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Hunting With The Better Half

 Your ideal hunting partner may have been right beside you all along.

By MHS Member: Skyline (Kelly Ross)

Over the last 30 years, combining my own personal hunting trips with ones guiding big game hunters, I have shared the campfire with hundreds of different people.  These hunts have been in all types of weather and terrain imaginable, and for a lot of different species.  The sportsmen have been from all walks of life and, as you would expect, the majority were good people – a few have even turned into lifelong friends.  However, the best of the bunch is not only my hunting partner; she is my partner in life as well.

 

Venus and Mars

 

Ladies have always represented a small percentage of the people involved in shooting sports and hunting.  Sure, it’s true that many women – like many men – are just not interested.  Often, though, women are never given a fair chance to develop an interest in shooting or hunting by their spouses.  Firearms and hunting have long been considered a “guy thing” in most families.  I often see friends concentrate on getting their sons involved in target shooting and hunting, but little effort is made with their little girls beyond plinking with a .22.  Our daughters deserve the same introduction to hunting as our sons.  Many times this doesn’t happen until later in life. 

 

As a big game guide, I have hunted with a number of female clients over the years and in each and every case, they were a pleasure to be with.  Those I’ve guided never tried to second guess me, were more patient than the men, and generally had a great deal of empathy for the animals – consequently, they placed their shots carefully.  The ladies never seemed to be under any pressure, they enjoyed their time in the field, and just generally made my job a whole lot easier. 

 

Why is this?  I imagine a psychologist would have a field day with this question, but to me it is relatively simple.  Unlike men, women simply do not seem to heap a lot of self-imposed pressure on themselves as a hunter, and the result is a more relaxed individual.  Relaxed people enjoy themselves more and make fewer mistakes. 

 

Most men worry about how they will perform in front of other men.  If a guy muffs a shot, he loses face; and he who shoots the biggest buck, makes the longest shot, or drops a running bull in its tracks is the hero back at camp.  I have seen men totally ruin the hunting trip for everyone else in camp by becoming impossible to live with after they missed or wounded an animal.  In their mind they believe they’ve become “less of a man” in the eyes of their fellow hunters.

 

Getting Acceptance

 

Male hunters tend to wait impatiently for the fall to arrive and then charge off into the bush with their buddies for a week or two of hunting.  Rarely are the women in their lives a part if this annual hunting trip.  In many of instances, I believe their wives and daughters would love to give it a try, but they sit back in the belief that this annual pilgrimage is a guy thing, part of male bonding – all that sort of stuff. 

 

I met my wife, Wendy, when I hired her as a camp cook.  I knew she was good with horses, as she had an excellent reputation as a horse trainer in the area where I lived.  Over the years she had gained a bit of shooting and hunting experience with her father, but had never taken a big game animal.  Now, 14 years later, she has taken a number of bull moose, mule and white-tailed deer, and black bear.  She has become a licensed big game guide, and has helped other hunters achieve their dream of harvesting caribou, moose, black bear, grizzly, deer, and wolf.  Wendy is a better shot than most of the people I know, can handle a horse better than anyone, and thinks nothing of skinning out a bear or caping a buck.

 

More than a few male hunters have been skeptical at times when I introduce my wife as their guide, but they soon get over it.  They quickly realize that she knows what she is doing and many have told me at the end of their hunt they had more fun hunting with a “lady guide” than anyone they had hunted with before.  She didn’t put any pressure on them and as a result, they enjoyed themselves more. 

 

I will always remember a group of American sportsmen who came on a moose hunt with us.  When they arrived in camp we stowed their gear and headed out to check their rifles.  It was a frustrating couple of hours – only one of the men managed to even hit the target.  After a while, there was so much brass lying around the shooting bench, you would have sworn we’d been practicing with automatic weapons. 

 

Wendy decided she should check her rifle while we were at it.  We had been having a few problems with grizzlies that fall, so I had given Wendy my old Sako .338 Winchester Magnum to carry, instead of the .270 she was shooting at the time.  As she got ready to shoot, the three hunters gave each other very knowing looks.  It was obvious they expected her, at five-foot-three and 130 pounds, to crumple like a dry leaf from the recoil of the .338.  Instead, she lined up and effortlessly put a three-shot group into 1-1/2 inches on the target, just above the bull’s-eye.  The look in the hunter’s faces was priceless – and I can assure you that none of them questioned her guiding ability after that, and no doubt took from the experience a new appreciation of female hunters. 

 

All Things Equal

 

In this day and age, when the cost of maintaining the household keeps both partners working long hours at full-time jobs, there seems to be precious little time to spend together.  Getting your spouse interested in hunting, and turning that annual trip into a joint venture will give you one more opportunity for a little quality time together.

 

I consider myself extremely lucky to have a partner that I can share everything with and who understands my passion for hunting and firearms.  I don’t have to try and make her comprehend why I hunt, or what it is like to take a big buck or sit in a blind with thousands of geese honking and beating the air with their wings.  She already knows.

 

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to make a concerted effort at getting your spouse out shooting and into the field.  You may soon realize your ideal hunting partner has been right beside you all along.

 

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Webmaster's Note

MHS would like to extend a special thank you to member, Skyline (Kelly Ross), and to Sportsman Magazine for allowing us to use this article on our site.  The original publication of this article can be found in the July/August 2005 edition of Sportsman Magazine. 

Kelly and Wendy Ross are the owners/operators of Skyline Adventures.  You can visit their site directly at www.skylineadventures.ca.  You can also visit with Skyline on the MHS Forums.

All articles are the intellectual property of their respective author(s) and are subject to federal copyright laws and are used here with permission.  The views expressed are not necessarily those of MidwestHuntingSource.Com.