Reese is 6, and Jameson is 2.
When asked if it was any sort of daunting, marrying into the Stanfield hunting operation, Jessy responded, “Oh no, not at all! The lodge down here in Knox City has always been known as fun. We used to go out there all the time, even still, we spend every waking moment out there. My boys absolutely love it out there. It’s just a fun place to be”. Jessy says that she enjoys the lodge with all the family and guests and that it’s always such a good time whenever they’re there. It definitely wasn’t something she shied away from when dating Andy. It was more of a culture that she embraced, and the folks at the Big Honker Lodge obviously embraced her back.
The world of hunting wasn’t unfamiliar to Jessy. Growing up in rural Texas, she says that she would go hunting with her dad. “I killed my first deer when I was probably 10. I went hunting with my dad all the time, but I hadn’t been duck or goose hunting”. That all changed when she started dating Andy. “I would go out on hunts with Andy, obviously that’s stopped now because someone’s gotta stay home with the kids, but I enjoy hunting”. Lucky enough for Andy, who found a wife that had an appreciation for what he was doing, instead of a wife who found the whole guiding thing as a foreign concept. “I think he’s absolutely insane,” Jessy says, “but he loves it, and he’s always wanted to do it, so I think it’s awesome that he gets to do what he wants and I’m going to support him in whatever does”.
Obviously, being the wife of a guide isn’t an easy task, and Jessy can attest to the other side of the “guide grind” that she goes through each hunting season as the wife and mother of the Shaver home. She mentions that it was particularly hard when they first had kids, and having to go through that process while Andy was out guiding hunts. “I see why all the guides that come through here are all young, they’re all single, with no kids- and once they start getting married and having kids, they don’t do it anymore. Because it’s hard”. Jessy says that even though she lives close by, and is a part of the hunting culture down there, it still doesn’t make things any easier. “Any of the time I’m with Andy, I’m usually with everybody else too, and anything outside of that, he’s asleep, so I’ve had my moments. Especially with the kids, when they were babies and I had to try and do that on my own. This year has also been hard because my salon is being built, and I’m an idiot and I’m doing it during hunting season. So I’m taking care of the kids, trying to still work, building a salon, and doing it all in the middle of hunting season. So yes, I have definitely had my moments where I have wanted to scream and throw my hands in the air and wanted Andy to be a coach or something (laughs)”.
When asked what the hardest part was of being the wife of a guide, Shaver simply said, “Not seeing [Andy]”. The two just celebrated 9 years of marriage, but have been together closer to 15, Jessy jokes by saying “I kind of thought that we’d be sick of each other by now, but we’re still very much in love (laughs). So that’s the hardest part, is feeling neglected during hunting season. Because I do. But I’ve learned to cope with that. It is what it is, and we’ll pick things back up once hunting season’s over”. Shaver also mentions that it used to be even harder when the hunting was hard because it would have an impact on Andy’s mood, but that hasn’t been much of a problem anymore. One thing that makes the Shaver’s situation unique, is the ability to be close to family. Jessy makes mention that without the ability to be around his friends and family at the lodge. “If he wasn’t able to be around us, and to be with his family, he wouldn’t do it. He tries to put off a hard exterior, but he’s a softie, and he loves his family”.
But it isn’t all bad in the life and times of being a “guide wife”. Jessy says there’s plenty of perks that come from being involved with Stanfield and being married to a hunting guide. “The family, that is so fun,” she says, “we meet all kinds of people who become our family, and that is so much fun”. Jessy talks about guests to the lodge that have become a part of the family, along with a bunch of the guides, both past and previous, that have left an imprint on the Stanfield Hunting family. She also talks about the fun that’s had and the enjoyment that surrounds hunting down in Knox City. The culture of having a good time and enjoying yourself and the company you’re around. Making things a bit easier when Andy is gone each day guiding hunts.
Jessy admits that she didn’t know fully what she was getting herself into by marrying a guide, especially a guide that would later create one of the most popular hunting podcasts in the waterfowl hunting community. “I already didn’t see my husband, but now when he does have free time, they’re shooting podcasts,” she laughs, “and he stays up late at night doing the editing and the publishing. When he mentioned that idea to me, I was kind of like ‘ok, whatever’, and now it’s just shot off. It’s a big deal now and it consumes a lot of time. I definitely didn’t see that becoming a factor”. Between guiding, the podcast, and everything else that comes with the territory of guiding, Andy has bitten off a lot for his day to day life, which in turns leaves Jessy in the role of playing super mom.
