The future of women’s shooting sports

“Are you here to shoot or to watch?” That was my question to eight-year-old Hailey Proffitt at Sunday’s USPSA pistol match at East Alabama Gun Club in Phenix City, Alabama.

“I’m here to watch,” Hailey replied. But it wasn’t long before she had a string of pasters ready to paste targets as soon as the range officer called the range clear.  Of course, that was after donning her Howard Leight ear and eye protection. Hailey has her own gear. Wow!

Dad Jason told me he can’t go to the range without her. “I let her shoot my 9 mm, but it’s just too much for her,” Jason said when I asked if he had considered letting her compete as a junior shooter.  Mark Kauder, EAGC’s range manager, informed us that they permit .22s on the range–just perfect for junior shooters and would-be shooters like Hailey.

With the speed of youth and intensity of a young woman on a mission, Hailey pasted targets at each stage, making our downtime between shooters minimal. Unlike many kids her age, Hailey wasn’t content to wander off to explore, or sit in the shade to play an electronic game.  No, ma’am . . .  she was all business, thank you.

Hailey is also a super helper when dad Jason reloads for his matches. She will separate the brass after cleaning and have it ready to be resized and loaded up. She knows every component of ammunition reloading.

Hailey says, “Dad teaches me safety first. I don’t do anything unless he is with me, or I ask.”

As for the future of women’s shooting sports, Hailey is it, along with all the other young girls just like her. It’s up to us (parents, mentors, friends, media, manufacturers and industry associations) to help out in any way we can to promote their development and elevate their interest.

And I want Hailey on my squad. I say get that little gal a .22 pistol, and let’s get her shooting some pistol matches. I certainly hope that the next time I shoot a match at EAGC, I get to shoot on Hailey’s squad, er, I mean Hailey’s dad’s squad.

Narrow minds, ignorance and YOU

Narrow minds judge what they do not understand, and this thinking leads the way to ignorance. Today, question and learn something that you are against or don’t agree with. Keep an open mind, and remember you don’t have to agree. You just need to gather information and listen.

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.”

–Bertrand Russell.

As a personal development expert, I know these thoughts will help workplace conflict resolution and will increase productivity.

Contribute articles, photos to the Range Report

The Range Report, published by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, is a quarterly magazine distributed to a 10,000-plus readership made up primarily of club officers and range managers and staff. Its intent is to offer information that will help range owners, operators and officers manage their shooting facilities in a professional, environmentally and legally sound manner while providing their shooters with an optimum experience. The magazine covers good business practices, community involvement, legislation and other topics of importance to the range administrator.

In addition to regular departments authored and edited by staff, The Range Report features articles and photographs contributed by freelancers. Features should be aimed at the readership and goals described above. All article proposals should begin with a query sent to rangereport@nssf.org. The Range Report generally pays $500 for feature article copy and additional for any photographs submitted by the author, whether or not he or she is the photographer, that are used in the layout. Range-related photography will also be considered for immediate or future purchase if submitted to rangereport@nssf.org.

See contributor guidelines for more details.

The Heartbeat of The WOMA: Let’s get our pulse rate up

When we started the framework for the Women’s Outdoor Media Association (thewoma.com) during fall 2008 we realized that the association’s website would be the “heart,” the gathering spot for all who are members, potential members and curious spectators as well. It would be the stories, photos, video, blogs and podcasts coming from the members that would provide the “heartbeat” for the website.

First let me state for the record that our webmaster, Paige Eissenger, along with president, Barb Baird, work tirelessly to keep The WOMA’s heart in good shape. Thanks to both of you ladies for your “pay it forward” attitude! Thanks, also, to Bill Bowers, editor extraordinaire, who does the lion’s share of editing behind the scenes at the site.

Then there are the rest of the members of the board members, along with general members, who throughout our first year of operation in 2009 put forth a great deal of effort moving The WOMA forward in both the outdoor media community and the mainstream media community as well. My thanks to all of you for your generous contributions, whether relating to volunteer time, scholarship dollars, and/or media pieces at many levels.

