Freaky: That unfamiliar feeling of hunting success

I'm in a bit of a freaky situation right now: I've been incredibly successful on five out of my past seven hunts.

I've gotten three limits of ducks - the most limits I've ever gotten in one season. I got six ducks hunting alone one day, the most I've ever gotten solo. I've shot a limit with just 15 shells, and six of those ducks required only one shot apiece - my best shooting ever. I've gotten my first double, and my first Scotch double (two with one shot - very thrifty!). I've felt so blessed with full straps that on one hunt, I handed over six ducks to a hunting partner - a form of generosity that comes only with the supreme confidence that I can get more ducks later.

All of this success leaves me feeling quite confused and concerned. Read more...
I am so accustomed to not shooting well that I fear this string of successes is a fluke that will end shortly (probably within 24 hours, now that I'm actually writing about it).

But what if it continues? What will I have to write about if I'm not frustrated and foiled at every turn in the field? I can't think of anything more boring than a hunting blog about perpetual success. That would lack dramatic tension and come off as boastful. Gag.

Every once in a while, though, this thought penetrates the swirling fog of neurosis and self-doubt: Maybe I'm just getting good at this.

Not that I'll never have a bad day again - streaks of poor shooting happen to everyone. And a streak of shooting this good may remain rare. But for the past four years, I've been striving to be a better shot and a smarter hunter, and I'm thinking maybe it's starting to work.

For the first time, I feel like I have really good news for all the new hunters I work with: It's OK if you're not great now. It's OK if your first few seasons leave you spending more time buying ammunition than plucking ducks. It's OK if you miss a lot. Why? Because eventually, your hard work will pay off.

But there are two words in that sentence that are vital: hard work.

I've spent a lot of time lately trying to dissect my success. Why is it happening now? What I've come up with is this:


Practice. Gun fit. Twelve gauge. I listed these in order of importance, but let's take it from the other direction:

The 12 gauge: I switched from a 20 gauge to a 12 gauge this year knowing that using the larger shell puts more shot in the air, which can increase my odds of success. That may be contributing to my success, but I know a 12 gauge alone isn't enough to do the trick.

Gun fit: Gun fit is huge. Some people are blessed with physiques that work well with shotguns as they are made, but not me. I shoot left-handed and have a long neck and high cheekbones, which makes gun fit tough for me. When I got my 12 gauge Beretta 3901 (I call her Sarah Connor), I ended up buying an adjustable-comb stock, which allows me to move the comb of the stock really far to the left while keeping the butt where it needs to be to hit my shoulder correctly.

If I had tried to use this gun as-is when I got it, I'd be failing miserably, because I'd never be able to get my face in the right position on the stock.

Practice: This one, I believe, is truly the most important. If you've ever read anything about success or mastery, you'll see declarations that it takes six to ten years, or 10,000 hours, of practice to get really good at something. This is the logic behind the apprentice-journeyman-master stages of many crafts.

I've been hunting for slightly more than four years now, and I've been passionate about it from the start. I hunt - especially ducks - at virtually every opportunity I find. And when there's nothing to hunt, I'm constantly looking for people to go shoot skeet with me. When my gun range, the Cordova Shooting Center, got a sweet voice-activated system for shooting skeet solo this year, that allowed me to go whenever I wanted, no partner needed.

This year, I cranked up my shooting activity to its highest level ever: I shot skeet with my new shotgun a LOT this summer, more than ever before. Come Sept. 1, I went dove hunting at every opportunity, not just once or twice as in previous years (with much gratitude to my friend Bill Templin, who graciously shared his primo spot with me). I've gone duck hunting at least once a week since the season started, and during school breaks when I can endure the sleep deprivation, I've gone hunting two or three times a week.

It's all adding up now. I've had enough successful shooting that my brain and muscles are capable of doing what's necessary without requiring conscious thought on my part - consistently, not just occasionally. Thank God. I really wondered if the day would ever come (and if you don't believe me, check out my first blog post).

New hunters, I'm here to tell you it can happen!

Of course, like I said, the fact that I'm writing this post almost certainly means I will get a mighty and humiliating smackdown, and probably very soon.

But unlike all the other smackdowns I have endured in my previous four years of hunting, I now know that I'm capable of doing well. Shooting poorly in the future won't mean I'm hopeless, as I have feared for so long now; it will simply mean I'm having a bad day.

And besides, it'll give me something to write about.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Women hunting: A beautiful sight

Of the 742 photos I took this weekend at California Waterfowl's 2010 Women's Hunting Camp, I think this one is my favorite. Not because it has any particular technical or artistic merit, but because - more than any other - it captures the mood of the day.

These women are exhilarated and filled with a confidence borne of achieving something that society doesn't expect of them. And these are just the first of many emotions they'll get to savor as they become more and more deeply involved in the pursuit that is more ancient than civilization itself: hunting to put food on their tables.

It fills me with both a maternal sense of pride in them and a sisterly desire to offer a welcoming embrace.

But enough with the sappy stuff. Let's talk about what happened here:

Ten women attended the weekend camp at Birds Landing Hunting Preserve and Sporting Clays. Two of them already had hunting licenses, but eight were there to complete their hunter education, learn to shoot shotguns, get their licenses and go on their first hunt.

I was on hand all weekend to assist, educate and generally butt in a lot, which everyone tolerated generously. But lest you think this was all about philanthropy, let me set you straight: I was hungry to watch the transformation that would take place in them, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Everyone arrived Saturday morning looking a little quiet and unsure as we handed out their hunter ed manual and blaze orange caps, courtesy of Prois. During the hunter education sessions, they listened to instructor George Oberstadt intensely, stopping him occasionally to grill him on the finer points of ammunition, or safety, or ethics. It was very, very serious.

After lunch, we had some hands-on sessions. I manned the "weapon familiarization" table, where I illustrated the differences between three types of shotguns and two rifles. I loved explaining the autoloaders to them: "Check out how hard you have to press this button to chamber the shell," I said, handing them my own personal shotgun, Sarah Connor. "See? They're made for man hands. They're not delicate."

Then there was testing. Again, the mood was very serious.

After that, while George graded the tests to see who would pass and become a licensed hunter, a bunch of us volunteers took the women out to the sporting clays course to take what was, for most of them, their first shots with a shotgun.

Some struggled. Some got it fairly quickly. Carole, though, was a total beast - I think she hit her first three shots in a row, which had all of us hollering like teenage boys at a strip club.

God, how I always wanted to be like Carole - a prodigy! Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in this case, I wasn't, so I had authentic words of advice for the rest: Don't worry if you're not amazing now. With practice, all of you can become good - way better than average.

One of my favorite moments after that was watching Monique, who really struggled at first. She's cross-dominant - left-handed, right-eye dominant. She tried shooting right handed, but hated it. She switched to left and felt more comfortable, but still wasn't hitting targets. Our instructor, another George, had her do an exercise that involved pointing her right index finger as if it were the barrel of the gun. Like magic, something clicked, and after that she started slamming clays.

Relief! And joy. We were all smiles.

