Momma's New Groove

          A little background for my wife and her stance on hunting and consumptive outdoor activities. I start with a description of her formative years. She was born and raised in a cattle and sheep ranch in the outback of northwestern South Dakota.The general frame of mind is grow sheep and cattle.

         No hunting or anything even remotely similar to it was permitted, aside from the occasional outlaw coyote who was immediately placed on the FBI's most wanted.

         Our courtship lasted one year to the day. During that time I explored her position on hunting and eating the game harvested. She must have liked me because she was willing to go against everything she ever knew. She said, on many occasions her father had said if there is breath in an animal you do whatever you can to keep it alive.I'm sure that mostly applied to livestock. It was clear in what frame of mind she was raised.

         While I was totally dedicated to the outdoor way of life, she was trying to get as a grasp on a new way of life. She wanted to spend time with me and that meant going along during hunting and fishing trips.

         One of our first major events in the field was a white tail deer hunt during the rut. I was in a familiar place and knew the terrain well. We went to an area with a bunch of deadfall and set up for a horn rattling sequence. After a few minutes of rattling, I heard movement behind us. I quietly whispered to her that we had a deer behind us. She immediately stretched her neck and looked over her shoulder with a little too loud of whisper, "Where?" The buck bolted with a loud blow-snort and waved good-bye with his bright white tail.

         She said,"Oops, sorry."

         She still talks about that trip from time to time and comments on how wonderful it was.

         In the mean time, like the next 14 years or so, we had a bit of a difference of opinion about the outdoors. I wanted to go hunting a be in the woods all the time. When she went along it seemed that she always was complaining about something.

         "I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm hungry, it's dusty or I wanna go home now.

         Her level of dedication was so much less than mine, at times I felt insulted and felt like she didn't deserve to be out here in the beautiful wilderness. It even dissolved into a dispute over when we were going home one trip.

         At that point I decided it was time to change hunting partners. I told her I would never ask her to go hunting with me again, ever. I said if she wanted to go hunting with me again, she would have to ask me and she would also have to show me some sort of proof she was ready to be in the woods with me again.

         After about 13 years of early morning good-byes and weekends without her husband, Ali decided she wanted to try it again. There was some talk about going along. I reminded her of the event and promise that happened some 13 years or more ago. She said she really wanted to go again in the worst way.

         I told her she would have to show me some type of effort worthy of backing off my promise.

         By golly she came upwith a good one. We were living in Colorado at the time and they require hunter's safety courses for each hunter. She said she would take the course and get her certificate. I was impressed and told her that would be just fine  with me.

         She did very well on her test and is now a certified safe hunter. That's definitely enough of an'I'm ready to go' statement for me.

         It turns out she is a far better than average shot. Of course I take some of the credit for that by claiming to be a good instructor. She always strokes my ego and says yes honey, it's all because of you.

         A couple of weeks ago I found a great deal on a youth model Remington 870 in a 20 gauge. I took the kids out to the sportsman's club to give them a taste of the shotgunning way of life. The kids all did great and broke the targets like old pros. When Ali was finished with her daily daycare duties she met us out at the manual trap throwing machine. We had some clay targets set up on the ground at about 15 yards. I talked her into to shooting a couple of them and she pulverized them. This was the perfect time to get her to try flying clay targets.

         I had to talk her into it but finally rationalized she had waited for this opportunity for 16 years and there was no better time. We were completely alone and no chance of embarrassment. She finally agrees and I watched her shot, the first one was over the top. The next one was very close but just a bit high. The next two were dead on. She was excited about it and even surprised that she could hit one. There were several hugs and even a high five followed by some whoopin' and hollerin'.

Tags: Women In The Outdoors

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