As chair, I am excited about what 2010 brings as we take the training wheels off The WOMA and start to pedal full speed ahead! I like the motivation of our new membership committee, led by Melita Ellington – a very self-directed group pedaling hard right from the start of this new year. And this new committee made me wonder if we shouldn’t be forming another side group who are willing to approach every member, every month, for a new media piece? In the meantime, I encourage you to give us a link to another “heartbeat” you may have going on in a radio interview, article, blog, social event – it all counts as valuable media exercise!

For information on how to post your news at The WOMA, go the Members Only page and scroll down to the “Information for Members” section, and in particular, the “Login to The WOMA and Create a Post.” You may contact either Bill Bowers or Barbara Baird if you have problems posting your news.~Deb Ferns

The Women’s Outdoor Media Association is about men and women communicating through a variety of media forms with topics relating to women in shooting sports, hunting, fishing and archery.

Campwildgirls isn’t what she thought …

Talk about networking … it all started when The WOMA member and very popular blogger Jody Narantic mentioned in a post at her blog (The Hunter’s Wife) that she thought The WOMA member Terri Lee Pocernich’s site name might be a little on the risqué side of things. She wrote this blog post, “Camp Wild Girls Isn’t What I Thought,” and that led to Terri Lee liking that concept and using it in the video you can see in the right hand column. In fact, Terri Lee is planning on expanding on that marketing theme.

In the video, you’ll also see The WOMA members outdoor freelance writer/editor Tammy Ballew, Team Huntress Coordinator Jane Keller and Madame Doeville, aka Kim Pezzeminti. Tammy is the blonde elk hunting with Terri Lee,  Jane is the woman in the camo jacket by the ATV and Kim is the archer at the end of the video. This is one of many success stories we hope to report during the next year of The WOMA!

It’s really a story of cross promotion that is not only working, but also helps promote friendship and healthy business relationships among all four women.

Personal and employee relationships

Managers manage things. Leaders lead people. Focus on building relationships from a leadership perspective. It IS about them. Start today, because every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.

Engraved in stone . . . er, skin

Jay Leno’s guest one night was actor Johnny Depp, who told the following story. Mr. Depp was once in a romantic relationship with actress Winona Ryder. During this time, he had the words “Winona forever” tattooed on his body.

Alas, the relationship with Ms. Ryder turned out not to be forever. The bad news is that tattoos are pretty much permanent. The good news is that skilled tattoo artists can often alter existing tattoos.

Mr. Depp has a sense of humor, and his tattoo artist had some conveniently ordered letters to work with and artfully covered a couple of them with some new ink. The tattoo apparently now reads: “Wino forever.”

I don’t have any tattoos. (My lovely wife, Eileen, has a delicate dragonfly tattoo, placed carefully where she can display it or cover it, as she chooses.) Anyone who decides to have words tattooed had better make sure the tattoo artist has a dictionary handy.

Here are some new editorial funnies with which to test yourself.

5. David W. Johnson is described as David A. Paterson’s closest confidante, despite arrests in the aide’s past and disputes with women that drew the police.

4. And, no, Lloyd Blankfein getting a bonus of “only” $9 million this year won’t diffuse the populist outrage.

3. Anyone who thinks famous pro athletes are monogamous (even married ones) are delusional.

2. After realizing he could build a better bullet, the Nosler Partition came into being.

1. Being a small country of 5.5 million people, I was surprised to learn that it is home to more than 40,000 red deer, as well as a host of other game animals.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. It’s hard holding off on such a big buck, but for TV, everything has to be just right, or all the effort is for not.

Wrong word; should be naught, which is synonymous with nothing.

4. We are a custom components manufacture for the shooting industry. We specialize in manufacturing custom parts for archery, black power, firearms, reloading equipment and more.

Should be manufacturer. Hmm, shades of Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton–I’m dating myself here. In the 1960s, the leftist Black Panther Party agitated for black power. Here, this should be blackpowder. (Many outdoor books and magazines spell this as one word.)

