Hunters' wine - and why it matters

Well, this is interesting: I found an article this morning by L. Pierce Carson in the Napa Valley Register about a company that markets wine to hunters: Gauge Wines.

Click here to read the story. But some of the highlights?

• “Gauge Wines aren’t inspired by the meals you cook,” says (vintner Trent) Moffett. “They’re inspired by the meals you catch.”



• “We want to get to people who are just starting to drink wine,” Moffett says. “This isn’t wine to swish and spit. This is wine for drinking. This is wine for celebrating.”



• “It’s for people who want to enjoy wine but not feel the need to talk about it,” (said hunter John) Putnam.

Taste is not my concern here - that's a personal matter. What I like about this concept (and the article too), is that it's one more positive message about hunters.

I've been watching what the Humane Society is up to, and I can tell you pretty much every single anti-hunting campaign it launches portrays hunters in the ugliest light - brazen, callous, cruel, wasteful and polluting. The organization wants to end hunting for anything but subsistence, so this tactic shouldn't come as a surprise.

But here's the effect it has: Because most Americans don't hunt, they form their impressions of hunters based on whatever messages are out there in public. And because hunters don't have a comparable PR machine, there aren't many positive messages out there - there's just the latest Humane Society rant about canned hunts, dove hunting or Internet hunting.

What hunter has not been asked by a non-hunter, "Do you actually eat what you kill?"

Well, duh, we think to ourselves before assuring them that no hunter in his right mind would waste what he worked so hard to get.

But we shouldn't be surprised non-hunters think this when the Humane Society focuses on "trophy hunting" with the implication that hunters take only the trophy, and when it puts out propaganda saying hunters use doves for target practice and don't even eat the birds.

Hunters make the mistake of thinking that the Humane Society's chief threat is legislation it sponsors all over the country. In reality, the hateful seed it plants in the minds of Americans is far more dangerous.

That's why this story out of Napa matters: It's one more message that portrays us in an accurate light, not as a bunch of half-wits swilling a case of beer and cornering former zoo animals in a fenced enclosure to blow them away.

It's a good message, and we need a lot more like it.

Interested in the wine? The company's website is here. And if you live in California, Texas, Louisiana or South Carolina, those are the test markets where you can find it.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Pheasants, mallards & suburbs gone wild

I went for a run this morning to try to shake off some of my winter fat, and ended up rediscovering the best thing about running outdoors: the ability to observe your environment in ways you can't when you're zipping by at 35, 50 or 70 mph.

Our community is the most rural of the Sacramento suburbs, an odd mishmash of post-WWII housing and the occasional small farm lots, so there's always plenty to look at. As I settled into my sluggish, out-of-practice pace, the first thing that struck me was the field behind my house.

Or rather, what used to be a field.

When we moved in in 2004, we knew the vacant four-acre lot wouldn't last. Oak trees, the remnants of an old almond orchard and native grasses were nice and everything, but we knew some fat McMansions would make the owner a lot more money.

Nonetheless, we took delight in all the wildlife that field attracted, and we did our part to contribute to the habitat, allowing the back third of our plot to grow wild with native grasses, supporting lots of little rodents that hawks and neighborhood cats alike appreciate.

It wasn't long before we started hearing a rooster pheasant in that field. We'd be eating our breakfast or getting ready for work, and there it was. "Did you hear that? Did you hear that?"

And when we paid attention, we could hear - and sometimes see - pheasants in other undeveloped lots in our neighborhood too.

One day, we looked out in our yard and saw that Mr. Rooster Pheasant had ventured through a hole in our fence into our microhabitat. We were enchanted - even when he made a cautious raid into Boyfriend's garden.

Then last summer, it was as if someone fired a starting gun for all the developers. They broke ground on our vacant field. Then another one down the street. Then another one half a mile away. Then on the last one around. Pheasant habitat gone.

I'm not one of those suburban whiners who wants to move in to enjoy a neighborhood, then scream when someone builds more houses so even more people can move in. Besides, what they're doing here - infill development - is far more responsible than gobbling up ag land and habitat out in the ever-expanding exurbs.

But what kills me about these developments is that most of them have come to a screeching halt for a variety of reasons, starting with the housing bust. We could've had one more spring with that rooster, but we've been left instead with nothing but memories and tiny bulldozed lots.

Pheasants used to be abundant in this state, but their habitat is evaporating. Now if you want to hunt pheasants, you're usually reduced to shooting pen-raised birds released into fallow farm fields the morning of the hunt.

Life goes on, I thought, continuing my run. I was starting to feel good - not as rusty as I expected. I passed a small family farm on the right - maybe 20 acres, with a weathered plywood shack for selling direct to the public in the summer. I wondered: How long would it be until this landowner succumbed to the lure of the subdivision? And when I looked to my left, there he was.

Not a pheasant. They're really gone now. But a drake mallard, walking up onto someone's lawn from a tiny drainage ditch.

I tell you, it doesn't matter how many times I see ducks in urban or suburban environments - I always gawk. I work so hard to get them within 35 yards of me when I'm shivering in a marsh in the winter, and then, come spring, the little buggers walk around me like it's no big deal.

I looked down to the ditch to examine the habitat that helped support this guy, and standing there in about one square foot of puddled water was his hen.

Oh, how I wanted to stop! I was in a groove, though, so I kept going, happy to think about how durable our mallards are, thriving in our increasingly developed region, taking advantage whatever bodies of water they can find.

As I rounded one of the final corners of my run, there was a burst of cacophony overhead: a flock of seagulls that winter here, a good 90 miles east - and 240 feet above - the Pacific Ocean. They must be getting ready to head back out to sea soon. When we see them again, we'll know it's almost duck season.