In talking about the future of Reese and Jameson, and whether or not they’ll have a hand at working at the lodge, Jessy says, “Oh for sure. Reese loves it out there! Jameson is still too little, he’s only two. He still loves it out there, but he obviously doesn’t hunt yet. Reese goes hunting with Andy whenever he can. Andy usually only takes him with clients he’s close with, but he loves it! And he usually comes back with all kinds of cash from the guys tipping him because he’s such a big help out there (laughs)” When asked if she would encourage the idea of her boys becoming guides if they choose that route, Jessy says that she will. With it being such a big family tradition, it would seem like almost a right of passage. “We want our kids to learn how to work, you know? I would guess Andy guided his first hunt when he was probably 12 years old, and that’s hard work! We don’t want our kids growing up thinking everything is just going to be handed to them and that they don’t have to work for it. We’re going to make sure our kids know how to work, and that probably means they’ll do a little work and a little guiding out at the lodge”.
Much like any mother with young kids, Jessy’s day is started and dictated by her two boys. “I get up, take Reese to school, then stay home with Jameison until I go to work. Me and Jameson usually will go out to the lodge for lunch, and then I usually go to work at 1:00 or 1:30. After that, I pick Reese up from school and we go to lodge for supper”. Shaver says her life is mundane, but anyone who plays the role of a mother, and the driving force behind a waterfowl hunting guide, has anything but a boring life. “It’s chaotic and fun all at the same time” Jessy adds. The Shaver’s also have the benefit of having lots of family close by. Jessy’s parents, along with most of Andy’s family, still live in Knox City. “It can be a blessing and a curse to have so much family so close, but it really is a great thing. It’s great to see your two boys grow up around their family. It’s important and I feel like it’s a value that’s lost in today’s world. Everyone’s just chasing the dollars”.
Once the season comes to a close, Jessy and Andy try to take a family trip (this year will consist of skiing). Andy will also take off about a month to spend time with Jessy and the boys. “He’s pretty much working 7 days a week right now, he’ll have some days where he comes home and says ‘I’m off tomorrow’ and I’m always like, ‘well, you’re kinda off’, because he may not go hunt in the morning, but he still leaves in the afternoon to go scout,” she says. “I usually end up working a little bit more after hunting season, when he’s off, so he can spend more time with the boys. During hunting season our two-year-old wants nothing to do with [Andy], just because he gets really disconnected. So once the season’s over it’s good to let them spend some time together”. When asked if she looks forward to the end of hunting season, Shaver says, “It’s weird, because right now I’m not looking forward to it at all, but by the end of the season, I think we all are excited for it to be over, and to have a break. It’s bittersweet because we look forward to it, but then two weeks after it’s over we start counting down to the next hunting season”. Jessy says her favorite hunting season down at the lodge is dove season, simply because it’s so much more relaxed than waterfowl season, with the bigger parties only coming on the weekends.
Jessy was kind enough to talk about Andy’s proposal story, which is one we can all enjoy (told you we’d get back to it). It was Christmas Eve and Jessy received a call from future father-in-law Jeff Stanfield telling her she needed to get back to town to avoid an ice storm. “Sure enough I started driving home that night, and it started snowing on me, and it was really bad, but I had gone out drinking with all my coworkers the night before, and partied it up pretty hard, and only got like an hour of sleep that night,” she says, “on the drive home I kept having to pull over and throw up because I was so hungover (laughs)”. Jessy says she didn’t have the heart to tell Andy how sick she really was on the night he proposed. When she got to Andy’s parent’s home, he said he had something he wanted to show her in his bedroom, “I went in there and there was a dog kennel, so I thought he’d gotten me a puppy! So I got all excited and opened up the dog kennel, and there was a bear in there that had the ring box,” she then adds, “it wasn’t a puppy (laughs)” Even though there wasn’t a puppy, Jessy still said yes, and Shaver’s are still going strong 9 years later.
With each season getting a bit easier than the last, even though Jessy does admit that this season has been harder while being in the middle of trying to build her own salon and open her own business; however, she is excited to have the luxury of working out of her own home and the ability to be around if her two boys need her. It can be said without too much strain that being a waterfowl guide is a hard row to hoe, but being the wife of a waterfowl guide can be just as exhausting. Luckily for the Shaver family, Jessy has the patience and desire to support Andy in whatever he does. Something that not many women would be able to do. So hat’s off to you Jessy, for supporting your husband as he guides people on their dream hunts, all the while raising two young boys and helping people enjoy their time down in Knox City. The waterfowling world is glad you said yes to a teddy bear in a dog crate!
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