Freelance
Featured Articles
Goose Hunt For The Girls
Diversity In The Outdoors
Choosing a Girl’s First Big Game Rifle
Sitting in a pit blind has its drawbacks. The daily scenes of the outdoor world are the greatest thrill of hunting. It’s like a real-life nature film playing out in IMAX 3D right in front of you. On a waterfowl hunt last November, I watched otters playing on the ice edge and a bald eagle soaring over the brook. I would have missed these scenes entirely had I been in a pit.
SOME TEND to focus on the differences of the color of our skin, gender or even what specific outdoor pursuit we prefer. But the best way to increase diverse participation (well, really participation in general) in hunting and fish-ing is to connect with different communities and invite them to go with us.
2019 OWAA Excellence in Craft 1st Place, Gear/Technical Blog
For youth hunters in Colorado, 12 is a magic number—it’s the first year that a kid is eligible to hunt for big game in the Centennial State. With my daughter marking this notable birthday this past spring, we knew it was time to get her first hunting rifle.
Reconnecting with the Great Outdoors
How to Practice Shooting Your Rifle for a Hunt
USA Today Hunt & Fish “Sharing the Legacy”
For many military veterans, hunting and fishing are activities that were integral to their youth; the skills learned in the field translate well to military service. But being on active duty often means missing hunting or fishing season, and in some cases, returning from deployment with physical or emotional challenges may make rediscovering solace in nature an insurmountable hurdle…
The fall of 2018 was a big step for me in my journey as a hunter. After many years shooting shotguns and upland bird and turkey hunting, I actually had a big game tag in my pocket.
Thanks to the generosity of Weatherby, Inc. I was going to be hunting pronghorn antelope during the Wyoming Women’s Antelope Hunt in mid-October…
The frost on the evergreens sparkled as the sun slowly emerged, bringing a remarkable sense of déjà vu as I recalled mornings in my youth looking out over the brook behind my parents’ house. Yet, this morning I was introducing my own child to the goose hunt. My dad was with us, and my daughter was carrying his 20-gauge shotgun, which had plenty of wear after decades of use…
USA Today Department of Agriculture "Next Gen Farmers"
The Upland Almanac - Blame it on the Rain
Range365 - Clay Shooting Tips for Women
When Casey Cox was finishing her undergraduate degree in natural resource conservation at the University of Florida in 2013, she wasn’t sure whether returning to her family’s Longleaf Ridge Farms in Camilla, Ga., was the life path she should follow. Cox, now 26, is an only child who grew up learning about growing corn and peanuts from her father, whose family had farmed along Georgia’s Flint River for generations…
How many times will hunters go on a hot, early season hunt that’s tough on their dogs and without seeing many birds before they just decide to give up?” asks Steve Belinda, Executive Director of the North American Grouse Partnership…
2018 – POMA Outstanding Achievement Pinnacle Award, 3rd place OWAA Excellence in Craft Award – Gear/Technical Blog Category
When I was young, my grandfather and his buddies had a trap and skeet club. We spent many wonderful hours with friends and family at “Happy Acres” enjoying big parties and, of course, shooting. As I got older, I got instruction from my dad and many other good intentioned shooters at the club, many of whom were outstanding shots. Not a lot of the women or girls ever shot that much so it was a bit of a novelty to have a female enjoying time on the range….
