April’s Woman of the Wild~Tish Proffitt

As I ponder my evalution as a Huntress and avid angler, I realize my journey began many years ago growing up in the great state of Virginia, rich with wildlife and abundant with waters!  My parents still enjoy sharing stories of me wanting to sleep in but rolling out of bed at the last second when Dad was leaving to go fishing for fear of being left behind!  So began my love of the water and fishing!  Over the years I’ve had the blessed privilege of fishing in various states on the east coast along with the Gulf Stream and coastal waters. I have been able to supply my family with meals of a variety of fish including everything from Alabama crappie and Virginia bass to Tennessee striper and Gulf Stream yellowfin tuna!  Although all meals I place on the table are nice, none compare with dining on freshly caught trout from the stream served on a lap of aluminum foil!!
Another of my outdoor pleasures I only have the chance to engage in once a year and only in a 3 week window, hunting morels!! Affectionately refered to as dry land fish in areas of the south, these small mushrooms have provided many a delicious meal here in my home. Times spent hunting and gathering morels take me back to my roots as supplier for my family.  Native Americans shared in this gathering of food and generations later, I love the time spent seeking the forest floor in search of her treasure and passing along this tradition to my two young daughters.
As a huntress, again I started at the tender age of 12 hunting with my dad and distinctly remember my first hunting trip being a dove hunt.  I didn’t kill any that day but enjoyed being outdoors and being with my dad. For many years I joined him in the woods and successfully harvested small game but never any large game. I married a hunter at the age of nineteen and for four years I let him enjoy his hunts with his male hunting buddies. Then I realized, this is something I enjoy as well and can share with him the way I did with my dad!!  The need and desire to hunt took over and for the last nine years I have joined him in the field hunting with my new hunting partner!  Over those nine seasons I have harvested twelve deer, two turkey, more small game than I can count, a Texas Dall Ram and successfully added grouse hunting to my list of feats!  Although all my kills were rewarding and very special to me, none of my endeavors came close to sharing the experience of my seven year old daughter’s first kill when she harvested a 225 lb boar in Tennessee!!  To know that she carries the same passion, fire and desire that I have is a feeling that words cannot express!!
I consider it an honor to be featured on this site along other strong women in the sport!  The last year has been filled with many things I never thought possible.  I have my own Signature Series of turkey calls that I sell online and in sporting goods stores in my area, I launched my project Southern Belle Outdoors which supplies ladies with discounts on hunting related products!!  Please feel free to add me on Facebook and get to know me!! I love having the opportunity to represent women in this sport and meeting and sharing with other ladies with the same passion as I. To each of you, I wish you the very best of luck and happy hunting!!

Tisha Proffitt
Southern Belle Outdoors

 

January’s Woman of the Wild-Tera Busker

Every little girl idolizes her daddy and growing up I wanted to be just like mine. I wanted to be a truck driver, a fireman and, most of all, a hunter. Every November I remember helping my dad get his gear ready for Wisconsin deer opener. I was a ball of excitement as we hung the blaze orange clothes outside, packed up the chili and made sure everything was ready for the next morning.  But, every year as my dad headed out to the woods, I was left behind. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because I didn’t have a hunter’s license. Where I grew up not many girls hunted and I was way too intimidated to take hunters safety with a bunch of boys. So what did I do? I waited until I was 18 to take hunters safety with a bunch of pre teen boys. AKWARD! But after so many years of sitting in the woods and not being able to hunt, I had to do what I had to do so I could partake in the full hunting experience.

I remember my first hunt like it was yesterday.  It was one of the coldest mornings of the year up to that point – 5 degrees. My dad and I sat in a small stand together in Prescott, Wisconsin. I was SO excited for the sun to come up for my first official hunt to officially begin, but it seemed like the light of day couldn’t get there soon enough. As soon as the sun came up, the temperature seemed to drop another 10 degrees. I remember thinking…”Is this really what I was excited about? I’m going to freeze to death before I get a chance to shoot.”  (I can be a little dramatic at times) We sat in our stand all morning and didn’t see a thing. After lunch we decided to do a small drive with our hunting party. Since I was the newbie in the group they set me up to get the deer. Not long after they started the drive a large doe came my way. It was a textbook scenario – she stopped 30 yards from me, broadside. I pulled up and took the shot – perfect.  When you have great beginners luck like that, you can’t help but fall in love with the sport. I was hooked. Since that first hunt, hunting and the outdoors have been a passion of mine.

In 2005, my dad introduced me to the greatest hunting experience ever – Spring turkey hunting. There is NOTHING like calling in a big, fanned out Tom Turkey while he slowly struts his way towards you. It’s an amazing adrenaline rush to hear the gobbles get closer and closer and when you finally see the Tom dancing in full strut right in front of you – it’s beautiful! Since 2005 I have only missed one Spring Turkey hunt, which was when I ran my first half marathon. BUT – I will tell you that for 10 of those 13 miles I had visions of turkeys dancing in my head.

Hunting and being in the outdoors are passions of mine, but another love of mine is fitness. As an avid runner, weight room junkie and personal trainer, I’ve found a great way to combine both of my passions. 2 years ago I started a fitness program for hunters and outdoor men & women called CrossHairs Fitness. CrossHairs Fitness is a hunting/outdoors specific fitness program designed to help people get ready for their upcoming hunts or to get in better shape for the hunting season. Many hunters don’t think about important their health & fitness level is to their hunt until they are out in the woods and gasping for breath as they walk up a hill. When you are in shape and feel good, the hunting experience is so much more enjoyable. This is a very fun and rewarding program for both me & my clients. I help them get strong, healthy & “hunt ready” and they have more energy & fun during their hunt.

I became an ACE (American Council on Exercise) Certified Personal trainer in 2000. After working in a large gym for a few years, I decided I wanted and needed a change. I noticed that the setting that I was in wasn’t ideal. There were too many distractions (waiting lines for equipment, noisy conversations, loud music) and the excuses to miss workouts became more frequent for my clients (no baby sitter, bad weather, too busy). I became very frustrated with what was happening! I wanted to give my clients the privacy and the one-on-one attention that they deserved as well as eliminate the excuses to miss appointments. I wanted the best for my clients and I knew that they wouldn’t be able to get it in a gym. In 2002 I developed Fitness To Go, an in home, online and private studio personal training service tailored to fit into my clients busy lifestyles. With Fitness To Go, I am able to bring my services and equipment to my clients as well as offer them a quiet and private place to workout at my studio in Roberts. No more excuses or distractions. Just me and my clients, working collectively together to reach their goals in a way that is challenging, yet, convenient and fun.

