Kassondra Hendricks

By Kassondra Hendricks

If you would’ve told my nine-year old self that I would be toting around a pink camo shotgun in the future I wouldn’t have believed you. Pink has always been a ghastly color in my mind. And I wasn’t the girl that played with Barbie dolls. I was the girl that tramped barefoot around the horse barn chasing chickens, stalking deer in fields with mud smeared on my face, climbing trees, showing off burns on my legs from riding dirt bikes, smiling with satisfaction at the roughness of my calloused hands. I was the girl who to her mother’s dismay didn’t let anyone brush her hair until the fifth grade. I rocked the coclebur tangles, stained t-shirt, ripped jeans look...

If you’re contemplating starting to hunt, step one is to complete your state-approved hunter education. Summer is a great time to take the course so you’ll be ready for hunting season, which is coming right up!

Many states allow, or even require, you to take a portion of your hunter education online. Other courses include a classroom course and other require a “field day” to demonstrate hands-on safety skills. Check with your local Department of Natural Resources or Fish & Game to find out your state’s requirements – or your local sporting goods store will likely be able to point you in the right direction if you’re not sure who to call.

If you can (or are required) to take an online portion of hunter education, there are a lot of options to choose from. Here are a couple to check out:

• Hu...

Youth Hunts – A Few Essentials for Big Game Beginners

If you’re a seasoned hunter, chances are you started out young. You most likely accompanied your mother, father, grandmother or grandfather on hunting trips and they taught you the ropes. Perhaps you started later in life and had to teach yourself, but now you have kids of your own and want to bring them into the fold. For some, it can be an enjoyable family tradition passed from one generation to the next.

Whitney’s husband and niece out in the duck blind.

A youth hunt is a valuable experience for young girls and boys because it gives them a degree of life experience they will never get in front of a TV. It teaches them the value of hard work and the accomplishments that can come when you put your effort and focus into something...

By Land Tawney

The sky was blue, sun was hot, and water was clear.  I could see the rainbow colored Rapala lure working to perfection five feet below the surface of the water and then it happen.  A big juicy trout gave chase and in an instant attacked with veracity.  The line went taught and the fight began, the mighty fish was played to perfection, reeled to the dock and deftly guided into the net.  Cidney had caught her first fish!  When I asked her if she wanted to “keep it or put it back,” she exclaimed beaming with pride, “eat it Dad!” 

Colin and Cidney with a big Montana fish

As a young kid, I remember yearly, week long sojourns to the Bighole River in southwest Montana, timed to perfection at the peak of the salmon fly hatch...