Guest Post tagged posts

My First Bird, Leslie Dunne Ketner

Leslie Ketner

The first time I ever shot a bird it was a dove.

I was on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the early ’90s. It was opening day, and I sat excitedly on a bucket in a field of sunflowers.  My husband and our yellow lab, Berkeley, were in another row of sunflowers. 

As the birds started flying, I looked around to track my fellow hunters, showing caution on my first attempt to shoot something other than an orange clay. All of a sudden a dove was flying a nice left to right pattern.  It was pretty far off, but I mounted my side-by-side 12 gauge and  boom, it dropped in another row of  dried flowers.  Being new to this, I wasn’t sure of the protocol on when to pick up my bird...

The Hunt of a Lifetime

Amy Lawry

I drew a mule deer buck tag and hunted during the juniors-only weekend in October. My dad and I decided to go camp out at a site in the southern Bitterroot Mountains of western Montana. On the first day of the hunt we walked three miles but no bucks, only does. We did “glass” staring at the hills to try to spot any movement.   

Later that day, we took another drive to a second area. My dad said, “I wish a big buck would just run across the road.”   Next thing you, know a big buck runs across the road. My dad stopped the truck and I got out. My dad and I walked over to where the buck ran. Right there, the big buck stood staring at me. I could only see his head. My heart was beating faster than a flying bullet...

Debra Wright

My daddy

My daddy hunted. I tagged along, jumping creeks, climbing fences, gathering bittersweet, enjoying all of nature, the woodsy smells, the fresh air, AND his company.

I lost him at a young age, and also lost those hunting opportunities. Years later, after a busy life of raising three daughters, I found myself searching for new interests to fill my time.

Seeing an ad that our local Quail Unlimited (now Quail Forever) chapter was hosting a wing-shooting clinic, I signed up. I took instruction, shot, broke clays, —and I was hooked!  It was just a few weeks later that I bought my first shotgun and became the first female member of the thirty-two year old chapter...

Hunter Identity, by Katie McKalip

Katie McKalip

I was paying for my new shotgun, several years ago in a sporting good store, when it hit me.

Hunting had become part of my identity. But I wasn’t sure exactly how it happened.

Growing up, I had few opportunities to get afield, even though both my parents came from hunting and fishing families. And my upbringing in the suburbs of a city that severely restricted personal firearms ownership was hardly one that celebrated sporting pursuits.    

But then I moved out west after college and had the good fortune to fall for a man who appreciated public lands and open spaces and opening weekends of various game species. I started going hunting, with him and then with other friends, for deer and elk and waterfowl but mostly upland birds...

Peggy Sundstrom

Seduced to Hunt

It’s true.  I was seduced to become a hunter more than 25 years ago, and not in the way you might think.  While I had fallen in love with an avid waterfowl hunter whose passion for the sport intrigued me, I was not, in fact, seduced to the hunt by him, but by my first taste of bacon-wrapped teriyaki duck.

I grew up in an urban household with a focus on outdoor activities, including camping, backpacking, fishing and other such avocations, but not hunting.  The closest I had come to game was at a restaurant that served delicious, but certainly not wild, meat (think farmed venison or boar).  I was an enthusiastic cook, but I hadn’t given much consideration to harvesting my own meat...