Back at the house, I dutifully stretched, glancing from time to time out our back window to see if perhaps we had a little visitor in the burgeoning spring grass. We didn't.

Perhaps we need a pond.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Women's hunting clothing comparison

I'm still working on field testing women's hunting pants. In the meantime, though, I thought it would be worthwhile to share what I've put together for Jesse's Hunting & Outdoors.

To see the article on the women's hunting apparel companies I found at the SHOT Show - SHE Safari, Foxy Huntress and Prois Hunting Apparel - click here. To compare the collections of these three companies - run by and for women - click on the chart below. It shows clothing lines, fabrics, prices, sizes and availability.




© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Click here for gear review policy and disclosures.

Duck Boobs ... er, I mean Duck Babes

Last night I went to a duck dinner. You know the kind I'm talking about - a fundraiser for insert-hunting-organization-here where you get dinner, booze and the chance to spend tons more money than you planned to trying to win cool shotguns, hunting art and gear.

This was my third duck dinner, so what happened when I walked into the dining hall really should have been no surprise at all. I began scanning to see if Boyfriend had arrived yet, and within seconds, I saw it.

The raffle-ticket girls were wearing skimpy little police and firefighter outfits, in honor of the event's theme, Guns-n-Hoses, with some of proceeds going to public safety causes. As one of the girls in a blue cop outfit turned around, it was like watching the powerful beacon of a lighthouse swinging my way.

Boobs. Really big boobs, busting out of a very small, barely buttoned shirt.

I laughed out loud. Dang.

OK, so I must confess, ostentatious displays of bodacious tatas do make me just a tad uncomfortable - not because I'm a prude, not because I'm judgmental, not because I'm a feminist. It's just that when a girl is effectively wearing a billboard that says "Look at my boobs," it's really hard not to look. And it's bad enough watching full-grown men fall all over themselves staring at women's chests without going and doing it myself. Hello! I'm not a lesbian! But sorry, I just can't stop looking.

The first time I went to a duck dinner, I had to ask Boyfriend, "What is up with the hoochie mamas?" He didn't know - it was his first duck dinner too. But he wasn't complaining.

The next time we went to a duck dinner, we were there with an old family friend, so I asked again, "Jim, what's up with the duck babes?"

"Well, you know," he said, "there are two things that separate men from their money: booze and women."

I certainly couldn't argue with that. That's just good marketing. The fact that men tend to lose all common sense around pretty women is actually pretty useful, not to mention deeply entertaining.

That little conversation put everything in perspective for me, so now I enjoy watching the duck babes work the room, raking in literally thousands of dollars for the organization.

My friend Hellen, the huntress in training, and Boyfriend arrived shortly after I did last night, and it wasn't long before one of the duck babes - this one in a firefighter outfit - approached us to see if we wanted to buy tickets.

We engaged her in conversation about our best odds for winning a gun, and I don't remember exactly how it came up, but we learned that our duck babe, Nicole, is a student at San Jose State, carrying a whopping 21 units in an effort to graduate ASAP. Hellen, Boyfriend and I all teach at Sacramento State, and we're pretty familiar with an appropriate courseload, so we told her she's nuts.

I told Nicole about my fascination with the duck-babe phenomenon. She told me she comes from a hunting family, and even does a little hunting herself. She just works as a duck babe from time to time to bring in a little extra income, even though some people in her family give her a bit of a ribbing about it.

As the night wore on and I watched her work the room, selling tickets and hoisting up auction items for all to see. The best part was the "Lock, Stock & Bottle" sale, where they auction off an ordinary bottle of booze for a couple hundred bucks, and the winning bidder is entered in a drawing for a gun.

As Nicole paraded around the room holding up a Browning shotgun in one hand and an enormous bottle of Ketel One vodka in the other, I found myself telling Boyfriend, "Oh, look at her, she's so cute!"

It was the same tone I use when talking about our kitten, Giblet. Good grief, I was getting all motherly, like she was one of my students or something.

Now I had to laugh at myself.

But that's fine. I could get upset. I could rail against the objectification of young women. I could cry, "Equal rights for huntresses!" and demand beefcake raffle-ticket boys. But in reality, it's no big deal - it's all for a good cause.

And besides, this girl actually hunts.

You go, girl!

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Huntresses: Skip the hand-me-downs

When the Alberta government honored Canadian huntress Kelly Semple with its Order of the Bighorn award, she used the opportunity to send a message to other potential huntresses: Skip the hand-me-downs from men and use gear that fits.

"If you don't have equipment that fits, you it really takes away from the overall experience and it can turn a lot of people off very, very quickly," she told Edmonton Journal reporter Hanneke Brooymans in an article published today (click here for the full story).

Interesting timing, for me personally, anyway. I've been field testing women's hunting pants for Jesse's Hunting & Outdoors, and I have to say it's been a bizarre treat. Not only do I tend to wear men's clothing when hunting, but I wear men's jeans normally because I hate how women's pants are cut these days - only an anorexic 12-year-old could look good in them.

But the clothes I'm testing? Three out of the four pants come from companies that were started by - and are run by - women I've actually met (Prois Hunting Apparel, Foxy Huntress and SHE Safari). And all of the clothes I'm testing - including the new collection from 100-year-old Filson - are made for real women, not the absurd waifs of the designers' runways.

Every time I put on these pants, it's a happy little surprise that they're actually comfortable - they have room where I need it, and no extra space where ... ahem ... I don't need it. I could get used to this.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008