In 2010 I added Get Fit Bootcamp to the services that Fitness To Go offers. Get Fit Bootcamp is a unique and fun 60 minute class that combines cardio, strength training and core work all in one exciting workout. It’s not your “standard” bootcamp class – no yelling and NO negative talk. Get Fit Bootcamp is all about being positive and encouraging each other to do YOUR very best.

You can say I’m a no nonsense type of trainer. I don’t believe in excuses, gimmicks, pills or shortcuts of any kind. There is no easy way out when it comes to your health. Hard work, determination & commitment are what it takes to reach any goal that you set for yourself. Making excuses will only set you further away from achieving your goal! I am truly blessed to be able to work with my amazing clients and see the progress that they are making each and every day! Each one of my clients is an inspiration to me & they are why I keep doing what I do.

When I am not training my awesome clients, I spend my free time hunting with my husband Luke, relaxing with my 2 lazy bassets Lucy & Maggie and finding new way to challenge myself. Whether I’m hunting a new animal,  sprinting through 6 miles of mud or running 2 half marathons back-to-back, I try to always keep myself JUST outside of my comfort zone. I believe if I am always striving to do bigger & better things in life, it help me relate to my clients so much better.  Losing weight and getting healthy can be hard & scary at times, but once you step out of your comfort zone, you open yourself to a whole new world of possibilities.

I am always looking for a new way to challenge myself, so this year I plan to try coyote and pheasant hunting as well as bow fishing. These are things that the other great hunter in my life, my husband Luke, loves to do during his free time. It will be a great way for us to spend time together and enjoy the outdoors. Because, as the saying goes in my family….the family that hunts together, stays together.

September’s Woman of the Wild~Jana Waller

I grew up fishing and hunting pheasants and waterfowl with my Father in Wisconsin.  During my teen years several road trips were made to South Dakota where we enjoyed cornfields bursting with pheasants.   It wasn’t until 1993, when I was a Senior in college, that I picked up my first bow.  My Dad had started bowhunting that same year and after successfully helping him track his first whitetail buck through a muddy cornfield,  I knew I wanted a taste of that exhilaration.  Addicted to bowhunting ever since,  my obsession has only been fueled by the success I’ve found in the past decade.  I’ve been blessed to arrow  6 whitetail bucks in the past 8 years and have recently expanded my hunting horizons to include bowhunting Africa, Canada and the Western states.

In terms of passions, fishing comes in at a close second.  Growing up with dozens of lakes within an hour’s drive,  a weekend often included some type of fishing.  From panfish to pike, I love it all and have been blessed to fish all over the world.  Whether it’s reef fishing in Bermuda to trolling the Canadian shores for Northern Pike, I love the anticipation and excitement, but also the relaxation, that come with spending time on the water.  Fly fishing is a new found love of mine as well and look forward to fly fishing adventures in Argentina and Brazil.

After graduating college in 1993 from UW-Whitewater with a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations, I spent many years working in outside sales and as a marketing associate in an Investment Firm.  In 2008 I embarked on a new career and launched  www.paintedskulls.com where I custom paint, stone and feather European mounts for customers.  That same year I started free lance writing for hunting websites and publications.  Many of my articles, product reviews and photographs can be seen regularly on womenhunters.com and bowhunting.net as well as in publications such as Bowhunter Magazine, Iowa’s Family Fish and Game Magazine and the 2010 Prois Hunting Apparel catalog.  I also am on staff   with a variety of hunting companies including Prois, Commando Hunting Products and Honey Creek Outdoors.  Luck was in my corner this year when I was casted to be a participant on the award-winning show ‘Ammo&Attitude’ which airs on the Versus channel.   I’m also currently filming a pilot show with a major network  featuring my skull business and my passion for hunting and conservation.

Everyday I’m  appreciative of the challenge, beauty, diversity and comraderee that hunting and fishing have  brought to my life.  From the South Dakota road trips as a kid, to float plane adventures into the Canadian wilderness, I can thank my Dad for my passion towards the Great Outdoors and my Mom for encouraging me to follow my dreams.

August’s Woman of the Wild-Darla Kaarre

I grew up a native Montanan…fourth generation in a family line of outdoor people…forest service packers, ranchers, homesteaders, outfitters etc.  My mom and dad are outfitters and I spent alot of time growing up in that business.  The family all hunted…I took hunter’s safety as a kid and back in those days you could take a pocket knife to school in your pocket.

I had mine in my pocket so could take it to hunter’s safety class at night (I was in sixth grade) and show it off and let everyone know that since I owned a knife I could survive in the woods.  Well I lost it that day somewhere on the playground and never had another pocket knife till I was well into my thirties.  So even though I grew up with hunters all around me and worked in the outfitting business cooking for hunting camps and even helping drag game out of the field, I never hunted.

I went off to college, got a bachelor’s and masters degree in education, found this wonderful man to marry, had children and when the only boy got his first hunting license in Wisconsin (lived in the mid west for about 20 years) then my husband Marty really got into hunting.  So Randy (son) and Marty would hunt every year and get deer for me. I love venison!  I loved ‘cutting up meat’ and putting it in the freezer…but still never hunted.

About nine years ago my family and I moved back out to Montana…the northwest corner…back to my home stomping grounds.  I finally decided after the first year back that I would like to try my hand at this hunting business!  So I borrowed a gun that was given to my mom by my great uncle ( a nice wood stock pretty looking 308).  I didn’t know one gun from another at that point and still don’t know much, but am learning as I get more into hunting.  So eight falls ago I borrowed that gun and haven’t yet returned it and have now carried it many many miles up and down mountains and through woods.  The first year that I picked up the gun from my mom and dad’s house, I asked dad if I could hunt along the creek on his property back down to my house.  He said sure.  About 15 minutes later, down off the hill came a nice doe…it was early doe season so I took my first shot.

I hit her and watched where she ran and waited the allotted time and then went to find her. Followed the tracks and blood trails.  Retraced and started over and turned over every scenario in my mind.  Never did find her…went up to dad’s since it was dark. He said he would go with me first thing in the morning.  He did and we found her a few hours later…about a mile and a half away on a circuitous route.  I learned so much from my dad that day.  I had such a valuable resource around me, all those years of growing up and no interest back then.

That day turned out to be an education about being in the woods.  The doe was great food for scavengers that year but not so good for my freezer.  Dad encouraged me and told me similar stories from his lifetime hunting experiences.  I hunted the rest of the season and got nothing.  So I kept trying through the years and learning more each year.

I missed a nice buck at about 40 yards…even after a smart hunting strategy and waiting patiently for him to get close enough and not see or smell me.  Sat in the snow and cried about that one and was never going to hunt again.  My husband, son and Dad kept encouraging me.  Spent more seasons loving the ‘hunt’ and the whole being in the woods and observing animals and their behavior scene.

