SILT, Colo. — It has been a whirlwind year for former Teche Area resident Jacquelyn “Jackie” Gross, who is making preparations for her big date in October.

That momentous occasion isn’t the wedding the Silt oilfield construction worker planned at the beginning of the year with fiance T.J. Guccini of Silt. They had every intention to be married next month back home at Rip Van Winkle Gardens at Jefferson Island.

Instead, Gross, 30, is planning to go on a safari hunt to the Omay Concession in Zimbabwe, Africa, as the reigning Extreme Huntress, a title she earned after she finished first-runnerup in the nationwide Extreme Huntress Contest sponsored by Tahoe Films LTD. She was one of 10 finalists chosen from hundreds who wrote 500-word essays on why they were “the most extreme hardcore huntress in the world.”

The young woman who hunted ducks with her brother at Lake Peigneur before classes at Delcambre Elementary School and grew up playing high school and college softball lost by 168 votes (she had 2,600-plus votes the last night) in the online balloting to Tiffany Stewart, a northern California outdoorswomen who won the prized fully outfitted hunting trip for Cape buffalo with Martin Pieters Safaris in October. The three-month long voting ended Dec. 31, 2011.

But within a few months of the mid-January announcement Gross was contacted by Tom Opre of Tahoe Films, who said the title, safari trip and prizes would go to Gross because Brewer declined the trip to hunt Cape buffalo in Zimbabwe due to a personal conflict. The hunt will be filmed and shown in November and January on NBC-TV’s “Eye of the Hunter.”

The avid big game hunter said yes to the proposal. The wedding date was postponed and Guccini will travel as an “observer” at their own expense to Africa.

“It’s kind of consumed our lives since February. It’s been pretty much the topic of conversation, that and how to get ready for it. I’m excited, very excited,” Gross said last week. “I’ve learned a lot from this … you never give up.”

They happily chose “rifle shells” over “wedding bells,” she said about the theme of a photo spread on her website www.bowkrazy.com.

That photo shoot in the scenic Colorado mountains shows her holding the new German-made Blaser 375 H&H rifle with an Aimpoint Red Dot that was among the prizes that included ammunition from Barnes (VOR-TX bullets), firearm cleaning kits from Otis, a gift certificate from Brownells and safari clothing from SHE Outdoor Apparel.

Gross and Guccini plan to fly Oct. 10 to Lafayette, stay in Acadiana two days and leave Oct. 12 for New York. The 15-hour overseas flight to Johannesburg, Africa, leaves Oct. 13. From there they will go on a 10-hour jeep ride through three different villages before arriving at Omay Concession.

The seven-day hunt starts immediately.

Downing a Cape buffalo is a goal she has been working to accomplish by practicing with the Blaser, which can be described as a cannon in her hands.

In an email, she wrote: “The rifle kicks my petite body after every shot. Really, it is quite comical to watch, me with my big ear-to-ear grin, even if it is going to hurt.”

Gross talked frankly about it Friday.

“I’ve been getting ready to go. I’ve been practicing shooting with my big gun. It actually kicks the crap out of me,” she said, noting she will aim and shoot with the rifle resting on a stick. The accomplished bowhunter has had to learn all over again to shoot with a rifle on a stick, she said, because she used to sit and prop an elbow on her lap as a gun rest.

“Now that I’ve gotten the confidence of shooting it it’s a lot better,” Gross said.

Friends have been ribbing her about the recoil’s effect on her shoulder, she said. The running joke is: “Jackie is going to shoot her Cape and you’re going to see her disappear off camera! BANG! GONE! WHERE’S JACKIE!”

But she’s had the last laugh several times, she said.

“My buddies shoot it and hold their shoulder after,” she said.

She was told to get in shape and she made that a priority over the summer, she said, running up and down mountains with weights.

The daughter of George and Jody Gross of Hackberry, formerly of Delcambre, was born in Crowley and grew up in the Delcambre and Youngsville areas. Her maternal grandparents, the late Al and Doris Guidry ,lived on the shore of Lake Peigneur, where the family plans to build in the future, she said.

Gross, who lived here for a while in the late 2000s and fished Lipari Outdoor Adventure Hawg Fights in and around the Atchafalaya Basin, works in construction in the oil and gas industry for XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil. She followed her oilfield career to Colorado.

That’s she’s wearing cowboy boots in the “rifle shells or wedding bells” photos is genuine Jackie Gross.

“I wanted a country wedding on the lake, a country wedding with cowboy boots. Being from Louisiana and being a country girl, that fit my personality. I bought the dress last year to get married this year. I still want to get married there,” she said about Jefferson Island.

First, though, there’s a date, hopefully, with a Cape Buffalo 1,500 miles from Silt. Will she shoot one of the top five big game animals, a species that kills an average of 200 people each year?

“I hope so. I’ve been practicing a lot. I’m hunting with the best people around. As long as I get a good shot, I think I will,” she said.