After shooting practice, we retreated to the blessed shade of our patio classroom, where George handed out prizes for the women with the two best test scores - Girls with Guns gun cases (uh, yeah, use that link - if you just Google them, you'll get some weird, kinky stuff), courtesy of the Tackle Box, a hook-n-bullet store in Chico (which, by the way, is gearing up to stock some women's hunting clothing from Prois).

Can I get three cheers for Rachel (right) and Sarah (left - the wife of the Darren I hunted with on closing day of duck season in January)?


Notice the smiles? Good Lord, every single one of them was sporting a huge grin as she first got her hunter ed certificate (yes, everyone passed), and then got her license. I mean, teeth, gums, everything - they were happy as hell! And I remember how it felt - you study hard, but you're filled with uncertainty, and passing that test is a big deal.

Then we sent everyone home to get a good night's rest - or at least to try - before the morning's hunt.

We started trickling into the Birds Landing parking lot at 7 a.m. Sunday, and I watched their faces, remembering vividly my fist hunt - also a planted-bird pheasant hunt, way back in 2006. You've read the materials, you've listened to your mentors, you've pulled the trigger a few times, but you have no clue what it's going to be like when a pheasant lifts up in front of you.

We split into three groups, and in my first group was Lori, with whom I'd been emailing with back and forth for a little more than a year. The dog got on birds right away, and the first flush happened right in front of Lori.

Bam!


One shot, bird down!

Lori was one of the women who was already licensed, but this was her first pheasant and she was ecstatic. And seriously, I get a little teary, being so proud of her in that moment.

As the morning went on, I toggled between groups, watching as the women faced one of those challenges peculiar to planted bird hunts: These birds did not want to get up - they just ran and ran and ran.






And all of them wanted so much to be good sportswomen that they waited - often in vain - for the birds to take flight. Personally, for the price of admission, I would've sluiced the buggers. At least one of them.

When the sun got too high and the parched dogs began to wear out, we finally had to call it quits. Some got birds, others didn't, but whether they realize it or not, all of them learned something - I could see it as the morning wore on, the attentive way they monitored the dogs, guns at the ready.

Whether they realized it or not, their instincts were kicking in. Watching it was like learning it all over again - delicious.







For Renee Viehmann - the second woman from the left in the bottom row of the last photo above - these moments must have been especially sweet. Renee was a graduate of last year's CWA women's hunting camp, and she subsequently helped start the Bad Ass Girls Club. She volunteered with her Weimaraner Roxie this weekend to help introduce the next batch of women to hunting.

When the hunt was over, there was lunch. George grilled duck and goose and burgers, which we all devoured gratefully. We all talked about what it was like, about the surprises everyone encountered. We talked about what they needed to do next to pursue the kinds of hunting that interested them.

I dumped about 90 percent of my women's hunting clothing collection on a table and let everyone plow through it to see what they liked, and to try on some pieces to get a feel for fit. And can I just say that regardless of the type of clothing, chicks still dig going through another girl's closet? Totally fun.

We all stood there chatting about what we wanted to do next, then, one by one, drifted away.

But it's not over. It looks like Monique might accompany me on a deer/bear hunt in a couple weeks. Carole said she's really into trying duck hunting now. I know Sarah is going to join her husband Darren out at the waterfowl refuges, and learn what it is that got him completely obsessed last year.

Kirsten, who works for the Department of Fish and Game, is going to dive into the pursuit that her agency regulates. Raquel, who is a reporter, may write a story about this weekend, and we're going to try to hook her up for a pig hunt, which is what captivates her most. Lori is putting in her season-long application for reservations for waterfowl hunts. Angela plans to hunt turkeys with her husband.

And those are just the plans I know about. But no worries, we've all got each other's email addresses. I'm pretty sure we'll all be seeing each other again.



© Holly A. Heyser 2010

The ultimate women's hunting class

If you're a California woman who wants to give hunting a try, it's time to sign up for the very best women's hunting class I've ever heard of: California Waterfowl's Women's Hunting Camp. It's Sept. 25-26 at the Birds Landing Hunting Preserve, near Suisun Marsh in the Bay Area.

What makes this class so great? Read more...
Convenience. You take care of the hunter education requirement, shooting instruction, licensing and your first hunt all in one weekend. It took me about two months to get from hunter education to my first hunt. If you're a procrastinator, this is your dream - no room for procrastination at this camp.

Low risk. Cal Waterfowl can provide a shotgun if you don't have one, so you don't have to make that huge investment before giving hunting a try. (Yeah, it was with some trepidation that I dropped $1,000 on my Beretta 391 before having ever fired a shotgun at anything, much less game.) If you try it and decide you don't enjoy hunting, you haven't wasted money on a gun you won't use.

Affordability. This weekend costs participants $175, plus paying $15-20 for the online hunter education study that you have to do before you get there (this advance study is required no matter how you do hunter ed). This fee includes license ($41.50), upland game stamp ($8.40), shooting instruction (costs you at least $50-60 an hour elsewhere), and an actual hunt (one hunt club I know charges $80 for a hunt in which you can take up to three pheasants, and that's on the cheap side).

Impact. You will be set to hunt after this, and you will meet other women who want to hunt, or who already hunt (like me - I'll be there). That proud duck hunter you see in the photo above? That's Alison, a grad of last year's camp, and my new duck hunting buddy.

So, ladies, what are you waiting for? You need to sign up ASAP - Cal Waterfowl can't leave registration open until last minute because of the advance hunter ed study requirement.

Click here for forms and instructions (scroll down to find this event), and here to register (make sure you click on the women's event - $175.)

If you'd like to talk with someone about it to learn more before signing up, contact George Oberstadt at Cal Waterfowl, 916-648-1406, Ext.142. Tell him I sent you! UPDATE: George is also happy to have you call his cell, 916-275-0961.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Three great opportunities for NorCal women who want to shoot or hunt

OK, I know if you're reading this page, chances are you're already a hunter. But tell me this: Do you know any women or girls who might be interested in hunting, or at least in trying out shooting?

If you do, please let them know about three fantastic opportunities coming up - all of them geared toward novice women. In other words, they don't need to worry about feeling stupid around a bunch of experts - they'll be surrounded by other women who know as little about shooting and hunting as they do.

Click here for a map of event locations, and keep reading for the details: Read more...
Women's shooting clinic
Sunday May 16 in Jackson

The True Sportsman Club will offer a women's shooting clinic where the club provides guns, ammo, targets and instruction - all you need to bring is a good attitude. I went to this one two years ago with my friends Hellen and Lucrezia and they had a BLAST. No pun intended.

Registration deadline: Friday May 14.

Cost: $25.

Contact: Kathleen Lynch, 209-267-0385.

Women's trapshooting clinic
Saturday June 19 in Lincoln

The NRA Foundation brings us "Women on Target," which will teach women trapshooting using 12-gauge shotguns - all guns, shells, targets, ear and eye protection provided. (Trapshooting is great practice for upland bird hunting - pheasants, etc. - which happens to be very popular with women.) Click here for a flier.

Registration deadline: Wednesday May 19.

Cost: $75.

Contact: Clinic director Patricia McLelland-Merydith, 530-852-9719 or 530-333-5937.