3. Bernanke, needlessly appointed by Obama to a second term, has become the lightening rod for popular frustration at the Wall Street bias of this administration.

Wrong word; should be lightning. Lightening means making lighter.

2. Intended to be a straight acting role, four musical numbers were added to further take advantage of Elvis’s popularity as a singer.

Excuse me, but your modifier is dangling. This says that the musical numbers were intended to be a straight acting role. (Huh?) Rewritten thus: Though the part was intended to be a straight acting role, . . .

1. The guide’s calls drew a response, and when we moved a bit our binoculars saw a big stutter in the field, fanned out in the sun in all his glory.

Should be strutter, as in a tom turkey strutting his stuff, trying to impress the hens.

Check out local auctions for vintage outdoor items

“Hey lady, point your finger one more time and that’ll be yours!” said a guy next to me who noticed how my animated conversation with my pal at a country auction was attracting the attention of the auctioneer. (I think I was inadvertently bidding on a garden tiller. No problem—we could use that.)

“This is the epitome of country auctions,” exclaimed my pal from Westphalia, as we stood in the morning sunshine surrounded by lots of other bargain hunters. My pal had mentioned something about an estate auction, and since I had the day free, I tooled on up the highway along with my husband, my daughter and her friend to the little burg of Westphalia.

Ever since my first outing to an Ozarks country auction more than 30 years ago, I’ve been hooked. These events not only play host to incredible bargains, but also afford the opportunity to get immersed in the culture of that particular neck of the woods for a while.

There’s just something special about country auctions, the kind where you actually go to the property where the folks who are parting with their treasures live or once lived. When I first attended a country auction about 30 years ago, I wound up buying a three-piece bedroom suite (which stayed in the basement of my in-laws’ place for at least three years before I could retrieve it), an old curling iron and an iron. Both appliances were pre-electricity era—in other words, totally useless.

Unfortunately, according to the auctioneer, these types of on-site auctions are on the way out. For the most part, folks today are having their stuff hauled to auction houses located in cities and towns. You know, it seems to me that this trend is not good. Country auctions are more than places to buy treasures and bargains. For those who live in the community where the auction is being held, auctions are places to see the folks they normally see at school functions, funerals and weddings. Usually, thanks to someone’s demise, the community comes together to help part and parcel off his goods, and to catch up on the latest news.

Country auctions are places where green Ozarkians such as myself can learn some stuff. For example, I’d never seen a mole trap before. I didn’t even know they existed. And the ice chopping tool? Who’d a thought something that looked like it belonged in the Gold Rush was really just used down the road at the local icehouse? Oh, and the sparrow traps were mighty interesting, too. I heard one Westphalian (who shall remain unnamed in these politically correct times of “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals”) say, “Why, it’s easier to shoot sparrows with a BB gun than to use one of the traps.”

Country auctions also teach oral history. For example, the family who held the auction had been in the house building business at least 100 years ago. Therefore, an assortment of wooden planes, vises and old tools adorned one tabletop. This station was really popular with the guys and their stories about why this or that was once used.

Boot racks, Christmas decorations, a wringer washer, along with stuff you’d normally throw out—you’ll see it all at a country auction. You’ll also see more people standing around talking at country auctions than actually bidding on the stuff.

Hey, if the stuff isn’t interesting, the people sure are. I’ve been to large cities and down in the subways of large cities and not seen such interesting looking characters. There are always the serious bidders, the ones who wear their bidding numbers like trout tags on their ball caps and carry boxes of flotsam and jetsam around. Then there’s the crazy-looking woman in green flowery stretch pant shorts, with a green straw hat on her head and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. The old men sit in the shade in ancient web-woven lawn chairs  and little boys run around poking their fingers into places that could be dangerous, while their parents trust  guardian angels to do their jobs.

