Posted on 09/17/2015 8:13:56 AM PDT by w1n1
Raising Girls to Hunt
If you are a hunter and think that merchandisers and marketers are getting girly lately, you would be right. In recent years the fastest growing demographic of hunters are actually huntresses – women who head afield to put food on the table. This is no surprise to myself or those in my hunting camp. We have known for years that there would be a trend towards more women chasing game. Fifteen years ago my hunting partner, Chad Hurst, called one day to announced the birth of he and his wife’s first child, Brittany. Right away I began to look for camo clothes, lightweight guns, hunting packs and anything else that would fit a tiny girl. But even then most of what I found were Barbie fishing poles, pink camo hats and few odds and ends. Years later, when Brittany and Hurst’s second daughter, Marissa, decided to take a hunter-safety course, we went back to the sporting goods store and found entire sections devoted to the needs of the huntress.
With a national movement to stop eating hormone-infused meat, chemically modified foods and an alarming rise in various cancers as a whole, those who enjoy the outdoors are turning more to wild game as a staple in their diets. An article published by National Geographic in April 2013 and titled “More Women Give Hunting A Shot” revealed that from 2006 to 2011 the number of female hunters grew by 25 percent and made up 11 percent of the 13.7 million hunters in the US. That might not seem like much, but the overall age of hunters is increasing and total numbers of hunters is decreasing. As our nation moves into the age of technology, an upward trend in camo-clad ladies is something that all hunters need to notice. Most people who market hunting already have.
One of the more popular television shows on The Sportsman Channel is Universal Huntress Television. This is a show dedicated to the female hunter, emphasizing women’s skill sets to harvest game. The production manager, Chantelle Kapp, is involved with the show along with her husband, Emanuel Kapp, the show’s executive producer.
I caught up with Chantelle a few weeks ago and asked how she contributes to the forefront of women in hunting. It turns out that she was born into the outdoors much like my friends’ daughters Brittany and Marissa. Chantelle told me, “I was fortunate enough to grow up in the Limpopo province of South Africa and my friends and I would camp, fish and hike over weekends, exploring the bushveld (a subtropical woodland) and its surroundings.”
After her youth she traveled and earned a bachelors in education that led her to a school in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. She told me, “It warmed my heart to see how much the schools and families relied on the local hunting lodged for food, supplies and support. I knew I wanted to be involved in a community and industry where helping your fellow man and conservation was more important than the stock market.” Read the rest of the story here.
There will soon be a viral image of a young woman posing with a freshly killed lion and her Hello Kitty rifle with a pink stock.
A young lady I went to high school with lived in North Dakota for a few years. One winter she was snowed in. She went out into a field and shot an elk. It was too big for her to drag home so she cut it into quarters and took each piece home. Had meat for most of the winter.
If I weren’t already married I’d be in hot pursuit!
Ping!~
My gf hunts with me, skins, cooks. My 2 daughters are shooters. My 2 boys, not so much. All 4 my kids range from 34 to 45 years old.
Send’em To Jorvasker. I know this one woman who can teach’rm how.
Might need a flea collar though. ;)
A great idea in case of collapse we could always use for hunters/huntresses.
Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games?
Next these young huntresses will be wearing the Mockingjay symbol.
My girls do not like the pink camo/gun stuff. They think it is stupid. They wear what the boys wear and shoot what the boys shoot.
Had she won the license lottery? Elk hunting in NoDak is severely controlled. If one is starving I have no problem eating the king's deer without a license.
There is a story of a deer hunter who shot a cow elk, brought it to a check station to validate its status as a world record mule deer doe.
Why wear camo if you are wearing a blaze orange vest over it? more rhetorical.
I haven’t taken any game but I have shot coyotes, a possible wolf, feral cats, and prairie dogs. My children, including my daughters, are being exposed to firearms at an early age and each of them will receive a single-shot .22 when they turn eight.
I was out in the woods hunting with my Dad at age twelve. Good times.
Good for you. Those are great memories.
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