Women's shooting/licensing/hunting clinic
Saturday-Sunday Sept. 25-26 in Rio Vista

This one is amazing: In one weekend, women can learn to shoot, take their hunter education course, get their hunting license and go on their first hunt (for pheasants), all courtesy of California Waterfowl. This program condenses what can be a lengthy process into just two days, and if you don't have a gun yet, Cal Waterfowl can provide a loaner.

The beauty of this is if someone's not sure she'll like hunting, this is about the quickest, lowest-risk way to find out. If she doesn't like it, she's out two days and $175; if she does, she's just gotten a huge leg up.

The women I saw there last year had a great time. I still stay in touch with a couple of them, and one has become my duck hunting buddy - check out our first hunt together.

Information: Click here to get forms and booklets, and here to register online.

Cost: $175

Contact: George Oberstadt, 916-648-1406, Ext.142.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Cripples: The search for answers

Duck scavenger. Cripple Queen. Crip magnet.

That's me this season. Usually when I count my ducks for the season, I include a count for the ducks I've hit but lost. This year, I should add a column for other people's crips I've shot or picked up, because there have been so many. It's been downright freakish.

Sometimes they're the duck that's shot elsewhere and happens to come to my pond to die. A gift from the sky.

In one case, though, it was a bull sprig handed to me by a pheasant hunter after his dog found him. The bird was alive and looked "fine" - I had to finish him off. But when I plucked and dressed him, I was so disheartened by what I saw: A good 15 shot holes. An angry red wing wound, maybe the result of marsh critters picking at a shot wound. And when I opened him up, the horrifying stench that revealed his guts had been shot up and had been leaking for days.

I wanted to cry. I had to throw his poor carcass away because the meat was obviously tainted. That's something I hate to do, but that's not what upset me; it was the thought of him living like that for who knows how long. I am willing to accept that animals must die for us to eat meat, but I'm hard-pressed to feel good about the ones that are shot for nothing because we can't recover them.

This bizarre streak I'm on has raised lots and lots of questions for me, and answers have been hard to find. Read more...
The most obvious question was asked by our token vegan/non-hunter Hutch in the comment thread on my last post: How can you reconcile this - the fact that so many birds are wounded and not retrieved by the hunters who shot them?

Well, honestly, Hutch, it sucks. I reconcile it because I acknowledge that pretty much every breath we take as humans does incidental damage - we cannot walk through this world without leaving a wake. No animal can. Lots of animals die as unintended victims of the quest to produce vegan food too.

The fact that I'm a hunter means I face this fact pretty directly. Many people have no idea what the incidental cost of their grocery-store food was - from rodents killed by plows to eggs crushed by farm machinery to hawks smacked by the semis that delivered the food to our local markets. With my hunting, I know all too well the incidental cost.

That leaves two other questions: What is the magnitude of the situation? And what can be done to minimize it?

Now, many anti-hunters have quoted statistics on the wounding loss rate in bird hunting - anywhere from 30 percent to 50 percent or even worse. But sorry, I'm not going to trust that until I see who did the studies, and it seems they never provide links to these studies.

(And I have seen first hand how anti-hunting organizations like HSUS will just make stuff up - like the "fact" that hunters don't eat doves because there's so little meat on them. Please. Note the photo on the left. Don't lick your computer screen.)

Then I came across a page on "reducing wounding losses" on the South Dakota Game & Fish website. Here's what it said:

So, what is the magnitude of struck-but-unretrieved waterfowl in the U.S. and Canada? U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) harvest survey results show that hunters reported an average annual wounding loss rate of 18 percent from the 1930’s to the present time. However, hunters do not see all the birds that they wound. Numerous U.S. and Canada research studies have been published involving trained observers that record the harvest efficiency of thousands of duck hunters in the field. These studies document wounding rates of more than 30 percent. Therefore, if you reconcile hunter and trained observer reports, the wounding rate on ducks is at least 25 percent.

First of all, this came from a source I trusted - South Dakota does not have a vested interest in making hunting look bad. In fact, that state invests quite a bit in hunting tourism. You know, the pheasants there are as thick as mosquitoes in a Minnesota summer.

Second, the hunter-reported wounding rate of 18 percent wasn't too far off of mine - I'm at 14 percent for my entire four seasons of duck hunting. It was 18 percent last season, and it's 10 percent this season. (Though having lost four crips and picked up 10, I feel perhaps I should have a negative wounding rate in the cosmic accounting of such things.)

But I still have questions about these studies: Do they in any way account for what happens to the bird after it is hit, but flies off (or, as is often the case with me, hides in tules where it can't be retrieved)?

This season I have gotten many cripples that were obviously shot the same day, so if trained observers were watching the loss but didn't see me get the bird, would that still count as a loss?

Then there are the other birds that heal and just keep on living. I got one on Sunday with my friend Charlie: A Ross's goose came flying at our blind so low I thought it was a seagull. Until we realized it was a goose.

We shot. He fell.

"Did you see his leg hanging down?" Charlie asked me as I went to pick him up. "I think he was wounded."

When I dressed the goose, I indeed found that his leg had been wounded - it hung strangely, and I could feel a piece of shot in it. But I couldn't find any evidence of the wound - it had completely healed over. Would that goose have counted as a wounding loss, even though he continued to live until Charlie and I brought him down for good?

Unfortunately, I have not gotten to look at any of these studies first-hand, so I don't know the answers. (Anyone know where I can find 'em? Please tell me.)

But in all honesty, this is quibbling. Everyone who hunts birds knows that we lose some of them. We don't get to use scoped rifles on standing birds; we use shotguns on speeding birds, and you have to be a really good shot to kill them instantly every time. And even big game hunting where you do get to aim scoped rifles at standing animals has wounding losses. It is a fact of life.

So the more important issue is what can we do to reduce wounding losses?

Kansas Wildlife & Parks has a nice brochure detailing 15 causes of, and 15 solutions to, wounding losses.

The key causes? Poor shooting skills. Poor distance estimation. Using the wrong load or choke for what you're hunting. Taking shots with a high likelihood of the bird landing in dense cover.

The part about distance estimation is interesting. Somewhere in my research on this subject, I read that many hunters will estimate that a bird is at 40 yards when it is really 30 yards away. I know I do that - I routinely pass on shots I later realize are 30 yards because they feel too far for me. I want them closer. When they're closer, the birds tend to drop a higher percentage of the time. And while sometimes people will chide me for not taking shots they thought were achievable, doing this research has made me feel good about my conservative bent on shooting.

Now, the part about the shot we use. There's a respected hunter and ballistics researcher named Tom Roster who has done extensive studies on this subject, and he has produced the "Steel Shot Lethality Table" that lays out exactly what you need to use to be most effective.

The Holy Grail! Something I could analyze with respect to the type of hunting I do and make the best choices.

But good luck finding that thing. It's copyrighted, and for the life of me, I haven't been able to find it on the Internet - not even in a place where I could pay for it, which I'd gladly do. (Hey, as a writer and photographer, I totally respect copyright.) At least one state game agency includes the table in its hunter guidebook. I found a PDF of that guidebook online, and the PDF included a reference to the table, but the table itself was not in the online version.

I have seen references to the table though. The South Dakota page I mentioned earlier says steel No. 3 shot has shown the best all-around performance for taking ducks. But what choke? And I shoot Hevi-Shot, which has different properties than steel - where does that fit in the equation? And does it matter that I shoot a 20 gauge - is this table geared toward people who shoot 12 gauge?

