so this is our third year doing the women's outdoor waterfowl hunt
we started this program because Sedge island it's the facility is a historic
duck hunting lodge so we thought it'd be really cool to bring back hunting
especially waterfowl hunting to the facility we get roughly 12 to 14 women and we usually
have a waiting list this year we have 13 women out here some of them it's their first time
hunting at all they just finished hunter ed and others have been long time lifetime hunters and
they just haven't tried waterfowl yet so we kind of wanted to have this program as an
introductory course for all women who would be interested in doing something like this
this is my third year out at such island i was part of the pioneer program that came
out here and learned so much and loved it so much that i was asked back
the third year to be a guide which is awesome passing my knowledge on to other women who
want to get interested in waterfowl hunting i mean i learned so much i love the sport it's
great just to be out there doing it whether we take home ducks or not it's an amazing experience
i was introduced into bird hunting about 15 years ago by new jersey fish and wildlife they
did a woman's pheasant hunt and i became an upland hunter and when i found out that they were doing a
waterfowl shoot i i had to jump in on it um and i've had dogs for about 15 years this is loki
and he's my third hunting dog and he does know how to retrieve ducks so i did know that but i
wasn't shooting them myself i was um doing it for retrieves for other people so i couldn't wait to
get out and learn how to do this sport myself so i came the first year and i loved it so much
i wanted to come back last year and this year to to share and to teach and to mentor other women
quack quack quack and then with with my hands as i'm blowing through to try and
kind of cup it and get them out there i'm blowing and then opening my hands
towards the end of that quack quack quack quack
so far it's been phenomenal i feel like i am around women who are encouraging and just
all around just want everyone to have a good time and can laugh and just encourage each other and
it's been great so far i started waterfowl hunting actually here on this island with this group i was
a turkey hunter before that and nobody else in my family hunts and i basically had to teach myself
so when i found this program it was amazing because i was able to learn how to do everything
for myself i love the fact that i can see women where i was two years ago and how much knowledge
i've gained and i'm just super excited to pass on everything that i've learned from this program
this hunt it started as a one night program two days and that just wasn't enough time
so we made it two nights so they come in thursday afternoon typically we do
more blind building and stuff like this but we tried a morning hunt on friday morning
and we had them go out and lay out floats lay out blinds and on land with other stand-up
blinds and they did a hunt like that they come back more instruction and an afternoon hunt and
then saturday morning we do a morning hunt and leave and we'll go over how to field dress the
birds will be having the birds for dinner tonight that they harvest so it's an a to z for waterfowl