Some of you have written asking about the clothing giveaway I’d mentioned a little while back. Again, the idea was that F&S had gotten some nice gear to photograph for the July feature on women hunters, and with those shoots over, it made sense to find homes for these clothing items through the blog. So here’s the deal: The person who posts the best comment(s) will be given a piece of gear. A new recipient will be announced every Friday until the supply runs out—I only have enough pants, jackets, and such to last about a month. Of course, these items are just what happen to be inhouse, so sizes are very limited (mostly smalls and mediums). If you’re chosen, and the gear doesn’t fit, you’ll have a very nice present for a friend or family member.
   So considering today’s Friday, I guess I’ll announce the first gear recipient: Annette Shearer from Lexington, KY, will be getting a Hunter Fleece Zip-Jacket compliments of SHE Safari (shesafari.com). Keep the comments coming, and I’ll keep the gear going. –K.H.
   

My first real attempt at serving game to non- and anti-hunters was in February 2005. I had some duck breasts from an Oregon hunt the previous December and decided to share them with about a dozen friends, mostly from Manhattan.
      A few weeks beforehand, I invited one of my old friends from back home to come as well. I hadn’t hunted growing up, so the idea of me in the field was still new to this person. It wasn’t enough for them to email back to say they couldn’t make dinner. They had to officially declare that I was now a stranger to them, that I was no longer the kind, Fly Away Home-watching animal lover they’d known in high school, and that I should just go to the grocery store and buy my dinners like everyone else.
      So, feeling a little—okay, a lot—hurt from that email, I took stock. I’m a good person: I recycle, sponsor two children in Bolivia, and visit my grandfather every chance I get. I’m an animal-lover: I include my cats’ names on my answering machine greeting and give Christmas presents to my cousin’s retriever. I’m also a meat-eater, which means I understand that for the chicken sandwich I ate at lunch, something had to be killed. And I’m a hunter, which means that I’m willing to step up and do the killing myself. 
      If all anti-hunters were vegetarians, I wouldn’t be confused. But there’s such a thing as a meat-eating anti-hunter. And I’ve coma across a lot of them--including my friend to whom I’ve become a heartless stranger. What is it about hunting that gets meat-eaters so upset? The combination of an anti-hunting viewpoint an omnivorous diet in the same person seems to require of certain element of self-delusion. And my friend is an example of the kind of walking contradiction that sees nothing ironic about voicing their objections to hunting over a turkey dinner. Where do they think that drumstick came from? Why is going to the grocery store to get the meat of a butchered animal fine, while going into the field to get the meat yourself is despicable?
      Before I started hunting, a slice of turkey made its way into my sandwich in some vague, guilt-free way that had nothing to do with another animal. Maybe it started out in a coop or a pen of some sort. I really had no idea. Maybe its journey to me involved handlers, packagers, maybe pluckers, and truck drivers. And of course, there was the anonymous person who killed my food in the first place—who did the dirty work I’d never even stopped to think about, let alone bother with myself.
      But the night of that February duck dinner with my friends from Manhattan, I knew exactly where the lean, preservative-free mallard breast on my plate had come from. It started as a beautiful bird that I took out of the mouth of a dripping wet black Lab that had swum 15 yards into the Columbia River to retrieve it. I carried it to camp, sliced out the breasts, froze them in zip lock bags, brought them home, and finally served them to a table full of friends, who were not hunters, but were willing to try something they knew was important to me.
I had another dinner for about 15 friends last May. Although we had plenty of chicken in reserve, I was thrilled that they all opted to eat the antelope (that’s it pictured pre-dinner in my freezer). –K.H.

I love stuff. Especially when the stuff is associated with a great memory. Matchbooks, coasters, airline tickets, pictures—I’m a shameless pack rat when it comes to remembering anything from a fun movie to a great trip. Since some of my favorite memories are from hunts, I have a lot of personal prizes from the field. Not in the sense of trophy mounts, but quieter prizes, like the spent shell from the first animal I killed, or a pebble from the most perfect turkey hunting spot I ever found.

One of my all time favorite possessions is this “autographed” shed. I was on an NRA Women on Target hunt for antelope in Wyoming< last September, and at one point, the guide and I set off by ourselves to see if a herd we’d been keeping an eye on was visible beyond a nearby rise. After a brief trek through the rolling scrub, we got to the edge of the drop-off, glassed what turned out to be an antelope-free landscape, and decided to go back.

As we turned, I spotted a white object perfectly centered on the peak of a hill to my left. The clouds parted, the angels sang, and a shaft of divine light focused the full force of heaven on that square foot of Wyoming, revealing a gleaming shed. I humbly stepped into the light, picked up the shed, and showed it to the guide. He was less impressed, but nothing was going to ruin my sense of discovery, and I carted it back to show the other women.

That was the last day of the hunt, and that evening back in Glenrock, I brought the shed and a sharpie to the table and asked everyone on the hunt to sign it. So one side of the shed is clean, bleached white, and the other displays all their names.

Of course, I had to get the shed back home to New York, and at the time airport security had just been tightened to exclude things like my Pert Plus from my carry-on. The shed absolutely couldn’t fit in my checked bag, so I put it in my shoulder bag and hoped for the best.

Before I even got to the security scanner, I’d already been relieved of my travel toothpaste. But the shed was still in my bag, which I watched disappear down the conveyor belt and into the machine to be displayed for the employee watching the monitor. When my bag came onto his screen, he stopped the belt, leaned in a little closer, looked at me and said, “Eight-pointer? Cool.” Thus deprived of my dangerous Sensodyne, and still in possession of my horns that had evolved in nature as an instrument of combat, I boarded the plane for home, where my autographed shed now sits on my mantle.

Even non-pack rats must have a least one memento from a great hunt—what’s your favorite? –K.H.

I hear a lot of great stories from women about customer service at sporting goods stores. Some are funny, some make your blood boil, but they all tend to sound at least a little familiar to most of us.

Mine tend to be more amusing than frustrating. Two seasons ago, for example, I needed a small game license, and found myself at the sporting goods counter of a central Pennsylvania Wal-Mart. My boyfriend, who doesn’t hunt, was running his own errands elsewhere in the store. When I got to the counter, there were 2 employees behind it waiting on 2 customers, one was a shorter gentleman in a personalized Miss Saigon jacket; his friend was about 6’ 4”, with earrings, a goatee, a black fedora, and a black floor-length leather coat. I waited awhile before politely trying to get the attention of the employee who seemed less engaged in the sale. But both clerks were totally focused on this pair who looked to be buying a .22.

After what seemed like hours, my boyfriend Dan found me and asked how it was going. Once he showed up, I somehow finally materialized for the employees, one of whom came to our end of the counter to ask if he could help us—well, actually help my boyfriend. I explained what I needed and the employee courteously took out the necessary paper work and handed it to Dan, who smiled and reminded the clerk that the license was for me—and that, in fact, he didn’t hunt himself. As I was finally filling out the form, the employee asked my boyfriend where he’d be hunting, and what he thought conditions would be like.

That same season, I was buying shells for a goose hunt, and ended up at another Wal-Mart, where the young guy behind the counter insisted that what I really needed were two boxes of deer slugs. Then there was the owner of an independent sporting goods store in New York, who refused to take the Matthews bow that I was asking to see off the wall.

Of course, sprinkled in among these incidents have been a lot of positive customer service experiences as well, but of course it’s the misadventures that make for the better stories. So, what are your tales of retail woe? Good, bad or funny, they’re always interesting to hear. –K.H.