Each year I would learn some valuable lesson to apply the next year.  I could sit still enough that a coyote sniffing out something got within seven feet of me and finally I said ‘well hello there’ as that close was beginning to feel just a bit close. There was the time my son took me hunting in the early years of my new passion and we had a buck standing looking at us for ‘hours’ and any one other than the inexperienced mom would have gotten off a good clean shot.  I couldn’t find the deer in the rifle scope so couldn’t shoot.  The deer got tired of waiting for me to shoot it so finally it wandered away much to the incredulity of my son.  “Mom you could have just pointed and shot and not missed that one it was so close.”

I’ve provided many funny mom hunting stories.  I have my favorite ‘angel deer’ that flew through the thick woods miraculously because it was so thick and dark and his rack was so huge there was no way he could leap as far and as long as he did through the woods and find a path out without getting entangled…but he did of course!   There was the doe I shot and stunned and who laid on the ground for most of the waiting time and just before I was to approach to make sure she was meat for the freezer jumped up and ran off like nothing had ever happened.  My dad and I again spent a day looking for her.  Never found her nor any blood trail expect two spots right where she dropped when I stunned her.

My ‘failures’ to put meat in my freezer were disappointing but kept me motivated also to keep learning and trying.  So finally after six or so ‘unsuccessful’ seasons of hunting I shot my first deer last fall…a nice muley that I hiked miles and miles up in the mountains to get.  He was so big  we couldn’t drag him off the mountain. We had to field dress him and back pack him out of the woods.  Good thing we did…a grizzly was eating his rib cage when we went back the next day to check out if the rest of the deer were still in the same area.

We had more tags to fill!  My husband was with me the day of my first hunting success….he did all the cutting up for packing out and all that.  I helped where needed.  It was all a spiritual experience for me…the hunt, the shooting, the waiting, the butchering, the gratitude for it all.  But even more exciting for me was that four days later while hunting completely on my own, I successfully filled my doe tag after doing things ‘right’ and figured out how to gut her out and all that.  I had to get my dad to come with his truck to haul her home and he said to me in his quiet voice…”You’re getting to be quite the huntress!’  For my 76 year old dad, my getting deer and carrying on his life joys was one of the coolest things for him.  So, having spent years learning some about hunting, I finally had a ‘successful’ season last fall.  I was able to put my first package of meat in the freezer that was identified as “Darla’s muley backstraps–nov ’09″.  We mark all our meat by who gets it, where and when.  It makes for great meal time stories and we are reminded of where our food comes from and for what cost.  One of the funnest moments of last year’s hunt was taking a picture of the first package of meat to go in the freezer with my name on it!

I’m looking forward to this fall and hunting season and have been checking out the deer habits in the area and have my licenses all ready…my son in law got me a new scope…my son got me a real hunting knife after learning that I gutted my doe with a Finnish fillet knife.  I will still use the same family rifle but I may need to get my own hunting clothes…I’ve been borrowing my son’s while he has been four years in the Marines.  He returns this September 13…in time for early season wilderness hunting!  So Camp Wild Girl’s show me your stuff for women’s wear!!

So that is my hunting story…my youngest daughter Elly (10 in a few days) enjoys joining me in the hungt and will be able to start hunting in two years if she so chooses.  She is a great outdoors girl.  She lead a hike of 18 people to the top of a mountain lookout yesterday here in our corner of God’s country.  In addition to hunting, I love being involved in passing on the wonders of the outdoor world by running an outdoor ministry.  So yesterday we finished off an outdoor retreat by hiking to the lookout and viewing the wonders of the mountains with a 360 degree view.  We are a non profit ministry that believes that we can live out and pass on spiritual principles in the outdoors.  We believe that challenge, growth and renewal happen through adventure in the world God provided for us to enjoy.  We do children, youth, family, women, and men’s adventure retreats.  We do hunting and fishing retreats.  We go hiking, rafting, horseback riding, rock climbing, study, site seeing, camping, backpacking, and other outdoor activities.  Each experience is used to teach spiritual principles.  Each retreat is custom designed to meet the needs of the group that joins us. Growing up in the outfitting business, getting into education and marrying a pastor, have all come together to create a ministry that brings growth and renewal to lots of people…whether they are participants or whether they find a job in which they come out to help at a retreat.  If you’d like to find out about our ministry go to athelasoutdoor.org.  You can also find us on facebook at Athelas Outdoor Ministry, Inc.

July’s Woman of the Wild-Katherine Browne

I didn’t grow up in hunting family but my family and I have always shared a passion for the outdoors.  As a child my parents would take us fishing for pumpkin seeds and small mouth bass on the lake across the street from our house.  We used bobbers and worms and I used to get so excited when my bobber starting dipping and would scream and laugh when I hooked a fish. I loved it.  I   have always really enjoyed fishing. I derive the same giddy pleasure from catching a fish now as I did when I was a little girl. However I’ve upgraded from bait fishing to flyfishing.   My fiancée Eric Grand taught me how to flyfish and along with falconry flyfishing is my greatest passion in life.  Currently I am the only female flyfishing guide at Willowfly Anglers in Almont CO.

I love flyfishing because it is incredibly dynamic. Every aspect is dynamic from movement of the line, to the timing of your cast, to the placement and presentation of your flys on a moving river. Everything is in motion, and timing is everything. The river is constantly moving, constantly changing. Fish move, their feeding habits change, the insect populations are constantly rotating through their lifecycles on different timetables. You are continually solving a puzzle and by the time you have solved it that puzzle has changed!  It’s the most natural form of fishing because you are showing the fish exactly what they want to eat naturally in the same way they want to eat it.  This past year I founded and became president of a women’s flyfishing club in the Gunnison Valley named the Fishin’ Chicks.  We are a chapter of Colorado Woman Flyfishers but since Gunnison Valley Chapter of Colorado Woman Flyfishers was a bit long winded we voted on a nickname.  I was pushing for the Damsel Flys but I was outvoted.