I've seen other people quote this table saying No. 4 is better, or even No. 6. So clearly, hearsay is not doing anyone a great deal of good here.

I've called Roster because I'd love to talk to him about this, but I haven't heard back yet. I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep working on reducing my wounding losses. I've spent good money to have my gun fitted to make my shooting more accurate. I do practice with skeet and sporting clays when I can, though I know the predictability of clays doesn't do justice to the unpredictability of live birds. I use Hevi-Shot at a freakin' $2.40 per shell because I believe it's more lethal, even though there are only three shot sizes for 20 gauge (2, 4 and 6 - I use mostly 4s).

I've even given serious thought to whether I should get a 12 gauge. Pride makes me want to perfect my shooting on the 20 gauge - to be accurate with the smaller number of pellets I get in my shells. There's a faction out there that sees the 20 gauge as a more honorable way to hunt. But would I knock them down more consistently with a 12 gauge?

In the field, I continue to do what I've always done - and what I see many other hunters doing as well: I look long and hard for ducks I drop, and believe me, I have done some epic searches - with success, even without a dog. (Oh yeah, dog. But a well-trained dog is an expense I can't afford right now, and I refuse to take a poorly trained (i.e., self-trained) dog into the field.)

And I gladly pick up other people's cripples. Even if they're not the best-tasting birds. Even if they might be emaciated from having sat out there for a few days before I finished them off. Because I don't believe any bird should be shot for nothing.

Not if I can help it.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

The newbie, the scavenger and by far the most bizarre duck hunt yet

The photos from today's hunt are ... well, not your usual duck hunting photos. But this was a most unusual hunt, on so many levels that it's hard to figure out where to start. So maybe you should just click that play button below and by the time you've seen these three photos, perhaps I'll know how to explain why I can't stop smiling tonight ...

OK, here we go. That first photo is Alison. Alison is a new hunter. Who lives in Berkeley. So all you haters out there, stop hating - you now know there is at least ONE hunter in Berkeley.

I met Alison in September at that cool event California Waterfowl did where women could pay $150 to 1) take shooting lessons, 2) take their hunter safety course, 3) get their license and stamps and 4) go on their first hunt - for pheasants.

Alison has been very diligent about pursuing hunting opportunities since then. She did a guided hunt up at Tule Lake, and I helped hook her up with a guy named "Nabs" from the Duck Hunting Chat for a hunt last month at the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area. She emailed me on Saturday and said she had been drawn for a hunt at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area today, and did I want to go? That's how it all started.

Random Interruption No. 1: On the way out to our blind this morning, I asked Alison what made her decide she wanted to hunt. (She is now my third female hunting buddy whose significant other - boyfriend, in her case - doesn't hunt.)

You know what the spark was? It was Eliza Dushku, who played "Faith" on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Dushku hunts. Last August, she went on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, announced that she hunts and even shot her bow onstage. PETA, naturally, pitched a hissy fit.

Hey PETA, I'm so, so sorry that your efforts to attract attention and make money by picking on Dushku - who's all about eating what she kills - did not affect my new friend Alison. Wah.

So, the hunt. Alison and I got to our blind and set up a good hour before shoot time - using a whole bunch of her brand new decoys. We were stationed in one of several clumps of tules that ringed our blind, and we were surrounded by big water. After a night of hard rain, we could see more stars than clouds, and there was a good wind coming from the south. Everything felt good.

And as the horizon to the east began to lighten, the ducks crisscrossed the airspace over our blind. They landed in our decoys, took off, landed again, dropped in from all directions.

"Oh my God," I said. This was Alison's third duck hunt and I wondered if she realized how extraordinary this was. I warned her that the ducks would not fly like this after shoot time. But I had the sneaking feeling this would be an amazing day.

I prepped her: If ducks came in where we both could get them, she should pick one on the left and I'd take one on the right. Otherwise, if one came where just one of us could shoot - and felt comfortable shooting - we should just blaze away.

When shoot time arrived, the ducks were still flying vigorously, but we couldn't get a shot off - there was so much shooting around us that every time ducks started working our blind, someone else nearby would shoot and our ducks would flare.

Finally, one duck came in at an angle where I could get it. I fired once, and dropped the duck. Spoonie hen.

I settled back in and a greenwing teal came by at a similarly good angle for me. I fired once and dropped it stone dead.

My first thought was, "Well, thank God you're not totally sucking in front of the new girl."

My next thought was, "Oh, this won't last."

Finally some ducks came in where Alison could get at them, and soon enough she dropped a teal stone dead. I was ecstatic for her. This woman had invested lots of time and money in her new pursuit, and it was beautiful to see her get that precious little reward that says, "You can do it! Keep it up!"

I immediately recalled my first season. Three ducks, literally hundreds of shells. Each duck was precious.

And teal - that's good eating!

The guys in the blind to our south, meanwhile, were slaughtering ducks like crazy.

Today, the "X" was on their blind, a measly little mudpile with zero cover. That morning at the hunter check station, we'd heard guys mumbling about how amazing this blind was. The hunters who were just in front Alison's reservation took that blind. And it was a good choice. They could do no wrong - ducks came in no matter what they did.

But they didn't always kill them. On one volley, they wounded a duck that came flying our way, low and on my side. Spoonie drake. I could see his lower bill hanging crazily - ugly injury. I shot and he swooped down to a grassy island where he could hide. I charged toward him, determined to finish him off quickly.

This is when things got weird.

When I neared the little island, I caught a glimpse of another duck - mallard? - as he burst away from the opposite side. Obviously wounded. Hmmmmm...

I raised my gun and shot my duck on the water. He went belly up.

Then I began to chase the other duck. As I crossed the island, yet another wounded duck burst out of hiding about 20 yards from me. He tried to lift off, and I shot. Belly up.

I doublechecked: Yep, two ducks belly up.

Back to that other wounded duck. He was making his way toward a grass-lined dirt road, where I'd probably never find him without a dog. I leveled my gun and shot him on the water.

I picked him up. Not mallard. Drake spoonie. Went back to the island. Got the first drake spoonie. Got the other duck. Another drake spoonie! Well, lordy lordy.

Random Interruption No. 2: When I was planning this hunt, Boyfriend - who is laid up after surgery from a ruptured Achilles (ouch!) - encouraged me to take one of the blinds at Yolo known for lots of scaup and other divers.

"I need some ducks that are more challenging to cook," he said. You know, for his blog.

Well, hell, I wasn't going to take poor Alison to a diver hole. We picked one that had lots of teal coming out of it.

Spoonies... Hey, they can be challenging to cook! I blame Boyfriend.

I walked back to Alison with a twisted grin on my face, three ducks in hand. "This has never happened to me before!" I said.

Not three ducks on one fetch. An never four spoonies in one hunt. I always tell people I'm not that picky, but this was really pushing it...

But... wow, I had five ducks in hand! And only three of them were cripples.

Random Interruption No. 3: Remember my crazy streak of bringing home nothing but cripples for the longest time this season? Well, by golly. I was still at it.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It actually gives me some comfort to know that while I am picking up ducks others have wounded, perhaps other hunters are doing the same for me. Only maybe not with any spoonies I wound.

