Hello everyone,

Women rarely get much attention when it comes to hunting and fishing. This week, I’d like to pay homage to some of the ladies, past and present.

My lovely wife Lisa is absolutely head over heels in love with trout fishing. During the trout season she will arrive home from work and trade the heels and skirt in for her fishing outfit. Off she goes and usually she’s back within an hour with the grin of a lunatic and a limit of beautiful fat brookies. Lisa has also taken a few deer and a moose with her open-sighted model 742 carbine that she shoots exceptionally well.

Another exceptional lady is Debbie Blake of Limington. Debbie is never intimidated by any piece of woods; she will hunt mountains, swamps and thickets with no fear of getting “turned around,” and always comes out of the woods right where she wants to. Any buck that shows up in front of Debbie and her model 77 Ruger .308 is in grave danger of being canned deer meat on her pantry shelf. The canned deer meat that Debbie makes is the absolute best that I’ve ever had and in a later article I’ll share her recipe.

Lucretia Douglas was a wonderful lady. We lost her this past summer but she left us with many great memories. In her younger days she hunted as hard as most men and collected her share of venison with her Winchester carbine chambered in 38-55 caliber.

After Lucretia was unable to hunt she was a writer for the Bridgton News and always advocated deer hunting and outdoor sports. Also known as “The Cricket,” she never posted her many acres of land and encouraged other landowners not to do so in her weekly column. She once told me it was her little part to help keep hunting alive.

My mother was also a pretty decent deer hunter and a “crack shot” with her 250-3000 Savage.

Every fall she would attend the local turkey shoot with my father and on many occasions would outshoot all the men. That rally ruffled their feathers but it sure was funny.

I remember one November my mother went out into the shed to get something early one morning only to return in a hurry to grab her rifle I heard the little Savage rifle crack one time and back through the door came mom. “I just shot a big buck,” she said excitedly. She sure did, a fat eight-pointer that dressed 198 pounds.

My mother Bev, would be very proud of her granddaughter, Ashley, who shoots that same rifle darn near as well as she did!

Gordon and Velma Irish lived just down the bottom of the hill from us when I was a boy. Gordon was a trapper, his wife Velma, or better known as “Val,” was one heck of a deer hunter. “Val” and her 32 special collected more than 40 deer in her lifetime.

If you have a young lady in your life, expose them to the outdoors and all it has to offer. You never know, you might be harboring the next “Annie Oakley.”

Until next time, hunt hard and be safe,

Hutch

Quote of the Week

Hunting and fishing is not just for men