Women Gone Hunting

Think you know what pressure is? Well, maybe you’d better think again. I had the privilege to speak with Sue Hall from Women Gone Hunting yesterday morning and she shared with me the story from her first hunt - and let me tell you - I find it no wonder that her company of ladies is taking the hunting industry by storm. Here is the account as told to me.

Sue Hall Host/Pro Staff - Women Gone Hunting

I was not raised to go hunting with my family - it was just the guys in our family that went, but I married a man that after a few years wore me down and got me to go. On my first hunt, there was kind of a lot of pressure as there were industry people - a rifle manufacturer, the owner of Bad Boy Buggies - plus it was being video taped for TV so there was a lot of pressure!

We went out to the shooting range and there was Bob Hart watching, my guide was watching, and my husband was taping - you know, all these people are keeping an eye on things and I shot twice - and both times it was dead center. That’s when the guide turned to the camera and said ‘We’re just wasting bullets, here. Let’s take her out on the hunt.’

So, we went out on the preserve at the Buck & Boar lodge in Swansea, South Carolina where we would be hunting the animals. This isn’t a place where they put you on the animal and say, ’shoot it,’ but we would have to find them ourselves. So, we spent a good hour to an hour and a half trying to find the ram herd - and they were just nowhere to be found! We went through the preserve a couple times, and so I’m thinking, ‘Great, my first hunt and all these people are here, and I’m not even seeing these animals.’

We were seeing plenty of hogs, including one little one that kept following us around, but I wasn’t ready to go hog hunting, yet. Finally, we saw three rams together in a field and we got set up at the bottom of the hill where I’d be shooting a little bit uphill and sort of long range - a couple hundred yards away. You could see my first shot hit the ram, but he just started walking away. So then I was looking at the others like, ‘What’s going on? I shot, shouldn’t it fall down?!’ It didn’t, of course! And so, we got set up again, and my next shot chipped the horn and it keeps walking. Now we’re all thinking we don’t want to track this thing all day. So we got set up for my third shot, and I remember seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. The big, nasty breeder hogs kind of freaked me out a little bit, so when I see this thing run by me out of the corner of my eye, I’m hoping it was the small one because I could kind of kick him out of my way if I needed to! So I take the third shot, and the ram goes down and I turn to the camera and say ‘Wow, this thing was really starting to tick me off because it would die!’ Then I turn and that hog that ran within a few feet of me is standing there - and it’s a gigantic three-hundred-and-fifty pound huge hog! I wasn’t allowed to shoot the hog because it had it’s ears tagged meaning it was a breeder that we’re not allowed to touch, so I was thinking, ‘this big nasty thing is just staring at me….!’

We recovered the ram, and there were some beautiful shots on it but he just wouldn’t go down. It was amazing - the rush is very hard to describe. But it was great - there was just a bit of pressure with all the people and the camera - I wonder how many people go on their first hunt like this! But, that’s how I got into it.

If you’d like to listen to the entire interview with Sue, check it out here.

The Women Gone Hunting idea is just a wonderful idea and to hear Sue tell it, you can hear the passion for the idea in her voice - it’s wonderful to see the interest among women in hunting booming the way that it is. It is people like Sue and her pro staff that are creating avenues for more women to become involved - and that is nothing short of heroic. You can watch for the shows come January of 2009 on The Sportsman’s Channel, the Pursuit Channel, and a new channel called Conquest Network coming to Direct TV. They’re also doing youth mentoring programs, connecting female hunters, instructional dvds, and they’re looking at having a camo line completed by this time next year.

I recommend you check out their site if you know a female that you would like to get interested in the outdoors, or if you know a female who is looking at getting started in the outdoors, or if you just want to check out a cool show!

If you have a hunting or fishing story you’d like to share, you are welcome to register for free and begin sharing your experiences any way you’d like - video, photos, forum - or contact me and I’ll do an interview with you and we can get your story online.