Having been born and raised in Detroit, my exposure to hunting and other outdoor activities was limited. Fortunately I have a father who included me on his frequent fishing trips. It was the time he spent teaching me as a young girl to bait my own hooks, and remove my own fish that nurtured my confidence and desire for self-sufficience. It was these qualities that later in life helped me to achieve goals which I had set for myself; Goals that very few women would aspire for. At times while my other friends preferred being at the mall, I could be found bowfishing around the flats of Lake Erie, or hunting squirrels in the north woods. What started out as an enjoyable pasttime, has now grown into more of an obsession for me. Hunting and fishing is much more than a hobby, it's a lifestyle as well as a means of subsistence for my husband Matt and I. While others are content buying their meat from a butcher, we eat only that which we hunt.

Hunting came naturally to me. As a child, I remember fashioning crude bows from the limbs torn from my mother's bushes. I spent countless hours digging pit traps behind the garage of my parents house, and fashioning barbed hooks from the pins found in my mothers sewing kit. As a hunter-wannabe stuck in the city, I would sit on the curb for hours, hoping to catch one of the turtles or alligators that I just knew were lurking in the storm drains. Even with no exposure to a hunting lifestyle, it still burned within me. To this day I still have a tattered copy of a second grade paper I had written, describing how I had hunted lion and bear. Perhaps it was my teachers comments of "you were brave" along with the gold star on top of that paper that further fueled my desire. I am convinced that there is some genetic predisposition in those of us who pursue hunting with so much passion.

Over the past 20 years or so, I've been blessed with the opportunity to hunt elk and mule deer in Montana and Colorado; bear, deer, turkey and waterfowl in Michigan; deer in Ohio; hogs, deer, turkey, javelina, waterfowl, varmints and exotics in Texas; and hogs, deer and turkey in Oklahoma. While I hunt strictly with traditional archery equipment now, I have hunted with a compound bow for years. Naturally, the desire to put meat in the freezer led to an interest in firearms, and through the years I've hunted upland birds with my Citori , waterfowl with my Browning A-5, hogs with my Colt Anaconda, and squirrels and rabbits with my Ruger 10/22. I've also taken a tactical handgunning course in preparation for the CCW application process, and spent too many hours at the range shooting metallic silhouettes with a Colt AR-15. None of these compare to the thrill of hunting with a stick and string though. There's just something about hunting animals with primitive equipment that seems to make it that much more fulfilling.

My interest in hunting is not confined to the shooting range or the field however. While I enjoy spending most of my time outdoors, I see the need to educate other women and children who don't hunt. The future of hunting is precarious at best, and the only way to change that is by influencing the opinion of the non-hunting majority. As an International Bowhunting Education Program instructor I incorporate a big dose of ethics into my courses. The mere mention of gun laws or anti-hunting legislation stirs me to political activism as well. I have dedicated entire seasons passing out literature, and have given up evenings in the deer stand in exchange for a bear costume while handing out literature while trying to defeat Proposal D in Michigan a few years back. I may played a small part in influencing just one person's decision to vote against anti-hunting legislation, but that one vote could have made the difference.

Presently, I am a medical researcher during the week, but on the weekends my husband Matt and I guide hog hunts on our ranch in Oklahoma. I am honored to be a part of this fine hunting site, and hope my contributions will measure up to those of the other women here. If nothing else, I hope I can help encourage other women who may not have yet had the courage to get out in the woods and enjoy what has traditionally been a man's sport.

May the wind always be in your favor... Cheryl