Critics of The Hunter’s Wife
Yesterday, someone (she reads my blog) was making fun of me for not being a girly girl that takes her own fish off the hook. Coincidence that I asked if my readers take their own fish off the hook?
Maybe.
Probably not.
Dear chick that takes her own fish off the hook,
Before you get your fish off your hook … I’ll break your pole.
Love,
The hair puller.
It’s a full moon tonight be safe all!
I love my readers.
Flying off on my broom for the night!
See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net
To Tinkle In The Woods I’ll Go
If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time you’ve probably come across a comment or two I’ve made about never tinkling in the woods. I’m not that kind of outdoors girl. A squirrel might see me. But after an incident at the marina last week, well, um, lets just say I’d rather a squirrel saw me.
It was a very hot week of fishing. 85 degrees hot. Being on a boat in the middle of the lake with the sun beating down on you feels like 95 degrees. Without making a move, you’ve already worked up a good sweat. Which means your clothes are wet and stuck to you.
My husband decided he needed more minnows so we headed to the marina. We pulled up at the dock and I decided I better use the ladies room. So I pranced across the dock and up the pier to the restaurant wishing everyone a good morning along the way.
On my way out, I wished more fellow anglers and marina workers a good morning and climbed back into the boat. As we pulled away I noticed several workers going about their business on the dock, people having coffee on the upper level of the marina restaurant and I thought about the people that had a beautiful view to the water while dining in the restaurant.
We finally made our way to a brush pile with our fresh minnows and my boat duties kicked in. I bent over and dropped the anchor in the water. I bent over and set the minnows out for easy access. I bent over and handed my husband a minnow. And I bent over, grabbed my pole and started fishing while standing.
A short time later, another boat anchored behind us to fish a separate brush pile. We made small talk with the older couple and then I went about my fishing business. Bending over to get a minnow, bending over to pick up my minnow I dropped and bending over to pick up my squirmy little minnow again. After about an hour, our elder friends left.
You know when it’s 85 degrees out, your clothes are stuck to you, you’re swatting bugs in fear of getting bit and you start itching? Well I was all over the boat swatting and itching when I felt something biting the back of my leg. I turned my body to give the back of my leg a good itch when I noticed it.
You know when you’re the girl that doesn’t tinkle in the woods and is in fear of bathroom germs so you cover the toilet like you’re wallpapering the thing in case your squat fails?
You know when it’s 85 degrees and your ass is as sticky as wallpaper?
And your squat failed for that brief second just long enough for a 5 feet long piece of toilet paper to stick to your ass.
You know when you bend over 100 times in a boat and you’re husband never notices that you have 5 feet of toilet paper hanging out your sticky wallpapering ass?
You know when you’re on a boat and an older couple is fishing behind you and they never once said, “Excuse me hon, but I think you have something hanging out your panties?”
You know when you’re sitting there having flash backs of where it happened, when it happened, and for the love of prancing across the marina like you’re super TP girl, who in the world saw you?
Oh help me.
And then you do what every wife would do after sitting on a boat with their husband for 12 hours a day…
“Mark? Grr Mark. Grr. As many times as I bend over in this stupid boat, how did you not see 5 feet of toilet paper hanging down to my ankle?” I went on and on. Blah blah blah. Guys at the marina saw me. Other anglers saw me. Blah blah blah. OMG blah blah blah. I don’t even know what I was rambling but it was a good wife ramble for a good 15 minutes.
And all he had to say was, “Jody, I was fishing.”
I am never using the marina bathroom again.
Mariana worker: Where you going?
TP super girl: To use the ladies room.
Mariana worker: It’s that way.
TP super girl: Oh no it’s not. It’s behind tree number 3.
Have a good day all … to tinkle in the woods I’ll go.
See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net
Eating Crow with Springing Teal
When I announced I wanted to take up Shooting Sports as a hobby, it went over like a fart in church. I can still smell the distinct odor the affair raised—and it wasn’t gunpowder. I heard the Doubting Thomases and the harshest critics say: ‘JoAnna Zurinsky, if you ever manage to blast a clay bird out of that sky, it will be the day monkeys fly out of our butts!’ Now call it what you will, Daddy says it’s a case of good-old fashion German Stubbornness, I call it American Woman Resolve. I was going to hit a clay bird. I was going to do it regardless of whatever anyone said. Daddy and I went out to the field in the back of our barn, and he threw the clays. I took his 12ga Remington pump shotgun, and blasted the smithereens out of a bird, first try! It felt so good. I did it again, and again that afternoon. Sure I missed my fair share, but I didn’t focus on what I was doing wrong, I only focused on what I was doing right. I was having fun, and I was hooked!
And Daddy? Well, he was shocked! My mom, who knew all along that I would do it, bagged up little pieces of clay birds for me to take home as a trophy to show my better, and sometimes un-believing half, Larry, as proof that monkeys sometimes do fly. And out of the strangest places! When I got home, I put the baggie on the table, Larry rolled on the floor laughing. ‘What?’ I asked. Larry blurted out, with Chardonnay gurgling through his nostrils (he was that amused): ‘Hand thrown birds are a great deal different than what you’ll experience at a Gun Club with trap-machine thrown birds!’ Undaunted, I soon got my chance to try Sporting Clays and Skeet.