My other greatest passion in life is falconry.  Falconry is the art of hunting game with a trained raptor. It is one of the oldest sports known to man, originating in the Far East around 4000 B.C. Many falconers describe falconry as a life style rather than a hobby because of the daily time commitment and devotion this sport requires.  Many people ask me how I first got interested in falconry when we talk about the sport.  I have always been very interested in birds of prey. When I was a child I took classes at a nature center that often had talks on birds of prey. I was absolutely enthralled from the first time I got up close to one of these majestic animals. When I was working abroad in Costa Rica with a captive breeding program for macaws, one of my close friends and research partners had a friend that was a falconer back in England. I think this was the moment the seed to become a falconer was planted. Before that point, I was totally unaware that people were still practicing falconry. When I returned to the States, I was flipping through the channels one day and came across a program where two men were rabbit hawking with a red-tailed hawk and at that moment I thought, “If they can do it, I can do it.” After that, I began ravenously consuming all the literature I could find about falconry. It was still a couple years before I had a place to build a hawk house (AKA a mews) and had the time to commit to the sport. When I moved to Oregon, I was able to find a sponsor and become an apprentice falconer. As an apprentice falconer, you, are required to have a sponsor your first two years, take a test on falconry, falconry regulations and raptor biology, and have your facility inspected by the state. After passing my test, I trapped my first red-tailed hawk, Artemus.  Since then I have trapped and flown two red-tailed hawks and an American kestrel.  This year I hope to trap a goshawk or a prairie falcon so I can hunt ducks, grouse, pheasant, and quail, in addition to cottontails and jack rabbits.

Falconry is different from conventional hunting because a rabbit can’t see a bullet coming, but has been hunted everyday for thousands of years by hawks and knows what to do when a hawk appears. That’s what makes it one of the most natural forms of hunting. Falconers are more observers of what goes on everyday in the wild than a gun hunter. It is like an advanced form of bird watching. As a falconer you get to see things most people will never see in a lifetime. Also unlike a weapon you have limited control of the bird.  Unlike a gun or a bow and arrow, a bird of prey has a mind of it’s own. Finally, falconry is more about the flight and the chase than the capture of the quarry. There is often cause to cheer the rabbit when it gets away and outsmarts the hawk.

So far I have only kept each bird until spring, trapping it in fall or winter then releasing it when the ground is clear of snow and small prey is readily available. Trapping a raptor and using it for a passage falconry bird dramatically increases its chances of survival. Seventy to eighty percent of wild red-tailed hawks die during their first year of life. A red-tailed hawk flown by a falconer has a mortality rate of less than 5%. This increased in survival applies to all birds used in falconry. Each subsequent year a bird of prey survives into adulthood their survival rate increases as do their chances of producing the next generation. Furthermore the falconer introduces the red-tail to larger prey such as rabbits and squirrels that are available during the winter when smaller prey is scarce. This is incredibly important to the bird’s future success in the wild during a time of year when the mortality rate of raptors and most animals is at its highest. I plan on keeping a bird for more than one season in the future because the longer you have a bird the better falconry bird it can become. However, I have never liked the idea of keeping a wild thing forever.

Beyond flyfishing and falconry I love doing pretty much anything in the outdoors. In the winter I enjoy, ice fishing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing.  Year round I hike, camp and hunt and in the summer I spend as much time on the river as possible, white water rafting, floating and fishing. In addition to guiding flyfishing I work for Prόis Hunting Apparel, a women’s hunting and field apparel company, as their Dealer Relations and Pro-Staff Coordinator.  I love working for Prόis.  Kirstie Pike is the best boss I have ever had and I am so passionate about the apparel we make.  Prόis makes the most technical woman’s hunting gear available with incredible fit and the most technical fabrics and technologies available.  It is so important to do something you love and I am very happy to say I have achieved that goal on all fronts.

June’s Woman of the Wild-Christine Appleberg

By Christine Appleberg

How does someone who grew up in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago become an avid outdoorswoman, president of a bowfishing club and editor of a hunting website?

I credit my parents, particularly, my most understanding mom.   She started a lot of my interest by teaching me to fish and then how to fillet the fish that we caught.  This lit the fire in me that nature was not only wondrous and fun, but often downright tasty.  And despite her desire to see me wear cute frilly dresses and act like a proper little girl, she never attempted to quash my fascination with the outdoors and nature, even when I kept a live red bellied snake in my dancing ballerina jewelry box.

Gaining permission to hunt where I lived was difficult but finding a place to trap was far easier.  Even in the waning days of the fur boom there were plenty of raccoons, ‘possums and skunks on the edges of suburbia for a kid to catch.

When I checked my traps I often carried my Browning Nomad recurve bow and a mismatched assortment of arrows with me.

The bow was a gift from my older brother and the arrows were whatever Kmart had on sale.  I knew nothing of arrow spine, or bow ‘tuning’ concepts.  At 45lbs @ 28″ the bow was far too heavy for me. Yet, a surprising number of rabbits, squirrels and the occasional woodchuck became dinner and tanned hides due to my bow.   Deer were scarce in the area back then, so while I did buy a mail in permit a few times, I never actually went hunting for them.

After high school I went to college in Bottineau, North Dakota.  Going from the Chicago suburbs to ND was quite a culture shock.  If I remember correctly, there were about 7 million people within a 40 mile radius of where I grew up.  There was only a little over a half million people in the whole state of North Dakota at that time.  While this meant I had to accept that there were no real pizza places or sushi bars for couple hundred miles of my college, the upside was outstanding.

There were miles and miles of State Wildlife areas teaming with critters and hardly any people.  Creatures quite exotic to someone from Illinois, like moose, elk, pronghorn, mulies, snowshoe rabbits, jack rabbits, ruffed grouse and porcupines.  There was an unbelievable amount of waterfowl around too.  The college even had a bird cleaning area for the students. However, my only attempt at waterfowl hunting resulted in me shooting a single blue winged teal, which dropped into the middle of a slough.  I had to wade into the cold water and mud to retrieve it and this experience chilled me on water fowling. My other hunting adventures were more productive, and I kept myself busy with rabbits, ruffed grouse, furbearers and even took my first turkey in ND.

It was also in North Dakota that I started to get serious about archery.  A very entertaining and patient sporting goods shop owner and his wife helped me get set up with JVA Astro Stinger bow.  Even back then this was not a very high tech bow but I became enamored with it.  I shot it every day.  At my first outdoor tournament I won the women’s division but what really made me proud was that I would have been in fourth place had I been competing in the men’s division.  I also managed to win a moving target competition. I was officially hooked.

It was still a couple of years later, when I moved back to Illinois, that I finally started to make a real attempt at hunting deer.  Like most of my other outdoor pursuits, I am a self-taught deer hunter which means that I made a whole lot of dumb mistakes.  One of my first deer bowhunting  experiences I made the mistake of sitting down right in the deer trail and waited for a deer to show up. This was thinking like a trapper rather than a hunter.

Sure enough, a nice buck comes ambling down the trail and just about runs into me.  I was desperately trying to pull my bow back but was unable to because I was overcome with a serious bout of buck fever.  When the buck finally noticed the weird blob waving a bow around in front of him, his eyes bugged out and he simply bounced off the trail snorting (and I swear laughing) at me.

