The Female Factor

From our September/October 2025 Issue

Apparently Meta knows that I appreciate sharing marsh blinds and upland coverts with women hunters. Why else would my Facebook account, under the guise of “People You May Know,” be sprinkled with pictures of armed women posing with bird dogs and camo-clad ladies hugging retrievers? I find this trend of women heading afield not the least bit disturbing, as female participants have helped grow the ranks of what has been largely a man’s sport. It’s the best thing that could have happened.

That’s because sport hunting’s future depends on the recruitment of new blood as well as the retention and reactivation of old blood. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which surveys the nation’s hunters and anglers every five years or so, the number of females who hunted in 2022 (the most recent year the survey was conducted) was double that of earlier surveys going back to 1991. Compared to 9 percent of America’s men who hunt, fully 2 percent of the nation’s women now hunt too.

If that doesn’t seem like much, consider the actual number: 3.1 million women! Their contribution to economic clout? Women on average went hunting nine times each and spent $1,683 ($1,074 on trips; $609 on equipment).

I’ve spent a lot of time introducing others to hunting, including wives and daughters, while seeing to it that they had the right clothing and gear and practiced safety and ethics. With tongue in cheek, I used to chide my friends that if their girlfriends or wives hadn’t been introduced to hunting when young, they could forget it. Wrong! The 2022 survey found that 48 percent of new hunters (both men and women) were at least 21 years old. The takeaway: It’s never too late to inculcate a newbie.

One of my favorite hunting pals is Lynn, a 77-year-old wildlife artist. When she was a child, Lynn’s father taught her to hunt pheasants over springer spaniels. For many years she has owned and trained yellow Labradors. In the field we alternate between her flushing dogs and my pointers.

Another friend is Gordon Allen, who illustrates this column. His mother will be 99 when you read this. One of Gordon’s fondest memories of her is hunting ducks on weekends at their rustic place on Wye Island, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “She always wore red lipstick to the blind,” he recalled, “and when ducks started working the decoys, she would suck in her lips, so as not to flare the birds.”

My kind of duck hunter.