Do you hunt with ‘em?” This is a question I’ve gotten used to responding to over the years whenever I’m out and about with one of our bird dogs in a non-hunting scenario. The inquiry seems to pop up more often when I’m with just Oskar, our 100-pound Spinone. I guess people must be thrown off by his size because I get a lot of, “Can he even fit in a duck boat?”
Often, if my husband is in tow, these questions are directed toward him. This is when I try to make a point of being the one to answer with something along the lines of, “Oh yeah, I took him out on the Mississippi to duck hunt,” discuss how many days we spent out in the grouse woods the past season, or how I trained, ran, and passed him through Natural Ability and Utility Prep testing through NAVHDA. This is usually followed by another question, “Oh, you hunt?” Yep!
Depending on where you’re from geographically or culturally, women hunters might be the norm or could be something a bit more unusual. Although there is currently plenty being written about the increase of women hunters, historically, women are not new to the activity. Heck, there’s even a theory proposed by two University of Arizona researchers that females hunting played a role in the extinction of Neanderthals (basically because everyone was hunting big game and that was dangerous business). Getting trampled was a serious occupational hazard of the time . . .
Many publications note more and more women have been getting into hunting in recent years with the total number of women hunters increasing 25 percent between 2006 and 2011. According to Census Bureau Statistics data, women currently make up 18 percent of all U.S. hunters, up from just 9 percent in 2006. This is excellent news seeing as the total number of hunters has been declining. A 2016 survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that only about 5 percent of Americans, 16 years old and older, hunt.
This is why a lot of local state agencies and national conservation organizations have been pushing R3 (Recruitment, Retention and Reactivation) initiatives to boost hunter, angler, and trapper numbers. Some of the successful programs have been women-focused, such as Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW) which provides sessions on everything from gun safety, and shooting, to habitat identification, and cleaning and cooking game.
Pheasant and Quail Forever’s Education and Outreach Program Manager Marissa Jensen is working with the Nebraska Game and Parks department on a mentored hunt program geared toward women that will kick off this season. The “cast and blast” weekend event will provide hands-on lessons in the sandhills of Nebraska with a grouse hunt. After the hunt the group will use the feathers from the birds to tie flies for fly-fishing. Reflecting the increased interest, the limited slots were filled in less than a month.
I’ll be the first to admit that I got into the game a bit later than most, but women entering the hunting world in adulthood is a trend that seems to be on the uptick every year. In conversations I’ve had with other adult onset women hunters, it seems a lot of us got into hunting in similar fashions. A significant other—who grew up hunting—introduced us to it or we welcomed a new dog into our lives—a flusher, a pointer, a terrier— got involved in training them, and one thing led to another, and now bird hunting is our life. As most readers can attest, upland hunting is like potato chips: you can’t have just one.