All in all, it’s a great mix. It’s a fun day, and if you’re lucky, you’ll come away with a treasure or two—usually something you had no idea that you needed until you saw it. Take for example an auction I attended a while back, where for some reason I had to get the WWII German style gas mask. (It makes a great toilet paper cover in the guest bathroom.)

And I’m pretty sure we’ll find a use for the corn scythe I purchased. If not, it’ll look good outside by the old wagon wheel. ~Barbara Baird

Social Media for Our Professional Lives

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dr. Kathleen King of Transformation Education LLC since 2006 when we met at the Online International Podcasting Expo.  Kathy had just started The Teacher’s Podcast with co-host Mark Gura and I was in my first year of podcasting with Views from the Coop, a tech podcast aimed at non-tekkies.  That online meeting led to more online meetings and before we knew it, we were co-producing and co-hosting Transformation Education LIVE on Blog Talk Radio. What started as a podcast focused on the transformation occurring in education due to technology has evolved into a podcast about the transformation technology has made in our business and personal lives, too. We’ve talked about everything from the WII to meeting the love of your life in a chatroom.

Just before Thanksgiving of 2009, Kathy and I recorded our first face-to-face podcast about online relationships in San Antonio, Texas where she was speaking to a group of educators about podcasting at the Acoustical Society of America convention .  She invited me to be her videographer and I jumped at the chance to finally meet her in person.

I invite you to listen to our latest podcast about using social media in a professional setting. You can also read the show notes on the Transformation Education site where the podcast is also available.  If you’ve been wondering how social media can impact your business, we can tell you!

LISTEN NOW!

Fishing for compliments, OR women warriors on the water

My adoring husband was the first to spur my interest in fly fishing. Before the first summer we vacationed on Rock Creek, one of Western Montana’s blue-ribbon trout streams, Brad encouraged me to sign up for an informative fly-tying and casting class in Fullerton, California, near where we lived.

All well and good; nice to have the background, but once into the waders and halfway across the slippery rocks in the raging current, and whoa . . . pardon me, but how was I supposed to lay that line again? Mend it? Hold it high when the brown trout bends it? As a savvy fly fisherwoman, I was all wet—literally and figuratively. Those belts around the waistline of your waders, ladies—they do not keep the water out of your socks.

Okay, so here I am five years later, having fished Rock Creek every summer for two weeks. Now we are living (yes, the dream came true) in the woods just west of Missoula, in that log home we’d only imagined while under the influence of the notion that we might someday land the winning lottery ticket. Our rods are always rigged and ready at the back door. I am getting better all the time while reading in the local paper, The Missoulian, that more and more women have taken up the sport.

“It’s not about muscle; it’s about physics,” says the 2007, 2008 and 2009 winner of the Missoula Independent’s award for Best Fishing Guide, Stacy Jennings, who also teaches women’s and co-ed college courses on fly-fishing fundamentals at the University of Montana.

While reading about her, little do I know she will alter the future of my fly. Although the spirit is willing, the cast has been somewhat stuck in, shall we say, muddy water—those bad muscle memory habits we all adopt along with any sport we endeavor to master.

Before long, I am forward casting and backcasting and false casting, and yes, occasionally even catching, but never with the dry fly and only with the nymph as it drifts behind me. What a drag! I hear fellow anglers muse on having witnessed the rise of the rainbow they then “set” with their Stimulator. Even wearing distance glasses and polarized lenses, I never see this.

“You need to cast much farther away from yourself,” admonishes Brad. “No fish is going to go for a dry fly that close to you!”

So I do, wanting to measure up to the men in my family, who have fished since they emerged from the womb like bugs hatching. That’s when the knots tangle and in no time, that old muscle memory kicks in that screams of avoiding such hassle, and I am back to the shorter line length. Time for another lesson.

When we first moved to the environs of Missoula, I noticed the brochure at our local fly shop hangout—our favorite in town, The Kingfisher. The familiar face of the young, athletic woman on the cover reminded me that I had seen her advertisement in the rental office on Rock Creek: Stacy Jennings Fly Fishing Schools.