I asked for a membership to the local gun club for my birthday that year, instead of jewelry—and got it, along with an offer for a full-on psychiatric evaluation. I started going to the gun club every chance I got; with friends, relatives and any country man or woman who lend me their time and ears, so I could yell: “PULL!” I befriended a couple of the members, and the nicknames along with the clays, started flying: JoAnnie Oakley, 12ga Lady, Clay Slayer, The Crapshoot Kid and my personal, but somehow annoyingly favorite, Ram-Jo. These were not all compliments- most of them cute, but condescending in nature.
At the gun club that I discovered Shooting Sports is wonderful fun, it is very competitive, and a boys club. One particular Sunday, my dad’s friends from work were watching me at the Springing Teal stand, and bet a barbecue lunch on the odds that I would not hit single high or low clay out of the brush. I took on the bet. Now, I did not have the money to buy lunch for any of these fellas, but I couldn’t let that stop me! Not a chance! I was going to stand my ground, if I was going to be wrong I was going to at least be bold about it. The taunting began. ‘Hey Ram-Jo, you gonna slay that Springing Teal today? You got a reputation to keep at this club! As long as you’re here, the clays are safe!’ Daddy looked at me, and I looked at him, the stubbornness and resolve creeping out of me, a sly smile crossed my face. We looked at Earl and Joe and yelled: Game On! With Daddy as my cheerleader, and pulling for me in the literal and figurative sense, I knew I could lick the Springing Teal stand. That day, there would be a thing such as a free lunch, but just desserts as well!
I got my clays, and Joe and Earl just stood at the bottom of the stand, jaws on the ground. I came over and they stammered out: “we guess we owe y’all lunch, and Crapshoot Kid, well, we’re kinda sorry.’ I took out my ear protection, and said: “Guys, I have my ear protection in. It silences the loudest of critics!’ Lunch was good. We were all sitting around, and Daddy asked: “Is this the best barbecue you’ve ever eaten or what?!” I smiled and said, “Dad, the chicken sort of tastes like Springing Teal, and I think that Joe and Earl’s ribs must taste like Crow.”
Till the next time: Shoot Straight and Aim High!
J.Z. Zurinsky- My Bullet Points
See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net
For The Love of Fishing
I only started fishing a few years ago and I fell in love with …
The beautiful sunrises…
The peaceful scenery…
Spending time with my husband …
Spending time with friends with big fishing poles …
The fish we catch …
The evening cookouts …
The guys that clean my fish …
And taking pictures of crusted fish guts on my leg …
Have a good day all … I think I might need to go tanning before our April fishing trip. Or maybe I’ll just wear pants.
See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net
For The Love of Fishing
I only started fishing a few years ago and I fell in love with …
The beautiful sunrises…
The peaceful scenery…
Spending time with my husband …
Spending time with friends with big fishing poles …
The fish we catch …
The evening cookouts …
The guys that clean my fish …
And taking pictures of crusted fish guts on my leg …
Have a good day all … I think I might need to go tanning before our April fishing trip. Or maybe I’ll just wear pants.
See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net
February’s “Woman of the Wild”- Jennifer L. Metzker!
When I was a small girl, I remember going to my uncle’s property to hunt deer, turkey, dove, quail, etc with my family. I loved being out in the woods, running free, watching the wildlife. My dad would take me to hunting camp, despite the comments from the older members; dad would put me in the woods with my grandfather’s Smith & Wesson model 1000 shotgun and say, “sit still and good luck”! I only ever shot one doe, and we never found her…I was heart broken.
As the years went by, the family grew apart. I found myself driving my very old Grandfather to hunting camp, just so I could get another chance at another deer. No Luck, I grew older as did the relatives, and there was no one to take me hunting, but you could always find me outdoors either at the horse shows or at the mud hole, which is where I met my husband of 19 years.
Bryan has been a hunter all his life and we kicked it off immediately. We married, had a son and moved to North Carolina and had our second son. Bryan joined a Hunting club in Georgia, that we are still apart of to this day. It was at this club with my husband, that I really learned how to hunt. I was taught how to watch and “let the deer get closer” and where to put a stand, etc. I harvested my first doe on that club, weighing in at 120 lbs, while my husband sat in the truck with the boys watching a clear cut. That was it, I was really hooked! No, I wasn’t the first woman in camp to hunt, but I was the first to hunt as hard as the men do. Sure, I have heard the same questions over the years; “How do you do it”? My only answer to that was “How can you not”? The woods are my sanctuary. Things always seem clear when I’m in the woods. And I have seen some wonderful things in the woods!
Over the years, I have harvested some nice deer and I’m always proud of whatever I do harvest. I hunt Alligator, Turkey, Deer, Ducks, Coyotes, Fox and Bobcat. I am open to try anything once. I fly fish in the spring and summer months but hunting is always on my mind.
