hunting can make girls feel more powerful and independent.

parts about hunting. It’s really interesting. I’ve always enjoyed anatomy and science.”

The Leitch family gives away the meat they don’t use themselves. They donate meat as well as the hides to various organizations. “We have a big garden at our farm and grow our own vegetables,” Rachel said. “We were taught not to waste.”

“I have learned a lot of patience from hunting. And I’ve learned to really appreciate nature. I don’t take it for granted. I’ve learned a lot about the woods and plants. I love the animals and just being outdoors. Hunting helps preserve the land,” she added. “When people buy licenses for hunting or fishing the money goes into conservation programs.”

The statistics backup Leitch’s statement.

According to the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, hunters and anglers are the largest contributors to government wildlife conservation programs. Through excise taxes and license revenues, they annually provide more than 80 percent of the funding for most state fish and wildlife agencies.

President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The encouragement of a proper hunting spirit, a proper love of sport, instead of being incompatible with a love of nature and wild things, offers the best guarantee for their preservation.”

In Minnesota alone, according to Dirk Peterson, fisheries chief for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, about fi fty percent of their budget – or $18 million – comes from anglers who purchase a fishing license or stamps.

“We don’t hunt for trophies,” Leitch said, “Sure, we have some mounts in our home, but that’s not our motivation. We mainly hunt because we love being outdoors. I’m really very lucky. My dad is such a huge influence in my life. He was in the Navy and later on he worked as dean of the College of Business at NDSU. He’s retired now and hunting is just something we do together. I think a lot of teenagers say, ‘Oh, parents. They don’t know anything,’ but I’m just starting to realize how special and inspiring my dad and mom are. My mom was a teacher, but now she does long-arm quilting. She owns Lady Slipper Quilting here in Moorhead. Because of hunting we spend a lot of family time together.”

When Rachel’s family went to a wedding in Texas, they made it into a hunting trip. She was ten years old. “My dad and I hunted wild boar the day before the wedding,” Rachel said. “Boar are a big problem in Texas so hunters are encouraged to shoot them. We sat in a blind, all night in the pitch dark. We couldn’t see the boar except with a spotlight. We were in coyote country and I could hear both the boar and the coyotes. On the second night, my dad and I heard boar and Dad said, ‘You shoot it.’”

“I didn’t understand why my dad always let me shoot first, but now I know he was just giving me a chance to learn,” Leitch said. In keeping with her father’s methods, Leitch is now passing on her knowledge to her boyfriend, Seth. She is teaching him to hunt and letting him do the shooting.

“It’s almost more enjoyable to teach someone else and see them be successful than it is for me to harvest anything,” Leitch said.

In some ways Leitch is unique. There are not a lot of girls in her high school who hunt. There are not nearly as many female hunters as male. But Leitch is also in good company; she is one of America’s 34 million hunters and anglers. According to the yearly statistics from the most recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, 12.5 million people enjoyed hunting a variety of animals with in the United States and took 185 million hunting trips with a total expenditure of $22.9 billion. Leitch is obviously part of a growing and influential group of people!

Leitch has been pheasant hunting in South Dakota, deer hunting in northern Minnesota, and antelope hunting in Montana. She chose to miss her homecoming dance in favor of the antelope hunt but her scariest hunt, besides the hunt for boar, was the night she got a black bear.

“My dad and my brother went black bear hunting near Waubun, Minnesota in 2009, and the following year my dad took me,” Leitch said. “The first night it started getting dark, and I said, ‘Dad. Let’s go. I’m getting scared.’ I don’t really like the dark, and we were in wolf country. Our base camp was about 15 miles away. Just then, we heard a branch snap. I saw a black bear coming toward me like a blur in the growing darkness. I shot it and it dropped. The bear was an average Minnesota female black, weighing 200 pounds on the hook. There were five other hunters at the base camp that night and everyone thought my dad had shot the bear. They were surprised that it was me. Just a little girl. I was fourteen years old.” Leitch had the skin of the bear made into a rug which hangs above her bed.

Leitch now prefers using a compound bow. “Rifle season for whitetail deer in Minnesota is only two weeks,” she said. “Bow season is four or five months. There’s a reason for that. With a bow, I have to get close because I have only a small target to hit on a deer. I put in a lot of time sitting in a deer stand, or waiting for a turkey. You have to wait for the animals to come to you. Patience is huge. Sometimes I sit out there every day, just waiting. I guess I enjoy a challenge. That’s why I love the bow.”

Leitch would like to see more girls get into hunting. “I think city girls could expand their views,” Leitch said enthusiastically. “Hunting can make girls feel more powerful and more independent. A good place to begin is to go to the local outdoor stores and talk to the experts. Start out with one thing, like deer hunting. It’s an easy place to begin because it’s local. There are public lands available around here for deer hunting. And there are a lot of deer!”

For women with an interest in learning skills associated with hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities, BOW Workshops Becoming an Outdoor Woman are available in many states including both North Dakota and Minnesota. These workshops are geared towards women who are beginners and those hoping to improve their skills. The summer workshops might include classes as diverse as Beginning Archery, Basic Shotgunning, Birds and Their Nests, Introduction to Fly Fishing, Predator Calling, Introduction to Rifles, Muzzle Loading, and Canoeing.

In the winter, BOW offers a variety of workshops. Instruction and equipment is included. A wide range of workshop classes are available that have included Snowshoeing, Ice Fishing, Spear Fishing, or Crosscountry Skiing.

Currently, Leitch is spending the summer as a nanny to two children in the Fargo area. Between work and school, she also continues to squeeze in some hunting and fishing. “On one of my most recent bow hunts, last October, I was deer hunting with my dad. We were in two different stands pretty close together. A buck walked out in front of my stand and I shot him; he ran in front of my dad’s stand and dropped. Within ten minutes another buck walked out in front of my dad’s stand and my dad shot him. His buck fell right next to mine. Sometimes with bows, the deer run and you have to track them. These two fell right there and we both got to see each other’s shots. That was pretty amazing.”

As far as the future goes, Leitch is setting her sights high. She’d like to go into pharmacy at NDSU. She would also like to continue pursuing her love of hunting. “I’d like to go for an elk next,” Leitch said. “Last year I applied but didn’t get drawn. Hopefully I’ll get drawn this year. Someday, I’d love to go to Canada for grizzly bear hunting. Or Africa. There’s so much to see and hunt there.”

“I hope more young women will take up the sport of hunting,” Leitch said. “I hope people will put two and two together. If we didn’t hunt, animals would die from much more painful things. Hunters are a part of the reason that there is a healthy animal population and a growing diversity of habitat protected for their use.” [AWM]

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