Range365 - A Girl’s First Shotgun
The Upland Almanac - Beyond Shrinking and Pinking
Range365 - Shotguns for Women
2017 – OWAA Excellence in Craft 1st Place, Gear/Technical Blog and 3rd Place Family Participation/Youth Blog
I have a vivid memory of the first shotgun I used for hunting when I was a child. It was a single-shot .410 hammer gun that I used to hunt rabbits and squirrels, and I had to cock the hammer before each shot. If I didn’t fire the gun after cocking it, I had to release the hammer by holding it firmly with my thumb while pulling the trigger, then gently, carefully letting the hammer down. There was at least one time when my little hands didn’t quite get the coordination and I misfired the gun and scared myself (and everyone around me) half to death. My brother shot a pump-action Remington 870 youth gun, but it was heavy and kicked hard enough that I never wanted to use it…
2017 – 1st Place OWAA Excellence in Craft, Gear/Technical Magazine Category
My first hunting coat, a gift from my uncle, was made of camouflage cotton duck. I wore it with pride on my first rabbit and goose hunts. As a 10-year-old, I cared less that the coat came from the boys’ department than the fact that it marked my first official foray in the field. However, as I got older, things changed; or more accurately, I changed…
2017 – 2nd Place OWAA Excellence in Craft, Gear/Technical Blog Category
These days, it’s good to be a woman getting into hunting and the shooting sports. With the recently reported uptick in hunters and shooters who happen to be of the female persuasion, many outdoor companies are taking notice and developing technical products designed specifically for women. For those of us who got our start wearing boys’ hunting clothes or borrowing our brother’s shotguns, this is one trend that we can all get behind….
Outdoor Life - Colorado’s Big Secret: Public Hunting Land That’s Closed to Public Hunting
Outdoor Life - Healthy Sagebrush Sea
2016 – 1st Place OWAA Excellence in Craft, Hunting Blog Category
Four years ago, we were driving through some country roads outside of Craig, Colorado, scouting for elk. Using our Colorado Atlas, we found a block of BLM land and let our bird dog out to stretch her legs. Within a hundred yards of the car, she flushed a covey of sage grouse. We were a week out of the season and weren’t prepared for grouse hunting, so we inked a big star on the map where the grouse flushed…
2016 – POMA Outstanding Achievement Pinnacle Award
As the sun rose over the mountains in the distance, life in the sagebrush flats awakened. A pack of coyotes yipped and howled to our left as the songbirds sang loudly. We were hunting on Bureau of Land Management land in northwest Colorado to see if we could find sage grouse during the state’s one-week season…
Publications
USA Today/Studio Gannett
The Upland Almanac
Range365
- How to Zero Your Rifle for a Hunt
- How to Practice Shooting Your Rifle for a Hunt
- Best New Hunting Rifles of 2020
- SIG Sauer CROSS: Best New Hunting Rifle of SHOT 2020
- Change Your Range – Cleaning Up Public Shooting Ranges
- Mother’s Day 2018: Gifts For Moms Who Shoot
- Range Bag Loadout: Hunting Rifles
- Choosing a Girl’s First Big Game Rifle
- Beretta Off Shot Hearing Protection: Gear Test
- Clay Shooting Tips for Women
- Gun Test: Beretta A300 Outlander Turkey Gun
- Best New Shotguns For 2017
- SHOT Show 2017 Range Day: New Guns and Gear
- Shotguns for Women: Gun Test
- A Girl’s First Shotgun
- Beretta Vittoria O/U
- Mauser M18 – the “People’s Rifle”
- Caesar Guerini’s newest shotguns
- Syren’s new L4S Women’s Shotgun
- Sako’s New Rifles
- 5.11 Tactical’s Concealed Carry women’s products
- Franchi’s new bolt action rifle
- The ZORE Gun Lock
- Silver State Apparel’s CCW clothing for women
- Girls With Guns Range Clothing
Petersen's Hunting
Sporting Classics
SHOT Daily/SHOT Business
- SHOT Business – Diving In: The Emerging Women’s Market
- 2020 SHOT Daily – NSSF Launches Online University
- 2019 SHOT Daily – Let’s Go Shooting
- 2019 SHOT Daily – The Big Shift
- 2019 SHOT Daily – Tapping a New Market
- 2019 SHOT Daily – Bring on the Funk
- 2019 SHOT Daily – In Her Sights
- 2018 SHOT Daily – Living La Vida Locavore
Beretta Blog
Field & Stream/Outdoor Life
- Trump, Clinton’s Representatives Speak on Sportsmen’s Issues of Public Land, the Second Amendment, Conservation, and Climate Change
- Colorado’s Big Secret: Public Hunting Land That’s Closed to Public Hunting
- Healthy Sagebrush Sea: The Real Goal of Sage Grouse Conservation
- The Pheasant Cultivators
- Sage Grouse Will Not Require Protection Under Endangered Species Act