Poor spoonies. Nobody loves them.

So later in the morning, Alison and I were sitting there in the most unusual and uncomfortable position: facing into the wind, because that's where the ducks were flying, and into the rising sun, for the same reason.

I was looking off to my right when she said, "Hey, a duck just fell over there!"

"Who shot it?" I asked. I looked where she pointed off to our left and saw what appeared to be a dead duck a good 150 yards away. And no one from any of the blinds around us was getting up to get it.

"Oh hell," I said as I trudged out for a really long walk in the water. I haven't been to the gym in two weeks, but with all the long walks I've taken in marshes lately, I haven't missed it. Duck hunting without a dog to do all your fetching is great exercise.

The closer I got to the bird, the more identifying marks I could see. I was pretty sure it was a...

... pintail!

I picked it up pleased to have this duck to hand to Alison - a beautiful bull sprig. Good eating. That and the teal she already had in hand are the two best-eating ducks there are.

On the way back to the blind, two guys walking up the road on the edge of our pond shouted, "Wigeon!"

I looked over and their dog had flushed a wounded wigeon from the grass.

"Cool!" I said.

Was it our bird? Someone else's bird? Who knew. But their dog grabbed the bird, and they handed him to me. I thanked them.

"Nice bull sprig!" they said.

"Thanks," I replied, with absolutely zero reason to be proud. The Duck Scavenger strikes again!!!

Back at the blind, Alison looked at me perplexed. "What happened?"

I handed her two ducks and explained. She now had three and I had five, and honestly, that is so much better than so many hunts I've been on that I was pretty happy. And so was she.

* * *

The morning was wearing on, but the shooting opportunity continued pretty steadily. Alison hammered a drake spoonie. I whiffed on some bufflehead - oh, how I want to be able to actually hit a bufflehead! Some scaup came over, out of range.

We both whiffed on some more shots. Alison slammed down another teal. Damn, this girl is good!

And at one point, when I looked out across the water to our left, I saw a duck where only a wounded duck would be - out in the middle of a bunch of hunters, shooting going on all over the place.

Sigh. "Here we go again..."

I chased the crippled little bird - looked like a scaup! - to a little grassy island and got close enough to fire a water shot. My pattern sprayed across that duck, and I'll be damned if it didn't dive and surface five feet from where I shot it, apparently unharmed.

Freakin' scaup.

I charged through the water to narrow the gap between us. Shot again and killed it this time.

Yay! A scaup for Boyfriend. My sixth duck. Another scavenged cripple.

* * *

Alison and I were running low on shells. At Yolo - like most of the best public duck hunting land in the state - there's a 25-shell limit in the field. You can have more in your car, but you have to walk back to get them. We call it the Walk of Shame, and the flight was so vigorous that hunters had been doing it all morning. But not us.

Could we get to the Magic 14 with what we had left?

We whiffed on some more shots. Good lord.

I chased another cripple, this time without success. On my way back, some spoonies that had been shot at in a nearby blind came bombing into our blind. One dropped in right in front of Alison. She whacked him about a foot off the water.

"Nice shot!" I yelled from where I'd stood.

Six and six. Just a few shells left for each of us.

We missed a couple more. One shell left in each of our guns. We'd have to be good.

Some teal came in hard - and close. We raised our guns. Alison fired, and missed. I got my bead on one of them in perfect range. I could fire on the same group - we'd be done at the same time!

But my bead met the duck right as he passed in front of the sun. A perfect duck eclipse. Blinded, I dropped my gun and let him fly. Sigh. I'd so wanted to fire that last shot with Alison.

It was getting close to noon, but the ducks kept flying. Some spoonies started working close, and I thought, "What the hell!" I fired at a drake. Missed.

"That's it!" I said. And we began to clean up.

* * *

When I opened my blind bag to put something away, I saw my camera there.

"Alison, I have to take your picture! Do you have a duck strap?"

She did, but she needed to dig it out.

"OK, I'll go pull in some more decoys while you're doing that," I said.

I went on one side of our blind and yanked a windwhacker pole from the mud. As I was doing that, I looked back toward the blind. Across the blind.

I'll be damned.

There was a duck on the water. Had to be a crip. Here we go again.

I charged around the blind, threw my windwhacker poles and blades into a clump of tules and went after that duck. No gun. No shells. Just me, in my waders, chasing a ...

a ...

... bufflehead!

Oh dear lord, do you know what it's like chasing divers? Even when you shoot them on the water, they somehow evade you. And now I was chasing one with nothing.

I charged at this duck hard. Like Robert Patrick in Terminator 2. Arms swinging hard and straight to propel me forward. I glanced back and saw that Alison hadn't noticed yet what was going on.

Ha! You didn't know just how much I would chase after cripples, didja!

I was gaining on the buffie, but when I got 15 yards away, she went for a dive. I charged toward the spot, looking for air bubbles. There were none. I angled toward the road, where she could find cover. Finally she popped up again - off to my right.

I charged again and narrowed the gap more. At 10 yards, she dove again. Ohhh, if I had a gun!

This time I could see her as she swam under water. I closed the distance. Plunged my arm into the water and missed. Plunged again and missed. Charged forward a few more steps, plunged again, and emerged with a duck.

My heart wilted when I brought her up. A shattered wing. And she'd taken shot in the eye. What a tough little bird. I helicoptered her to end it.

She was my first bufflehead, and while I'd still not gotten one using my gun, the accomplishment of chasing her down without one was just as significant. I still can't believe I did it. I'm just sorry that she didn't die quickly - I wouldn't wish the suffering and the chase on anyone.

But here I was with bird No. 7, and Alison looking at me like, What the hell?

"OK, let's take pictures now!"

I encouraged her to ham it up and took her picture:

Six ducks - on her third hunt!

And she took mine:

Well, there's one great eating duck in there

On the walk back to our car, and back in the parking lot, every group of male hunters that saw us seemed just delighted to see two girls with all those ducks. Back at the check station, the DFG staff seemed equally happy to see how successful we'd been - even after I admitted there were a lot of crips in the bag.

"Wanna take our picture?" I asked.


Random Interruption No. 4: OK, guys, I know all you single male hunters are going to want to marry Alison now, because she's a total babe, and she hunts! But she's got a boyfriend.

Consolation prize: I now know of two dating websites for hunters: Hunters Blind Date and Rut 2 the Heart. Check 'em out.

Alison and I parted company after I gave her my tips on dressing ducks. She had plans for tonight - perhaps cooking both teal and the pintail or wigeon for her boyfriend and some friends.

I admired her energy. I was beat.

But back at home, I was exuberant, recounting all the details of the hunt for Boyfriend, who occupied his now-customary position on the couch, the leg in a cast propped up on pillows, the laptop providing his only window to the outside world.

He smiled, but looked a little wan. He misses hunting.

* * *

Alison and I texted back and forth a bit this evening. Her energy had run out at some point while she was dressing all her ducks, and she and her boyfriend had ordered out for tacos. That made me feel a little less old.

