Women on the Wing – Learn to Hunt and Shoot
Press Release published in the Walla Walla Union Bulletin 29 May 2022
The threat of rain didn’t stop twenty-three enthusiastic women from arriving at the Walla Walla Gun Club on April 30th, 2022, for a Blue Mountain Pheasants Forever (BMPF) Women on the Wing (WotW) event that was not to be missed.
The Learn to Hunt and Shoot event was the second in a lineup of events across the calendar year aimed to encourage women to explore upland hunting and provide them with the tools to succeed and experience the enjoyment of the uplands. Additionally, given conservation is the foundation of Pheasants Forever’s missions, habitat identification and enhancement are focal points of the WotW program.
The morning kicked off with discussions led by the WotW Steering Committee on what drew this varied group of conservation leaders into upland hunting, followed by gear, gun dogs, finding good pheasant cover, and the value of conservation.
Guest speaker Corrie Thorne-Hadley, Private Lands Biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), presented her experience being a lady in the field who works one of the most important programs to sportsmen and women – the private lands access program. Corrie works with landowners to enroll their acreage into one of several types of public access including “feel free to hunt”, “hunt by written permission”, and “hunt by reservation”.
Corrie walked the participants through WDFW’s online hunt planner tools and hunt reservation system, and provided insight into the varied signage seen around the private lands open to the public and how to respect those lands, given access is a privilege. In closing, Corrie presented her habitat enhancement duties and cooperation with BMPF to make on-the-ground improvements on local properties.
Throughout the morning, WotW Steering Committee Chair, Kelly Merrick, broke up the discussions with trivia and prizes to those who could answer habitat-related questions such as “What three things do pheasant need to survive”? The answer? Food, water, and shelter – the three basic survival components of all living beings. Kelly used this question to segue into a deeper dive on habitat identification.
The morning concluded with a feast of homemade pheasant stew and brats off the grill, and with their tanks full, the participants moved right into firearms safety and shooting technique training with Bob Bloch of the Walla Walla Gun Club.
Shooting technique is more complicated than just shouldering the gun and squeezing the trigger, suffice it to say that if the eye, barrel, and bead are not all in perfect alignment, target acquisition will suffer. As the participants split into two groups – one experienced and the other inexperienced – trap shooting began under various levels of coaching.
The inexperienced group was afforded one-on-one coaching for proper shoulder placement of the shotgun butt, proper eye alignment down the barrel, and assistance with “picking up” the clay as it sailed straight away from the trap house. For some, the event provided their first clay-shooting experience, while others had never shot at all.
At the end of the day, everyone walked away better equipped and energized for the upcoming upland bird season. Be it wingshooting mechanics, habitat considerations, hunt planning tools, or a combination of all aspects, the Learn to Hunt and Shoot event was a great success.
Join BMPF Saturday June 11th at 10:00am for the WotW Hike for Habitat Scavenger Hunt at Bennington Lake in Walla Walla, WA. Online registration is at Women on the Wing – Hike for Habitat Scavenger: Sat, Jun 11, 2022 (myeventscenter.com). For more information, contact the WotW Committee Chairperson, Kelly Merrick at WOW@bmpf258.org.
