Rachel Leitch an outdoors woman

Leitch a seventeen-year-old senior attending Moorhead High School lives with her mom and dad, Becky and Jay, and her twin brother, Forrest. Their home has a Northwoods theme and walls covered with mounts: white tail deer, mule deer, impala from Africa, bear, elk, bobcat, fallow deer, Himalayan tahr, caribou, wild boar from Texas and lots of fish and game birds.

Leitch is passionate about hunting, a sport which has taken her across the United States. “I grew up kind of a daddy’s girl,” Leitch said. “I guess it’s not surprising that I’d fall in love with hunting. It’s just a part of our family. My mom and dad went to Alaska on their honeymoon, flew out to a lake, and went ice spear fishing. Later, when mom was pregnant with my brother and me, they went to New Zealand hunting. They hunted fallow deer, wallaby and Himalayan tahr.

“Hunting is very important,” Leitch said. “I wish people knew how much good hunting does. People often think it is cruel. But hunting is much less painful than starvation or car crashes. There aren’t many natural predators anymore. So hunting keeps the animal populations balanced and prevents diseases.”

Leitch went on her first hunt when she was eight years old. “Dad and my brother and I went out to Black Swamp near Barnesville on a rainy morning and we sat in a little duck boat. We were hunting duck. My brother shot one first. Then dad said, ‘Come on Rachel. You can do it, too.’ And I shot a coot. It’s not a bird that most hunters want, partly because it doesn’t taste good. I was using a Remington 870, 20-gauge, and when it kicked I almost fell out of the boat.”

“When I was younger, I hunted with a crossbow,” Leitch said. “At first, I wasn’t strong enough to pull the crossbow string back, so my dad would cock it for me. One morning I was blow drying my hair for school and I heard a turkey outside. I ran and got my dad to cock the crossbow for me and shot the turkey 15 minutes before I had to leave for school. It was my first turkey and weighed 23 pounds! We threw it in the freezer and I cleaned it when I got home that night. My dad always said, ‘If you shoot it, you clean it.’

I suppose that would gross some people out but it’s one of my favorite