I liked her vest; she looked lovely; she had my blonde hair; her warm smile looked—important for me—forgiving. The caption reads, “Stacy demonstrates Joan Wulff’s casting mechanics.” Wulff is the 5’2” wonder woman who was National Casting champion from 1943-1960 and elected into the IFGA Hall of Fame in 2007. In the otherwise all-male National Fisherman’s Distance Casting Event, she won by casting a fly 161 feet.

Under that caption is the quote,  “One of my favorite experiences in fly fishing is the anticipation of a big fish taking a well-presented fly.” I would like to share that favorite! But it’s this line on her business card that cinches the deal: “Fishing instruction for women, children, and well-behaved men.” Perhaps I could best Brad! This was going to be fun.

Stacy teaches a couple of hundred students each year. She developed the curriculum for and taught the annual Women’s Fly-Fishing Clinic and Expo, sponsored by Missoula’s Westslope Chapter of Trout Unlimited, where participants were given the opportunity to learn or improve their fly-fishing skills.  She is a graduate of Joan Wulff’s instructor’s school in New York and therefore hones the secret to casting without waking up the next morning with a paralyzed shoulder.

Brad had a tape of Wulff’s style somewhere in his collection. I’d never watched it, being that impatient person who, rather than researching, hurls her line and self into the process. He had barely been able to talk me into taking that class in Fullerton before I was hip-deep in high water trying it out for myself. I never read instructions and can’t ever follow diagrams of fishing knots.

Then Brad procured the final piece of the dream—the McKenzie wooden drift boat. That did it; I called Stacy Jennings and she had us on the Blackfoot River, oars at work, to show us the ropes. It was better than the lottery dream. I no longer needed to watch A River Runs Through It for my graceful casting fix. I’d been the star of my own river experience—and plenty of catch-and-release to show for it.

A few months later, my daughter Katharine visited from Scottsdale, Arizona. I had instructed her when we’d been on Rock Creek (the blind bad habits corrupting the blind novice). Determined to excel, we enrolled in Stacy’s women’s spring clinic on a beach of the Blackfoot River. In our minds, this was the quintessential mother-daughter date. Who needed boutique shopping when there was tangible superiority over men within our grasp?

June 6 dawned a dark, rainy Saturday that followed on the heels of five straight sunny days with temperatures in the high seventies. We loaded up the car with raingear and 5-weight fly rods. Stacy and her teaching companion from the Bitterroot, Jenny West, would provide the rest.

Little did we know that “the rest” included a morning of hot tea and extensive handout guidelines provided by Jenny, bug education and knot tying tricks offered by both women, a gourmet luncheon (and a pile of extra fleece jackets) prepared by Stacy, and an afternoon of perfecting the effortless cast, all levels depending on the angler’s skill. I couldn’t wait to tie on my own tippet with a surgeon’s knot three times as efficiently as he, next time Brad and I prepped for fishing.

“Why do all the men in my family make such a big deal about getting their rods rigged?” Katharine wondered as she referred to her father’s and brothers’ endless fuss involving various knot-tying apparatus. We were empowered; no longer would we have to rely on them to ready us for the catch. Or the cast.

Our afternoon was spent at the river’s edge, perfecting Wulff’s wondrous wizardry.

“She learned early on that she needed to do things differently; if she was going to cast farther than anyone else in the world, she’d need a more efficient cast,” Stacy explained the method to her mechanics madness. Whereas in the traditional “hinge” method, in which the casting arm bends laterally at the elbow, with little or no up-and-down movement of the arm, Wulff’s casting technique incorporates her history as a dance teacher with an elliptical motion of the elbow, which is more natural, effective and less fatiguing, according to Stacy.

She and Jenny assisted each of us to improve on our past performance or to equip those newcomers to the sport. Either way, the verdict was unanimous; casting is a breeze—even in one.