But our drive to hunt remains high. You can bet we'll be going out again soon.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

The huntress, the mentor and the end of the lame duck hunting streak

I drove up Interstate 5 in a pounding rain early Sunday morning, more nervous than I usually get before a duck hunt. Dianne and Bob at the Delevan National Wildlife Refuge had set me up on the hunting equivalent of a blind date.

On my way into the refuge the Sunday before, I'd told them I wanted to learn how to hunt "free roam" - the vast area where hunters rush to stake out the best spots. It's competitive - there are no safe little assigned blinds.

By the time I'd come out that evening with my characteristic one lame duck, they'd hooked me up.

"Charlie Peebles is gonna take you out," Dianne said. "He hunts here all the time. You've probably seen him."

"OK," I said.

"Here," I told Dianne as I scribbled my cell phone number on a business card. "Please give him this!" Read more...
I started hunting Delevan three years ago alone, earning every bit of knowledge about the place the hard way. I had good reason to believe the hunting would be better in free roam, but I was just too intimidated to try it alone. So this was my big chance to learn a lot - both about Delevan and duck hunting in general.

I might even break my bizarre streak of bringing home just one duck per hunt, always wounded first by another hunter.

I could only hope that I wouldn't shoot like a total dolt.

A week later, I pulled into Delevan at 4:30 a.m. sharp, just when Charlie had told me to meet him there. As I walked to the check station - a little oasis of dim light - I scanned the crowd for someone who looked like he'd be looking for someone.

"Holly?" I heard behind me.

Yep, it was Charlie.

Charlie is 59 years old and has been hunting Delevan since he was 14 - starting the year before I was born. He's there every hunt day, showing up the night before to enter the lottery for a spot out in the field, then coming back the next morning to go find one of his favorite spots in the pre-dawn blackness.

As we stepped into the calf-deep water in free roam, it was clear Charlie knew the place like a blind man knows his house. He knew where the mud would be squishy and where it would firm up, where the bottom dropped and where it came back up again.

We angled toward Grand Central, a big network of tule patches located in the center of some "big water," as we call the vast open sheets. Twinkling headlamps ahead of us told him what he needed to know - how many of his spots had already been staked out by other hunters, where we should go.

Charlie and I settled in a spot that was thick with hunters - we could easily see four or five parties within 100 yards. I'd've never had the huevos to set up there. But that's what it's like in free roam. You just have to be careful about shooting teal that come zipping in low over the water - there was 180 degrees in front of us where doing that would risk peppering other hunters.

We were definitely in a good spot - it was a fairly slow morning, but we had a decent trickle of ducks coming through, and it seemed that everyone we could see was getting opportunity to shoot. Which was good, because Charlie was on first-name basis with a lot of the guys out there.

"Does everyone know everyone out here?" I asked him.

"Pretty much."

I wondered if I would become part of that club. I was pretty sure I'd be the only female member.

I missed the first set of birds I shot at. Or at least I thought I did.

"You hit one," Charlie said. "I could see it." But they had flown away, so I hadn't hit the duck well - I'd just wounded it. Not good.

The next group to came in was a small flock of wigeon. I shot, missed once, hit a hen on the second shot, fired a third at her and watched as she began a long sail while Charlie knocked a drake down hard, dead on the water.

My hen had landed in a little patch of grass poking up about a foot out of the water, a good 75 yards away. I sloshed there as quickly as I could, glad I had an unobstructed view around the grass patch. She had to be in there.

On the walk over, I heard another hunter yelling in the distance. "Hey, YOU SHOT MY DECOY!" Yep. It was crowded here.

As I walked into the grass, she lifted up about 20 yards from me and I dropped her quickly with one shot.

Whew!

I walked over to the spot. She was nowhere to be seen.

What the hell? I could still see the ripples from where she'd landed, and I could see a faint remnant of a ripple leading away from that spot. She was swimming under water and I could not see her. She probably had her bill sticking up someplace, but I couldn't see it amid all the stalks of decaying grass. I searched and searched, but I was acutely aware that I was making a ruckus close to other hunters nearby, and no ducks would come in for them as long as I was there.

I trudged back to Charlie.

"We'll go look for her later," he reassured me.

The next bird that came in was a drake mallard I caught out of the corner of my eye, flying about a foot over the water and heading to that grass patch where I'd lost the wigeon.

Charlie and I watched him for a while, and he finally said, "He's injured. You should go over there and get him."

"That's my cripple for the day!" I said, laughing, and slogged my way back over there.

On the walk, I heard more strife in the distance. "LET THE F***ING BIRDS WORK!" one hunter yelled at another. A high-volume back-and-forth ensued.

I giggled. This is the kind of stuff that I knew happened out here in free roam, and one of the big reasons I didn't want to navigate this business alone. I was deathly afraid of either breaking established etiquette, or being so afraid to break etiquette that I wouldn't take any shots.

When I approached the patch of grass, I scanned it and could see the faint outline of a green head about 25 yards away. I raised my gun. One of the hunters in the nearby blind yelled, "Don't shoot me!"

"I won't!" I yelled back. I tracked the greenhead as he swam away from that blind and when I had a good clear shot - away from the other hunters - I pulled the trigger.

Done. The drake was dead. But the shot had stirred up none other than that hen wigeon who'd been hiding about 10 yards from that greenhead. She tried to fly, but couldn't. The nearby hunter came out with his dog and got the bird for me. "Was this the one you were looking for earlier?"

"Yup, sure is!" I said.

I walked back to Charlie with two birds in hand - an enormous greenhead and the wigeon I thought I'd wounded and lost. He later told me he wished he'd had a camera because I had a smile about a mile wide.

The curse had been lifted. I had more than two ducks, and at least one had not been wounded by another hunter before I hit it. Perhaps my season would finally turn around now.

After a while, some of the hunters started clearing out, and with less congestion, the birds began to work better. And there was this ongoing conversation between the hunters.

"Teal coming your way!"

"Nice shot (guffaw)."

"What happened there?"

We weren't all hunting together. But strangely, we were all hunting together.

I got one more duck in Grand Central that day, a gorgeous drake gadwall that had come in with three others just outside of our decoys, maybe 40 yards in front of us. We hung out for a while after that, but Charlie said, "Hey, you've gotten three birds here - let's move to another spot."

So we moved to his favorite afternoon spot on the refuge, a place where we could intercept a few ducks in a known flight path. Serious insider information.

As we settled into that spot, Charlie's friend Don came by with his two dogs and a bull sprig that he handed to Charlie. It was a cripple his dogs had picked up while he was pheasant hunting and he didn't want it. Charlie handed the duck to me.

Not long after that, two mallards came sailing overhead nearby, out of our range.

"Watch them," he said. When they dropped into some water behind us, just the other side of some tules, Charlie announced that since they were out of our sight - and we were out of theirs - we were going to go put a sneak on them.

As we sloshed toward where we'd seen them drop in, I couldn't imagine how they couldn't hear the racket we were making. They weren't flying away, but they were probably swimming away at light speed.

When we hit the tule patch in front of where they'd landed, Charlie and I split up. We'd both walk around the tule patch in opposite directions and the first person to see the ducks would get the shot.

A couple minutes later, I heard three shots.