It only took once to learn that lesson but I plenty of learning to do after that.  Thankfully, I was fast learner (and lucky) and did tag my first deer that same year.  Like most hunters today, deer hunting makes up the majority of my hunting time afield.  However, these days I find myself referring to deer season as the ‘off-season’.   Don’t get me wrong, I love deer hunting. However, my latest outdoor obsession lets me pursue my quarry day or night, warm or cold weather, and I can do it, literally, with a boatload of friends.

Bowfishing.

Bowfishing combines the ‘thrill of the hunt’ with fast paced archery action and it’s only as serious as you want to make it.  I am blessed with a great circle of friends and truly some of my fondest memories are times we’ve had together bowfishing.  It’s a sport where on a good day or night you will shoot so many times you may simply become too tired to shoot anymore. Laughing, yelling, high fiving and plenty of ribbing is all part of the sport. After a good bowfishing outing, a new appreciation of the simple things like a hot shower and good soap are realized.

I have been bowfishing almost year round for several years now.  I’ve bowfished from Lake Guntersville in Georgia to Saginaw Bay in Michigan and many places in between.   My boyfriend Kendall has a tricked out pontoon boat that has a raised shooting deck, lights, generator and uses a pusher fan instead of a trolling motor to get into very shallow water.   It gets us some weird looks when we pull it down the road but it is an absolutely sweet bowfishing rig.  [If you're reading this Kendall, I do love you for more than your boat!]

I am currently President of the Illinois Bowfishers Club.  It’s a not for profit club that promotes bowfishing in Illinois through education events, outdoor shows and also host several tournaments and fun shoots.   We also work with state and federal fisheries biologists who study both native and invasive non-native species.  This makes the sport not only fun and entertaining but downright interesting too.

If you are someone who is interested in cutting back on your ‘down time’ between deer seasons, I urge you to look into bowfishing.  You might be surprised at just how much it will change your opinion of the ‘off season’.   I will be teaching a bowfishing class for women at an upcoming Women in the Outdoors class in July at Clinton Lake in Illinois.

For information about bowfishing, check out www.illinoisbowfishers.com

I am an editor and administrator on www.HuntingNet.com There’s a wealth of hunting information there that will help a new hunter avoid learning so many lessons by trial and error like I did.

May’s Woman of the Wild-Gretchen Steele

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.”

This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson was taught to me by mother many, many, years ago, where I was barely big enough to remember it, let alone really fully appreciate it. Thanks to the countless hours that she, my uncles and others let me tag along with them on their adventures in the woods, the lakes, the rivers and the streams of southern Illinois, I soon developed a passion for being “In the Woods.”

I developed a passion for being outside, knee deep in all that the outdoors had to offer. It seems that it didn’t really take all that long and I too felt that in the woods I could return to reason and faith.

Growing up in Southern Illinois put me in the enviable position of always just being a few minutes away from open fields, high bluffs, hardwood forests and the rivers, lakes, and sloughs.

Here I chased rabbits, quail and pheasants, deer, turkey and dove. I ran trotlines, turtle lines and traps.  I marked my days not by the calendar but by the seasons – root digging season, morel season, time to harvest the plants….watching the incoming migratory waterfowl in the fall, gauging time by the changes in the creatures and the landscape.  I am forever grateful that both of my parents and my extended family passed down to me the traditions of living wild.

Not only are we meat hunters in this household, and eat a great deal of wild game and fish, I also forage for wild foods and the medicinal plants and roots.  Many a frantic neighborhood mother with crying toddler has stopped by for mullein oil to soothe the earache. A diabetic friend uses the comfrey infusion to heal wounds on his feet that traditional medicine couldn’t.

Because I was raised by parents who lived in the through the Depression, nothing goes to waste and nothing is taken for granted. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. “  was a common phrase in our household growing up and continues in my home today.  I learned early on that as long we remained good stewards of the land and conservationists, the forest and the fields could provide for us.

I never take a harvest for granted – taking a moment to thank the deer, the turkey, the rabbit or squirrel that gave up its life so I could have a tasty meal in the crock pot. I count my blessings when I find a big mushroom flush or huge patch of ginseng, golden seal and blood root.

Although hunting with firearms and bows  became somewhat curtailed for me over ten years ago when I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and my upper body strength and coordination started disappear I realized with the help of a great occupational therapist that truly, I could still hunt, only with a camera. I could still fish – it was good exercise for those often uncooperative upper limbs, I could still hike, I just had to build rest periods into the plan for the day.

I’ve become an ace at ferreting out places that on tough days I can take the scooter down the trail, and have developed a network of friends who always happy to accompany  me on the days I’m not so sure I should be climbing up a bluff  or out setting turtle lines alone.

Do not be fooled – hunting with a camera entails just as much as hunting with weapons. I track, I pattern, I lie in wait…sit in stands, hide in blinds, and lay out in the snowy winter fields with the waterfowl hunters waiting on the geese to come flying into the spread.

I’m very proud that I was asked to be on the Board of Directors for Hunters With Disabilities (www.hwd2010.com) . Through this organization we able to bring both the able bodied and disabled hunting community together through a mutual love of the outdoors, and an understanding that for so many of us our time outside, our time in the woods is vital to our well being. The forests and the fields are our “dirt church”.

The MS diagnosis was my “aha moment”  when I decided that I would chuck my career as a public health nurse and focus on spending as much time as possible as long as possible in the forests and the fields.  Ten odd years down the road and I have a successful photography business that specializes in outdoor, hunting, and wildlife photography and a budding career as outdoor writer and blogger.  I’ve been added as pro staff / official photographer at several hunt clubs and hunting or fishing organizations. This has allowed me to network and build even more friendships with others who enjoy their time outside.  My mentors have been many and I have been truly blessed in that arena.

Finally as I approach the ripe old age of 50 it seems I’ve found my place in the world and it’s in the woods!

Please visit my blogs  and my web site to have a peek at my life these days.

Steele Photo Services – www.steelephotoservices.com

Through the Lens – hosted at Prairie State Outdoors www.Prairiestateoutdoors.com

In the Forests and the Fields – http://siloforests.blogspot.com/

As well as my second home on the internet – Southern Illinois Outdoors – www.siloutdoors.com

April’s Woman of the Wild-McKinzie Ledbeter

By~McKinzie Ledbeter

Ever since I can remember, I have been out hunting with my family.  If my dad was not taking me with him it was my grandpa.  My mom always was stuck taking my sisters.  I have three sisters, I am the oldest and we all big game hunt. Every time I was able to go, I was already in the truck ready and waiting.

I finally got my first buck with a rifle when I was eleven. My dad patted me on the back told me great job, smiled really big and told me I probably just got the biggest deer I’ll ever get.  It was a dandy 4 x4 with eye guards!  He was tall and wide and me standing next to it made that deer look that much bigger.  The following year my dad and I made the longest, hardest stock on this nice buck, didn’t really know how big he was at the time but he beat my buck from the year before. My dad just shook his head and laughed.  That same year I got a nice 4×5 elk.  That was a good year for me!

