Hunting Doesn’t Have a Face

Hunting doesn’t have a face, it doesn’t have a size or weight. Hunting does not have a race or religion. There is no bias or favoritism in hunting. Hunting does not have standards or personal agenda. Hunting does not favor one over the other. Hunting does not battle between sexual preferences or matters of politics. Hunting does not care about who you are married to or any of the other status quo we have created in our world. Probably most important of all hunting does not have a gender, well not anymore anyways. These are part of what makes hunting so great. No expectations or demands.

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While hunting has always been a male dominated sport, the number of women hunters is increasing daily. And I am not just talking about girlfriends that are pretending to care about hunting because their man is into it. Not just girls buying up every pink hunting item they see, because it is cute. I’m talking real, true, hard core to the bone huntresses that can really get after it. Women who live and breathe the sport just like men have done for years and years. Granted there are big numbers of women who have been doing his for a long time, but why do you never hear about them. Hunting is no longer a man’s game. Much like any other sport or job that has historically belonged to men, hunting has become a woman’s game too.

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You might wonder why this is important to me. Why does this guy really care to promote, women in hunting. What purpose does it serve or what is really his angle. Well up until recently it never really occurred to me how one sided the field is. You see I just had my first child a beautiful, healthy amazing baby girl. Like many other men I always dreamed of having a little boy running around beside me. Someone I could play catch with and haul all over the country with me to various fishing holes or tree stands. My own little clone to watch football with me on Sundays and help me annoy and terrorize his mother on a daily basis with.

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Then I saw my little girl for the first time on that sonogram. But I did not see dresses and shoes and butterflies. I did not see bows and pig tails. I still saw football games and hunting trips. I still saw me beside her in a blind helping her line up her first shot at a big Buck. I imagined us checking trails and scouting the country side looking for deer sign. This is when it dawned on me that hunting is for everyone. Why shouldn’t my little girl be given the same credit and expectations that I would have given a little boy. So that is what I decided to do. I will teach her all that I know about hunting as well as other sports and ventures she can pursue in her life. I will instruct her and guide her to the best of my abilities and hopefully with any luck she will soon form the passion and love that I have for the outdoors and hunting. If she does not make that connection or find that love for those things, well that will be ok to. But it will not be because she was not given a chance.

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I want to see more women in the field. I want her to have women that she can relate to and look up to in the hunting world. She needs to know that there are many others girls just like her who share the same passion. Women that also have all of the skills and knowledge and know how to be as successful as me or any other man who loves the same game.I want her to be confident and proud. I want people to say “wow what a great deer”, rather than “hey that’s a nice deer for a girl”. And just so I’m clear this isn’t about some pro women’s movement or fighting for women’s rights or anything else. That is another argument for another website.This is about a passion and border-line obsession that I have, and I hope my daughter eventually shares as well. I still want every little boy to grow up and want to hunt and fish, but I hope to eventually see more daughters and wives out there in those deer camps, What better way to establish family structure and discipline than to involve everyone. There are many life lessons to be learned for children through hunting. Plus Just think dads if mom is into it, and the whole family is into it, then you get to spend a lot more time out there and buy twice as many toys. Sounds like a win/win to me…..

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Brandon, producer “Queens of Camo”