I slogged over to him and saw an enormous greenhead in his hand. He was smiling a little sheepishly. "I was hoping you'd get the shot," he said. But he'd come through a little passage in the tules and the drake was right there, maybe 10 yards in front of him. He got about a foot off the water before Charlie had nailed him. He'd shot at the hen, too, but hadn't brought her down.

We got one more shot at birds after that - a small group of spoonies came over. One drake fell. Charlie swore he hadn't hit it; I swore I hadn't either. Turns out we were both shooting No. 2 shot, so the autopsy wouldn't decide the issue. But whoever did it, it was an immaculate shot - the bird was DOA.

We watched the bird activity pick up as the sun dropped, but no more came our way before shoot time ended, so we were done. I had three ducks that were legitimately mine and a fourth that was maybe mine. Charlie had given me the other three birds, so I left the refuge with a huge pile of birds, much more than I'm used to.

For his part, Charlie had passed on a lot of shots to make sure I got plenty of opportunity, which was awfully sweet of him.

And I had learned a lot. I'd learned some free roam etiquette. I'd learned where ducks work in Grand Central and the other spot. I'd learned another couple spots I could try. I'd had an experienced eye watching my shots and telling me what was happening with them. I'd gotten to hear Charlie's thoughts on decoys and calling.

And best of all, I'd made a new duck hunting friend - I now have a standing invitation to join him and keep learning.

I know at some point he'll cut me loose to fly on my own. But hopefully by that time I'll be a bona fide member of the free roam family at Delevan.

* * *

I don't have a photo of Charlie (yet), but you can see him on the Delta Waterfowl website. Delta did a big piece in the Winter 2009 issue about hunting ducks on public land in California. One of the spots they hit was Delevan, and one of the people they interviewed there was Charlie. While you can't read the article online, you can see Charlie on video by clicking here and looking for "Delevan Duck Hunters" under "New Delta Videos.")

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

These women want to hunt. Can you help?

Hey hunters, there are women around you right now who would like to hunt. What are you doing to help them? Do you even know who they are?

This thought popped into my head this afternoon at the end of an amazing California Waterfowl event at Birds Landing Hunting Preserve & Sporting Clays: Sixteen women paid $150 apiece to take shooting lessons, take their hunter safety course, get their hunting license and upland stamp, and go on a pheasant hunt, all in the space of 30 hours.

Pure brilliance. It was a chance to try out hunting for minimal investment of time and money, because the host provided loaner shotguns for anyone who needed one.

And the stories that some of these women told made me realize there are future hunters all around us whom we are not helping. Read more...
Examples:

One woman said she and her husband have done some upland hunting but really want to try duck hunting. They volunteered to work at waterfowl fundraising dinners hoping to make connections who could help them get into it, but no luck - everyone was so proprietary about their precious "spots" that they wouldn't help.

Another woman said she worked for a waterfowl organization for a while and no one there ever took her hunting.

A woman I met last week had a different story: Her husband and others in her family hunt, and she often goes along. When I asked her, "Do you want to hunt?" she looked at me quizzically for a second, then said brightly, "Yes!" It was as if it was the first time anyone had extended the invitation. She couldn't make it to this weekend's event because of a conflict, but she really wanted to go.

And a reader emailed me a couple weeks ago asking for advice and mentorship. She's been dying to hunt waterfowl, and has even gone to the trouble of getting her gun and license. But while the hunters in her life promise to take her out, they never come through.

My point is this: There are non-hunters everywhere who are interested in what hunting has to offer - the connection to nature, the source of better meat, the sense of self-reliance. Many of them are like my friend Hellen, a PhD who had ZERO connection to hunters or hunting until the day I told her I'm a duck hunter. With a little bit of guidance, she became a licensed hunter and shot her first duck one year later.

And then, of course, there's me. I never even thought of hunting until my boyfriend took it up, and kept inviting me to join him. In time, I began to envision myself hunting too. I can't emphasize enough the importance of this point: Many of us do not see ourselves as potential hunters until we see that other people like ourselves hunt.

Thank God Hellen and I had mentors who wanted to help us. But there are many women and men who don't.

So, hunters, what can you do about this? Here are some thoughts:

* Talk to the non-hunters around you about the fact that you hunt, and why you hunt. We run around assuming that everyone is hostile to what we do, when in fact only one in five Americans does not approve of hunting. The other four are open to hearing about it, and hearing why you hunt may be enough to tickle their interest.

* If you see someone around you who wants to hunt, help. Explain what you have to do. Offer to take him or her hunting with you. We spend so much time recruiting kids into this passion of ours - kids who probably come from hunting families anyway - that we forget about adults, and let me tell you, adults need our help as much as kids, men and women alike. Hunting is a complex endeavor: You need shooting skills, licensing, practice and the skill to navigate hunting public or private lands. It's too much to ask anyone to do this on her (or his) own.

* Support an event like the one Cal Waterfowl did this weekend. Do you know a group like Cal Waterfowl that can organize it? Are you in a club that could host it? Can you volunteer time to teach shooting skills? Do you have a dog you'd be willing to take on a hunt with a bunch of newbies? Barring all that, do you have money to contribute to pay for the event? It cost Cal Waterfowl more than $150 per person to do this weekend's event. A big sponsorship grant - maybe just a few thousand bucks - would've been a huge help.

As for me, I've got a growing list sitting up to the right of the computer screen I'm looking at right now: "People to take hunting." It's already a dangerously large list - I worry about making more commitments than I can meet. But with some help from all my hunter friends, I'm thinking we can get more people into the field and teach them enough to get them on their own two feet.

If we invest just a little time in helping them, they, too, will become ambassadors of the possible to people (like me) who just need an invitation.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

Team Huntress: The sisterhood is born

Click on photo to see full-size version.
Who's who is at the bottom of this post.

I had no idea what to expect last Thursday as I hauled my butt out of bed at 4 a.m. to catch a plane to South Dakota for the inaugural Team Huntress Outdoor Adventure Clinic. "Shooting" and "spa treatments" were the keywords of the event, and having always been a tomboy who could live without things like facials, I really wasn't sure how these activities would mesh.

Silly me.

One, massages, facials and foot rubs after long days of shooting and outdoor instruction were, of course, heaven. They allowed us to be just a bit girlie - which isn't so bad - while delving into an overwhelmingly male sport.

And two, shooting and spa treatments became almost irrelevant when I finally realized what this event was really about was sisterhood. Read more...
But I should back up for a second and explain how this worked, since it was an unusual event.

Jane Keller and her brother Dave Olsen decided they wanted to do a women's outdoors clinic at their Pheasant Phun ranch near Hitchcock, S.D.

The idea was to bring together a bunch of outdoorswomen (like me, the newby of the bunch, and people like Barbara Baird of Women's Outdoor News) to help teach shooting and other outdoor skills to women who were mostly new to the outdoors, like Janice, a local doctor, and her daughter Marin, a med school student. (Marin, it turned out, would become probably the most amazing story of the weekend.)

Sessions included wildlife identification, gun safety, archery, eagle-watching, handguns, ATVs, GPS and shotguns. And on top of that, every day started with yoga, and there was at least one spa service each day - facials, massages, manicures and foot massages.

The night we arrived, all the huntresses in the group began to bond immediately.