I think I’ve done pretty good over the years, I’ve put in my time and I’ve gotten some nice shots and nice animals. I still remember every year when I was just starting out my dad would always remind my sisters and I why we hunted. Hunting wasn’t about the size of the horns, it’s for putting meat on the table.  We’ve never hunted for horns and I never have passed up a nice shot opportunity whether it was a two by three or a four by four.

I just started bow hunting three years ago.  My first year I had my opportunities but just couldn’t get that shot I was looking for.  My second year I shot a doe right through the pumper, I thought bow hunting was awesome. Getting my first deer with a bow made rifle-hunting feel as if I just won a basket of fruit or something.  There is no comparison bow hunting for me is like winning a sweet pair of Swarovski binos!  I love hunting!  The only reason why my dad wasn’t with me for my first buck with my bow was because he told me he didn’t want to have to deliver my baby in the mountains.

I got my buck 3×2 in early archery season Sept. 5, 2009. I was a week over due. On the way down off the hill I told Walter he needed to get me off this hill RIGHT NOW!  About 5 minutes later as we were headed down off the hill to the hospital I saw my buck and told him to stop.  He thought I was having a really bad contraction and asked how I was feeling.

I told him before we started on our way again I wanted to shoot this buck I had spotted!  He couldn’t see it because it was on my side, down the hill about 40 yards. He looked at me with confusion.  We got out, I grab my bow, asked him how far it was. He wasn’t taking me serious at all. He thought I was playing a joke on him. Finally he realized I wasn’t messing around, and really did want to shoot this buck, he ranged it at 44 yards.

When I shot at the buck, it went just under him. As I headed off of the road, I asked if there was a road below us.  He told me yes.

Without even thinking about how far the road could be below me away, I went to go find my arrow and look for blood just in case. I thought maybe I could find that buck one last time.  One thing I did know, before jumped off the beaten trail was, there is no way in hell I was hiking back up.

As I took off, I told Walt, I was not leaving without this deer. When I had made it to where the deer was standing I found his tracks and followed them down to the next road.  The deer had crossed the road but I stayed there to wait for the truck to come down to meet me. As I waited for my partner to meet me I scoped it out hoping to see my buck.  Low and behold, there he was about two hundred yards away eating his way back up to the road that I was on and two other bucks had joined him.  A three point and a little two point.  After Walter finally got to me I told him that there were three bucks and I wanted to try and get one still.

Walter asked about my contractions and I looked at him puzzled and said, “What contractions?  We’re hunting!”  With all the adrenaline I had forgotten about them. He did not argue with me, he knew there’s no point arguing with a pregnant woman.

We walked the road to get closer to the deer.  They were feeding right up to the road, so we just waited and watched them for about half an hour.  After about half hour, they were within 50 yards still a little far for my little bow.  Then all of a sudden, the little two point that we could not shoot bolted straight up at us. After he did that, we got nervous that he would wind us and take off taking the other two with him.  We both looked at each, we could read each other’s minds we knew then take our one clear shot or don’t get any.  By that time, the two bucks were 40 yards.

Walter told me to hold a little high because I shot low the last time and when I did I got him in the spine and he fell right in his tracks.  Walter took off after the second one and got him a half hour later while I waited with my deer.  We packed them out as fast as we could to try to beat the dark, but it got dark anyway.

I got home that night happy as could be. I had hunted that whole season every minute I could.  Finally, I got my deer!  That next morning I was really on my way to the hospital this time! I had my baby almost exactly two days after shooting the buck.  I love hunting so much my son’s middle name is Hunter!

Our March “Woman of the Wild”-Stacey Huston from “A Focus in the Wild”

By Stacey Huston from “A Focus in the Wild”

I grew up in the mountains of North West Montana. I was raised immersed in the outdoors.. So I spent a lot of time as a young girl watching and learning about wildlife. My parents raised me with a deep respect for the natural world.
I married young, a man who shares that passion for the outdoors, and together we have tried to foster in our children that same love for all things natural.
I was raised on wild game. My mother as well as my father was a hunter, . She enjoyed spending time in the outdoors and I am very grateful that they never hesitated to take us kids along.

When I was asked to be this months “Woman of the Wild” I thought back and tried to remember, when was the first time my parents took me hunting? I honestly can’t recall. For us, it was a different time, my parents hunted out of necessity to feed their family, not for sport, It was a way of life, like gathering the eggs and making sure the chickens were fed each morning. We were taught at a young age how to clean, and butcher anything that was harvested, rabbits, grouse, deer or elk.
I don’t remember the first fish I ever caught. I recall learning were to search for earth worms, how to bait my own hooks and how to clean and cook a fish. I remember learning to track animals, and tell by the bark and needles what trees were in the area.. How to tell what way is north, and how to find your way home if you ever got lost in the woods..
My family still eats primarily wild game. We hunt for meat, in a time when most people care more about the size of the antlers that they can hang on their wall, we still hunt for food.

I can’t really remember a time in my life when I was not learning something about nature, weather it was sitting on the shore line with my parents watching a family of beaver interact on a high mountain lake, or fully camouflaged, on an alpine ridge in September archery season, talking to the magnificent bull elk, flying a hawk after bunnies along the Absaroka Range or just taking photos of our children while we hunt for rabbits with self bows and home made arrows.

I am a licensed falconer and volunteer as a sub-permittee for a local bird rehab center. I have been flying birds of prey and hunting small game with them, off and on for over 10 years now and am in the process of applying for an education permit so that I can take birds of prey to schools and groups for educational seminars.

We live a simple life, and in this world of technology it is the simple, natural things that are the most important..

February’s “Woman of the Wild”- Jennifer L. Metzker!

When I was a small girl, I remember going to my uncle’s property to hunt deer, turkey, dove, quail, etc with my family. I loved being out in the woods, running free, watching the wildlife. My dad would take me to hunting camp, despite the comments from the older members; dad would put me in the woods with my grandfather’s Smith & Wesson model 1000 shotgun and say, “sit still and good luck”! I only ever shot one doe, and we never found her…I was heart broken.

As the years went by, the family grew apart. I found myself driving my very old Grandfather to hunting camp, just so I could get another chance at another deer.  No Luck, I grew older as did the relatives, and there was no one to take me hunting, but you could always find me outdoors either at the horse shows or at the mud hole, which is where I met my husband of 19 years.