“At dinner tonight, Katharine, congratulate your mom on her excellent single haul so your dad hears it; he will be so impressed!” Stacy, to whom humor in fishing is paramount, loves to hear about the playful banter in our family when we argue over the validity of the whitefish as a bona fide catch, or the notion that a fish hooked is a fish caught—one doesn’t need to actually net it to count it. This nugget of conversation about the single haul, aptly cast onto the surface of chatter over the evening meal, would guarantee Brad’s being amply impressed. Critics might say I was fishing for compliments, but why shouldn’t I after I’d learned how to be the best, from the best?

Tall, blonde, and blue-eyed (be still, all male anglers’ hearts; these two fly-fishing femmes fatales can still be hooked) Jenny West guides for several outfitters in the Bitterroot Valley, where she grew up. From the age of eight, she fished the river taught by her father in their green McKenzie drift boat (I knew I would like her). She has rowed down many whitewater rivers such as the Selway and the Colorado.

Jenny earned her business degree from Montana State in 1996, and dangled her little toe in the business world, but soon discovered that both big toes belonged in the river. This will be her ninth year guiding, and she loves to share the Bitterroot River experience by teaching people the art of fishing. She is also a member of the Hamilton City council and teaches women’s fly-fishing classes around the Bitterroot Valley.

“I call myself a memory maker on the river. Not only is my job to help clients learn the skills to catch fish, but also to put a smile on my client’s faces. It isn’t always about catching the biggest fish on the river. To me, it about the whole experience, from hearing the sound of the river, to becoming one with the fish, and looking at the beauty surrounding the journey of the day.”

The Bitterroot Chapter of Trout Unlimited, of which Jenny is a former board member, sees great benefit in sharing their mission through outreach, and sponsors a women’s clinic run by Jenny and Stacy twice a year. It’s typically held in May and August. Attendance is limited to 20, and the class is divided in half, Jenny teaching content, while Stacy focuses on casting mechanics, fishing techniques, reading water and hooking, playing and landing fish.

Both wily women worked on my cast. “Release the tension in your grip!” admonished Stacy.

“Slow it down,” instructed Jenny.

“Statue of Liberty!” they cried, in an effort to get me to lift my arm so that the back of my thumb tapped the bill of my cap.

“Tension, Kathleen, tension,” reminded Stacy. “Move the rod to your left hand and cast it—that will show you the tension in your right grip and the effect it is having on your presentation.” Right-handed by nature, unnaturally, I held the rod in my left hand and made a cast, achieving the distance and presentation to the water I deserved. Perfect.

At the end of an inspirational day, Katharine and I headed home. We couldn’t wait to drop our line at dinner, as Stacy had suggested.

“Mom,” Katharine dabbed her napkin to her mouth and cleared her throat, “your single haul today looked awesome!”

Brad’s fork stilled—we got a rise!

“Did she teach you that on your forward cast or your backcast?” he asked.

Foiled. Katharine giggled, as we didn’t have the ready response to that. A moment passed and even after I had the answer, “Forward,” in that brief delay our plan for perfection was thwarted. He’d bitten, but we’d hesitated to set the hook.

“And if it’s both on your forward and your backcast, it’s a double haul,” he added, reminding me that he was still the family expert in the field.

Just wait till we get out on the river; little does he know that I’m in this for the long haul.

For information and reservations please contact:

Stacy Jennings

Phone: (406) 370-4027

E-mail: flyfisher@myarbonne.com

Jenny West

Phone: (406) 363-3397.

E-mail: jennywest30@yahoo.com

The Kingfisher Fly Shop

Phone: (406) 721-6141

www.kingfisherflyshop.com

Kathleen Clary Miller is the author of 300 essays and stories that have appeared in such publications as Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, Orange Coast Magazine, Missoula Living, Flathead Living, The Johns Hopkins Memory Bulletin, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was a regular columnist for The Missoulian—Western Montana’s Daily Newspaper for  the last two years. Her current monthly column “Peaks and Valleys” appears in Montana Woman magazine. She has contributed to National Public Radio’s On Point. Visit her blog at kcmillersoutpost@blogspot.com

She lives in Huson, Montana and is a member of The WOMA.

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