I had already met Kirstie Pike, owner of Prois Hunting Apparel (pronounced PRO-iss), at the 2008 SHOT Show, where she debuted her clothing line. But this was my first chance to meet Barbara, who'd been emailing back and forth with me for months.

It was also my first meeting with Anne Vinnola, who owns a taxidermy school in Colorado; Terri Lee Pocernich of Camp Wild Girls; and wildlife photographer Stacey Huston - all names I already knew from Twitter and the blogosphere.

I'd never heard of Lynn Pankey, an avid duck hunter who works in marketing at Realtree. But we introduced ourselves on the way onto the plane from Minneapolis to Aberdeen, and we quickly became bunkmates (because even in a gathering of huntresses, you still don't find many fellow duck hunters).

I'm blessed in California to have a pretty good group of women friends who hunt, but for many of the women there, most of the hunters in their world are men, so it was a treat for us all to discover each other. Ever see how little kids act when they spot another kid in, say, the grocery store? That's how we were. Look! Someone else just like me!

But this wasn't just about us - it was about people who were new to the outdoors. As we sat outside the first night sipping cocktails and listening to the sound of wild pheasants cackling, I met Marin and her mom Janice and quickly learned that Marin had been a vegetarian for two years.

Hmmmm, I thought. How's she gonna feel being immersed in a group of people who not only eat meat, but kill it themselves? Better figure this out right away...

"Hmmm," I said. "What made you decide to become a vegetarian?"

"Health reasons" was the answer - her father had run into heart trouble and she decided she should be smart about her own diet to keep the same thing from happening to her.

"Oh, OK," I said. "I would never try to discourage you from being a vegetarian, but I do want to tell you that wild game is very different from store-bought meat - very lean and healthy."

And we left it at that.

As the weekend progressed, I think all of us - even the most experienced huntresses - learned something.

I got to try archery, which I've been dying to do. I'd gotten hooked on it as a child when my parents bought me a plastic kid's recurve bow, but had never shot an arrow as an adult. Stacey and her husband Mike Hawk Huston ran the archery session, and they quickly got me set up on a novice (i.e., low pull weight) compound bow, which I loved.

I'd been thinking compound was the way to go, but Stacey and Mike got me to try the longbow, and I loved it, even though the 65-pound pull was way too much for me to draw fully. I know longbow is way tougher than compound, but I think I'm going to get one anyway. Even if I'm never good enough to kill a game animal with it, I think I'll enjoy learning to shoot it and practicing with it.

Besides, I kept remembering that picture I had back home of my grandpa and grandma posing on a rock in the Malibu Mountains in 1926, Grandpa with his longbow and Grandma in her cute little outfit. The longbow gave me a sense of connection to that.


Later that day, Barb, bless her soul, got me to try handguns.

Now, nothing against all you handgun fans out there, but I hate them. They just scare me. But I'm a big believer in soaking up as much knowlege as I can get, so I forced myself to try it out, first learning the proper grip and stance, and then taking shots at paper plates about 15 yards away with a Beretta semi-auto .22.

And I'll be damned if I didn't kick ass! I fired probably 35 or 40 rounds, and made mincemeat of my plate.

I still don't want to buy a handgun, but I know now if for any reason I need to pick one up some day, it won't be quite as intimidating.

And bonus points, I got to take a fun portrait of Kirstie through a particularly big hole in my plate:


The next day, Hawk - who's into all things primitive - set up a little impromptu demo of knapping with Jane's daughter Kasen, and in no time he had her making a knife blade using old glass. Kasen is an absolute fiend about knives, so she was totally into it. And it turned out she was a natural, flaking chips off the glass about as perfectly as you could ever want.

"Can I try?" I asked.

Of course I could. I began working a shard of glass and quickly learned that I was no Kasen - it was harder than I thought to flake the glass, and though I did OK, it wasn't long before I'd broken my shard into five pieces.


But luck was on my side.

Stacey and Hawk had explained that you need old glass to use for knapping, because it's thicker than modern glass, and has often been tempered from years of exposure to the sun.

And wouldn't you know it, there was an ancient, rusty Ford pickup in the ranch's automotive graveyard, and there in the bed of it was a bunch of perfect old glass. Hawk picked out a few shards for me, and now I have something to work on at home.

After all this fun, it was finally time for me to do some teaching. My session was shotgun skills.

Now, those of you who know about my raging insecurity about my own shotgun skills are probably laughing your ass off about this. But it wasn't as strange as it seems: I've taken quite a few shotgun lessons, and observed many as well (I always go with my friends when they get their guns fitted with gunmaker Dale Tate, and he always includes a lesson in the fitting). It's hard not to pick up some teaching strategies from all that - especially when you teach for a living.

My first victim was Marin, the vegetarian. She's left-handed and close to my height, so I wanted her to be able to use my gun, which would probably fit her pretty well.

I set her up - gun goes here on your shoulder, cheek on stock, swing through, lead the clay. "When you're ready, yell 'Pull!' " I told her.

"Pull!"

The clay flew. She followed it, pulled the trigger and smashed it into pieces!

A cheer went up behind us. We had a natural!

Marin spent a lot of time on that gun. When she got tired, she took a break. But every time we were ready for someone else to come up and shoot, there she was, with this incredible grin on her face. She loved it!

Everyone was having such a good time with the shotguns that we didn't want to head in for dinner. But when we finally did, we found a crew of women from Arbonne in the mudroom with tubs set out on the floor. Yep, you got it: After a long day in hiking boots, we were all getting foot massages. And the men, bless their souls, brought us cocktails. What a heavenly way to end the day.

On Sunday, when all the women were packing up to go, Jane told me we had a plan for that night: They were going to have a friend open up his gun shop for us, because Marin wanted to buy a shotgun!

Stacey, Marin and I talked about it as we stood in the parking lot, saying our good-byes.

"When I get my gun, I think I'm going to shoot rabbits in my dad's field," Marin told us. "And if I get one, I think I'll eat it."

Marin. The vegetarian!

That was pretty much everything you could wish for from an outdoors clinic. Marin came in never having shot anything, and she left with confidence, and a desire for more. She had joined the sisterhood.

We never did hook up with the gun shop folks that night, and I worried that the momentum would leave her. But there was nothing to fear. Jane emailed me yesterday:

Marin and friend came out and shot her new Winchester Super X2 12ga semi-auto with Dura Touch armor coating. Named him Charlie! I just left "Charlie" off to get transformed into a lefty. Get some rest - all is well!

All is well indeed. I'd arrived at PheasantPhun nervous and unsure, and left with new skills, new friends and a new huntress in our midst.

Now we all can't wait to get together again. And rumor has it there may be another Team Huntress event hosted by Terri Lee in Wisconsin this August. A sisterhood has been born.

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Who's in that photo at the top of this post? L-R, top to bottom: Lynn from Realtree; my first experience with a .22 semiauto handgun; Dave from PheasantPhun and Barb from Women's Outdoor News with Julie in background; Terri Lee from Camp Wild Girls; Janice, Kasen and Marin; Jane from Team huntress, Jane's mom Annie and Jane's daughter Kasen; Anne from Annie Got Her Gun; Dave; me; Kirstie from Prois; Dave and Barb; a proud girl with her Shoot-N-C stuck to her butt.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009