Annette’s First Hunt – Why Go Hunting At All?
I’ve never hunted.
Unlike many of you, who shot your first gun as a child and have fond memories of hunting with usually Dad, sometimes Mom, I didn’t start shooting until I had long moved out of my parents’ house. While I grew up in a community where plenty of people hunted, and I even developed a taste for venison while still in grade school, hunting wasn’t something that we did.
I started shooting because I thought that every girl should know how to fire a gun. I had no real goal at first except for learning how to shoot, which then gravitated towards the self-defense and competition worlds because they seemed to make the most sense with my city and suburban life. Besides, all of the various hunting seasons and rules seemed a little confusing, requiring a lot of effort.

Competing is what I know and love best…at least for now…
Until this year.

Friendly, ladies-only learning and hunting event? I can’t wait! – (photo credit: Calibered Events)
I care more about where my food comes from. Wild game is the ultimate local, organic, free-range meat source. I’m cooking more these days and as I get older, I find that I want to eat a little less junk food. I don’t always go out of my way to find health food, but I am working on making wiser food decisions, and that can be as simple as buying apples from the orchard down the street instead of from across the country. While my first hunt will be a released shoot, the ducks are bred specifically for hunting by the facility where we’ll be shooting. That means the birds will have been raised less than an hour from my home.

I love local produce and eggs, but local meat can be a little harder to find
I’ve never done it before. Stepping into the gun world has been a series of one new thing after another. That’s one of the parts I enjoy the most – the fact that there is so much diversity tied together by the common denominator of “devices that throw projectiles”. Over the years, that’s let me try everything from archery field courses to long-distance rifle matches. Now it is duck hunting’s turn.

I’m breaking out my new Beretta 1301 to try this new shooting activity

A release hunt is a bit more controlled, with a better chance to learn about the entire hunting experience under supervision (credit: M&M Hunting & Sporting Clays)