I have been married for 19 years to my “hunting mentor” lol, Bryan. We have two sons, Bryan Jr. and Boone. Bryan Jr. is currently in the Navy and fishes and duck hunts with us when he takes leave. Boone is in the woods and water with us all the time and has become quite the hunter. I know a lot of other ladies that hunt hard like me and I love meeting other lady hunters.
Jennifer L. Metzker
See the original article at CampWildGirls.com
Don’t forget…The Battle of the B.O.W.
The Battle of the B.O.W. with our own Terri Lee Pocernich and her son Kale starts Tuesday the 29th on the Sportsman’s Channel. It starts in the 7:30 p.m. time slot. (that is CT).
We are very excited to see the new show and how it gets all put together. We only know one of the stories, ours. There are 9 other teams and the stories that they will also have. It should be an exciting venture, through the season!
Voting will start on after the first show on www.battleofthebow.com. Please watch the show and let us know what you think!
See the original article at CampWildGirls.com
Battle of the Bow Premiere
Tonight on the Sportsman Channel is the new 13 week series, Battle of the Bow where 10 - 2 person teams from Wisconsin document their recent hunting season. What I find interesting, as mentioned on…
See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net
December Woman of the Wild
Holly Heyser
Holly A. Heyser, hunting blogger and college lecturer
I am pretty much the last person anyone – including myself – would have expected to take up hunting. I was born in Southern California and have spent all of my adult life in urban areas. After college, I spent 19 years as a newspaper reporter and editor (Orange County Register, San Jose Mercury News, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Virginian-Pilot, Sacramento Bee) before leaving the business in 2006 to teach journalism at my alma mater, California State University, Sacramento. Reporter. Professor.
Urbanite. Not someone you think of as a gunner.
But I have always craved unusual experiences, and hunting started worming its way into my realm of possibility back when I was in my late 30s. I was living in St. Paul, Minnesota, with my boyfriend Hank Shaw, and we were both working for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. We had befriended the hunting and fishing writer there – Chris Niskanen – and what he did was really piquing Hank’s interest. One day Hank announced that he wanted to take up hunting. “That’s fine,” I said. He’s a cook, so I knew he’d eat what he’d kill, which was my threshold of acceptance for hunting.
He was really getting into it, spending a lot of time out in the woods, and pretty soon he started asking if I’d like to join him. I didn’t, because I was busy training for marathons at that point, and I rightfully concluded that I couldn’t fit two activities that intense into my weekends. But a couple years later we moved to Sacramento, and I stopped running, and I finally said I was ready to join him. My first hunt was a pheasant hunt, but what really grabbed me was duck hunting. Half of the ducks in the Pacific Flyway spend their winter in the Sacramento Valley about an hour north of us, and the duck hunting can be amazing. I will hunt anything that I’m willing to eat – pheasants, turkeys, wild boar, deer – but there’s just something about ducks. They’re fast, the marshy terrain is challenging and the worse the weather, the better the hunting. I love a challenge. And ducks taste divine. Duck is by far my favorite meat, followed closely by wild boar.
I very quickly dedicated myself to my new pursuit. I had just started my teaching job and was overjoyed when I realized my winter break covered the last six weeks of duck season, so when Hank was working, I’d drive up to one of my favorite wildlife refuges and head out into the marsh myself, determined to teach myself how to actually hit these birds. (Three years later, I’m sorta kinda getting the hang of it.)
A year to the day after I fired my shotgun for the first time ever, I started a blog about hunting, NorCal Cazadora (www.norcalcazadora.com). NorCal stands for Northern California, and “cazadora” is Spanish for huntress. I figured no one would care what a novice hunter had to say, but boy was I wrong. I quickly found that even the most veteran hunters enjoyed the frustration-filled tales of trying to learn how to do this hunting stuff right. Since, then, I’ve expanded a bit and have begun writing for magazines including California Waterfowl, Delta Waterfowl and Turkey Country, and I’ve done quite a few hunting stories for the Sacramento Bee, which has shown amazing openness to hunting.
I’ve also taken up photography, and do a lot of food photos for my boyfriend, who started a blog shortly after I did – Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (www.honest-food.net) – and writes for a variety of food magazines. I’ll be doing photography for his upcoming book as well.
Writing and photography has opened many doors. I’ve begun doing a lot of volunteer work for California Waterfowl, which graciously honored me with its Artemis Award this year. And I’ve made friends all over the country and world, which means if I can afford a plane ticket someplace, I could probably find someone to hunt with there. I feel incredibly blessed.
Probably the biggest blessing, though, is having been able to enter the hunting world in the first place. I was not naïve about where food came from before I started hunting – I spent some time in the country as a kid, and my family raised a lot of animals for meat. But participating in food, nature and the cycle of life at this level has been a revelation, and it has improved both what I eat and how much I appreciate it exponentially. So many things had to fall into place to get me here: meeting Hank, moving to Minnesota, befriending Chris. There are any number of different choices I could have made that would have put me on a different path. But I got lucky, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.
See the original article at CampWildGirls.com
See the original article at GotHunts.com
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See the original article at CampWildGirls.com
