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...

Recently National Geographic featured a video about how hunters and anglers have made a difference in North Dakota, South Carolina, Washington state and the western U.S.   Although this video is awesome it only showcases a small part of what sportsmen and women have done for wildlife habitat. Through license fees paid by hunters and anglers, like the Federal Duck Stamp above, we have conserved wildlife habitat for generations to come while protecting our hunting and fishing heritage.  Being a sportsman or sportswoman is all about connecting people to nature so here at Camo is the New Black, we want to thank you for all you have done and what you will do in the future.  But as the saying goes “to whom much is given, much will be required...

The National Museum of Natural History is celebrating 50 years of wilderness in a pretty awesome way: “Wilderness Forever” photography exhibit.

The Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Today, more than 100 million acres are protected by the National Wilderness Preservation System to ensure these areas remain ecologically sound and environmentally pristine for future generations. 

Photographs for the exhibit were selected from more than 5,000 public entries. There’s a Grand Prize and 12 winners in four categories: Most Inspirational Moment, People in Wilderness, Scenic Landscapes, and Wildlife. Each category has an Amateur, Pro, and Student winner.

The exhibit opened this month and will run through summer 2015 – so check it out if you’re in (or planni...

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...

By Rachel Dawson

Recently, there has been an inspiring groundswell of public dialog on women:  our pasts, our modern experiences and our futures.  Like many, I’ve been drawn to this narrative.  Via social media, we are connecting on a global scale unheard of less than two decades ago.  On Twitter, while perusing the burgeoning #YesAllWomen hashtag, I stumbled across a post by a young woman who implored her peers to stop calling her a “female engineer.”  “I’m just an engineer,” she said.  I was struck by the simplicity and poignancy of it.  Indeed, in many male-dominated professions, interests and communities, there is a tendency to label a woman’s participation as atypical, a GIRL-fill-in-the-blank.  This got me thinking about my life as a “sportswoman.”

I was raised to h...