Mandy Webb

• 

After being told that women couldn’t hunt, hang a stand, field dress a deer, or clean a gun, I jumped in with both feet. I spend over 150 days a year in camo waiting on whitetails and turkeys. When I'm not in the woods, I'm writing articles and working as Editor and contributing writer for Woman Hunter Magazine, a hunting magazine for women. After marrying a hard-core hunter, I had to hunt if I wanted to spend any time with him. However, I quickly learned that I would rather hunt alone. I love him, but I have my own way of doing things – not better – just different. I have traveled to Canada to hunt bear and caribou without his watchful eyes, and instead of being intimidated, I was in utter paradise. Seclusion.There was no one telling me that I shouldn’t be there, or asking where my husband was. I was an equal and the feeling of accomplishment when both of my ca! ribou dropped in their tracks was surreal. I receive emails from women from around the world that want to experience the thrill of hunting, but they don’t know how to start, or they have been told most of their lives that the women don’t belong in the woods. I love telling them about my hunts and the journeys I have experienced. It gives them hope.They are then eager to join the millions of other women that have experienced an elk’s bugle in the early morning light, a turkey’s gobble, the grunt of a whitetail, or the sight of a bear silently walking through the woods. Although harvesting an animal is an adrenaline rush, hunting is about much more than the harvest alone. As an unseen guest in the natural habitats of God’s creatures, we can observe animal encounters which grant us a better understanding of what we hunt. I am a 32 year old mother, wife, and hunter. I am proud of who I am, and although my hair color might change, or I might gain or lose a few pounds, I will always be a hunter; that will never change.