Bryan has been a hunter all his life and we kicked it off immediately.  We married, had a son and moved to North Carolina and had our second son. Bryan joined a Hunting club in Georgia, that we are still apart of to this day. It was at this club with my husband, that I really learned how to hunt. I was taught how to watch and “let the deer get closer” and where to put a stand, etc. I harvested my first doe on that club, weighing in at 120 lbs, while my husband sat in the truck with the boys watching a clear cut. That was it, I was really hooked! No, I wasn’t the first woman in camp to hunt, but I was the first to hunt as hard as the men do.  Sure, I have heard the same questions over the years; “How do you do it”? My only answer to that was “How can you not”? The woods are my sanctuary. Things always seem clear when I’m in the woods. And I have seen some wonderful things in the woods!

Over the years, I have harvested some nice deer and I’m always proud of whatever I do harvest. I hunt Alligator, Turkey, Deer, Ducks, Coyotes, Fox and Bobcat. I am open to try anything once. I fly fish in the spring and summer months but hunting is always on my mind.

I have been married for 19 years to my “hunting mentor” lol, Bryan. We have two sons, Bryan Jr. and Boone. Bryan Jr. is currently in the Navy and fishes and duck hunts with us when he takes leave. Boone is in the woods and water with us all the time and has become quite the hunter.  I know a lot of other ladies that hunt hard like me and I love meeting other lady hunters.

Jennifer L. Metzker

Jan 2010′s “Woman of the Wild”-Kim Pezzeminti

Kim Pezzeminti, explorer, huntress and creator of things.

“Woman of the Wild” could not be a more perfect description for this explorer!  As a young girl, I would create some of the most amazing places in the wild of the outdoors.  The most memorable is of my playhouse underneath a GREAT big maple tree!  The dirt floor was swept daily and the luscious and green moss became the carpeted areas of this delectable place.  I served mud pies topped with the flowers of the Forsythia bush.  My Grandmother Ruby would always be there to assist in my projects.  I credit her for blessing me with creativity.  She taught be how to see pictures in the clouds and how to make something out of nothing. (Which by the way has been a wonderful trait to have through my adult years!)

My Mother and Father are also very instrumental in the development of my creativity Through many years of camping, seeing, doing and just sharing added the element of honesty and integrity.  My Dad would take me fishing atop Mowbry Mountain near Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I caught my first 3 pound bass on a Zebco 202 rod and reel and I was hooked.  I began to scream to my Dad across the pond…”Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” as I drug the most incredible, awesome fish ashore.  Daddy came just a running and was so proud of me!  I went home, took my hands up to my Mom’s nose and said smell…I caught a fish!

As I grew and developed into a woman, all of these experiences and skills would ultimately become the foundation for my work world success.  After spending almost 20 years in the tile industry, I found it ironic that I was selling “baked dirt” for a living. (Hmmm, thank you mud pie).  I was able to work with ceramic engineers from France, Italy and Spain to take clays, silica sand and glazes to make beautiful tiles for homes and buildings around the world.  This job also enabled me to travel where I was constantly in sensory overload!  As this Tennessee girl traveled to the West, it was if she had found her home.  Wyoming became the place that every chance I got, I would go there, place my feet into the vast forests and just be on cloud nine.  The grand mountains would bring my creativity out like flowing lava from a volcano!  I spent several summers in the Teton National Forest on Horseback and I never returned the same person.  I am so thankful for these days in the woods.

As I traveled, I became the Platinum Princess on Delta Airlines.  Spending over 200 nights a year in a hotel was quite and experience.  I never knew what I would receive from all these frequent flyer miles but I found out a little over four years ago…the award was my darling and precious soul mate.  As we sat side by side on a flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta (thank you Delta) we talked about deer hunting, which I had never done, but my Dad loved to deer and turkey hunt.  I told him about the back strap my Dad cooked every Christmas morning.  Needless to say, this was love at first flight!

We married 2 years later on the Bell Tower of the Hotel Colorado ( Interestingly, this hotel became the White House of President Teddy Roosevelt, while he bear hunted…I think I must have felt his love of the West) then we jumped in our jeans and headed Elk Hunting for our Honeymoon.  My hunting buddy taught me to shoot my first gun and ultimately harvesting my first deer.  We make being in the WILD a priority for our extra curricular activities.  I escorted my husband on this 50^th birthday celebration to Namibia, Africa where I watched my mentor focus and harvest.  We have Elk Hunted together in Colorado and Wyoming.  Our most favorite place is our hunting camp in Georgia where we work on the many aspects of the Whitetail Deer.  Living now in Merritt Island, Florida, we are anxious to someday find a little cabin hidden in the woods where I can sit on my porch and listen to the creatures sing their songs.

Once again my experiences would take hold of my creativity and I from this my company Doeville would be born.   This is a place for women to come and capture items created by women and made in the USA.  The products and artists are a direct result of my many years of traveling and meeting people all over the world.  Our tag line is “Accessorize Your Spirit” which is what the places in the wild have done for my spirit!

My message to all women is to explore, not only places but also within you.  There are many treasures to be found!

December’s “Woman of the Wild”-Holly Heyser

Holly A. Heyser, hunting blogger and college lecturer

I am pretty much the last person anyone – including myself – would have expected to take up hunting. I was born in Southern California and have spent all of my adult life in urban areas. After college, I spent 19 years as a newspaper reporter and editor (Orange County Register, San Jose Mercury News, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Virginian-Pilot, Sacramento Bee) before leaving the business in 2006 to teach journalism at my alma mater, California State University, Sacramento. Reporter. Professor.

Urbanite. Not someone you think of as a gunner.

But I have always craved unusual experiences, and hunting started worming its way into my realm of possibility back when I was in my late 30s. I was living in St. Paul, Minnesota, with my boyfriend Hank Shaw, and we were both working for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. We had befriended the hunting and fishing writer there – Chris Niskanen – and what he did was really piquing Hank’s interest. One day Hank announced that he wanted to take up hunting. “That’s fine,” I said. He’s a cook, so I knew he’d eat what he’d kill, which was my threshold of acceptance for hunting.

 He was really getting into it, spending a lot of time out in the woods, and pretty soon he started asking if I’d like to join him. I didn’t, because I was busy training for marathons at that point, and I rightfully concluded that I couldn’t fit two activities that intense into my weekends. But a couple years later we moved to Sacramento, and I stopped running, and I finally said I was ready to join him. My first hunt was a pheasant hunt, but what really grabbed me was duck hunting. Half of the ducks in the Pacific Flyway spend their winter in the Sacramento Valley about an hour north of us, and the duck hunting can be amazing. I will hunt anything that I’m willing to eat – pheasants, turkeys, wild boar, deer – but there’s just something about ducks. They’re fast, the marshy terrain is challenging and the worse the weather, the better the hunting. I love a challenge. And ducks taste divine. Duck is by far my favorite meat, followed closely by wild boar.

I very quickly dedicated myself to my new pursuit. I had just started my teaching job and was overjoyed when I realized my winter break covered the last six weeks of duck season, so when Hank was working, I’d drive up to one of my favorite wildlife refuges and head out into the marsh myself, determined to teach myself how to actually hit these birds. (Three years later, I’m sorta kinda getting the hang of it.)

 A year to the day after I fired my shotgun for the first time ever, I started a blog about hunting, NorCal Cazadora (www.norcalcazadora.com). NorCal stands for Northern California, and “cazadora” is Spanish for huntress. I figured no one would care what a novice hunter had to say, but boy was I wrong. I quickly found that even the most veteran hunters enjoyed the frustration-filled tales of trying to learn how to do this hunting stuff right. Since, then, I’ve expanded a bit and have begun writing for magazines including California Waterfowl, Delta Waterfowl and Turkey Country, and I’ve done quite a few hunting stories for the Sacramento Bee, which has shown amazing openness to hunting.

I’ve also taken up photography, and do a lot of food photos for my boyfriend, who started a blog shortly after I did – Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (www.honest-food.net) – and writes for a variety of food magazines. I’ll be doing photography for his upcoming book as well.

Writing and photography has opened many doors. I’ve begun doing a lot of volunteer work for California Waterfowl, which graciously honored me with its Artemis Award this year. And I’ve made friends all over the country and world, which means if I can afford a plane ticket someplace, I could probably find someone to hunt with there. I feel incredibly blessed.

Probably the biggest blessing, though, is having been able to enter the hunting world in the first place. I was not naïve about where food came from before I started hunting – I spent some time in the country as a kid, and my family raised a lot of animals for meat. But participating in food, nature and the cycle of life at this level has been a revelation, and it has improved both what I eat and how much I appreciate it exponentially. So many things had to fall into place to get me here: meeting Hank, moving to Minnesota, befriending Chris. There are any number of different choices I could have made that would have put me on a different path. But I got lucky, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.

November’s “Woman of the Wild” Sarah Calhoun

Sarah Calhoun- Founder of Red Ants Pants.

Since college I’ve wanted to start hunting. I think it’s important to know where our food comes from.  Having grown up on a farm I’d had to opportunity to help butcher pigs and chickens so I had that experience, but I wanted the wild game experience as well.  When I moved to White Sulphur Springs, Montana, the hunting opportunities were endless.  I bought my first rifle in 2004, a Remington 30-06 with a Winchester bolt.  I’ve been lucky enough to harvest a mule deer every year since, but the elk have continued to elude me.  We’ll see how this season goes!

Sarah has started her own company called Red Ants Pants (work pants for women) and travels the country doing the Tour de Pants.  Here is a poem about that.

On a farm where Sarah was raised, Playing outside she spent her days. One time she fell and started to cry. She saw a hole in her pants, right at the thigh. “What a bummer,” she thought, “these should have lasted longer.” “If only these pants were a little bit stronger!” On summer breaks from college, she helped her Dad with the hay. She wore his old pants; they didn’t fit the right way. Instructing for Outward Bound, she led kids in the woods. When shopping for work pants, she found nothing good. Next she led trail crews for the SCA. With pulaskis and cross cuts her pants grew weaker each day. When her back wore out she settled in Montana, And patched up her pants with an extra bandana. She peeled logs and groomed ski trails to bring in some money. “There really are no work pants for women. This is no longer funny!” At a coffee shop one day, she read her “How to Start a Business” book. A man happened by and gave an interested look. He asked her what she was doing, so she told him her thought; “We need workwear for women. We need it a lot!” This wasn’t just any man – as it turned out. He knew exactly what she was talking about. For twenty years, production and design had been his career. For a small company called Patagonia…. She was all ears. With contacts and advice, Sarah was well on her way. And Red Ants Pants was born, that very same day.

You may be asking, why the name Red Ants Pants?

October’s “Woman of the Wild” Kirstie Pike

Camp Wild Girls.com names Kirstie Pike- Founder/CEO Prois Hunting Apparel for Women October’s Woman of the Wild!

Kirstie is the founder and CEO of Prois Hunting Apparel for Women.  A lover of the outdoors, Kirstie developed the unique Prois line in efforts to provide the ultimate, high-performance huntwear for women.  Living in Colorado affords her with every opportunity to be in the outdoors and hunting quickly became more than just a sport for her, it became a passion.  She has jumped head-first into the women’s hunting world.  In addition to running Prois, she is a member of NSSF, ATA, POMA, SEOPA and Vice President of the Women’s Outdoor Media Associaition.  In addition, she sits on the Women’s Outreach Committee for POMA as well as the Corporate Partner Board for POMA.  She is a wife, mom of 2 teenage daughters, Registered Nurse, Hospital Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, a past 4-H leader and assistant cross country coach.  Kirstie believes there is a lot of living to do out there, so go do it!

August’s Woman of the Wild-Tammy Ballew

Tammy Ballew is a court reporter by profession and a huntress by passion. She has spent hundred of hours over the last 30 years hunting deer, turkey and several small game species, in addition to fishing in her home state of Missouri. An avid outdoorswoman in many respects, Tammy’s love of hunting and fishing has enabled her in her outdoor writing career also. She currently is a member of WOMA, Women’s Outdoor Media Association, and is the field staff editor for the “Women in the Outdoors—Gals with Guns and Fishing Females” section of the West Tennessee Outdoor and Michigan’s Hooks and Bullets Magazine. Tammy also writes for The WON, The Women’s Outdoor News, and contributes to their “In the Bag” reviews. Tammy recently joined the Pro Staff at HuntingLife.com

Tammy started hunting in her early 20s, and although deer hunting was her first experience, she soon grew equally as excited about turkey hunting. “I loved the vocalness of the turkeys and the amazing transformation of Mother Nature during the early weeks of spring turkey season.” She admits she knew nothing about turkey hunting, but she bought a couple turkey calls and a training tape, and read as many articles as she could on the subject, and was soon on her way to chasing gobblers. In fact, the first turkeys she called up, she was so shocked that she did it, she didn’t even shoot. Lesson learned, she has since been successful on several toms.

She and her husband have five children, and most of them hunt at least some species. One of her fondest hunts was with her son, Travis, a Marine currently serving in Iraq. They doubled up on a couple gobblers after a morning of whatever-could-go-wrong-went-wrong hunt.

They also have five grandchildren, which Tammy holds a Kuzin’ Kamp each summer where she teaches the kids to fish, shoot BB guns and .22s, catch-and-release frogs and any other critter that comes in their path.

Tammy’s goals are to pass down the traditions of hunting and fishing to her children, grandchildren, and anyone else that wants to share in the experience.

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