Attendees of the Women on the Wing event worked one on one with mentors to hone in their shooting skills at the range in Ankeny. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
ANKENY — Women who attended the recent Women on the Wing upland hunting workshop were learning to hunt for the first time, or were tired of following their husbands around on hunting trips and decided it was time to take up their own shotguns for pheasant season. Others came to build community in the male-dominated activity.
The two-day workshop in Polk County taught safety, hunting and harvesting practices to new and experienced pheasant hunters.
Amy Buckendahl, who organized and led the event said it was a “kick off” for the recently formed Iowa Heartland chapter of Women on the Wing, an initiative of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. She hoped the program could garner some members and support for Iowa’s first chapter of the program.
“We just want to start a network of women who are interested in similar things,” Buckendahl said.
Buckendahl has hosted women-only workshops for the past four years in partnership with the Northern Polk chapter of Pheasants Forever.
The November workshop had 16 attendees who met Friday evening for classroom instruction on habitat and safety, followed by shooting practice at the Dragoon Trail Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America trap shooting range. Saturday morning, the group had a guided hunt to learn how to hunt with dogs, and get in the field practice. Everyone got to take home a bird after learning how to harvest and clean them.
Buckendahl said the event fits with the R3 conservation strategy of recruitment, retention, and reactivation, which essentially uses an activity like hunting or fishing to get folks outdoors to make them more interested in and connected to wildlife conservation strategies.
“We’re not just about shooting things with feathers,” Buckendahl said and noted some of the Pheasants Forever conservation efforts and partnerships with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Aaron Staker, a vice president with the Iowa Izaak Walton League and at the shooting range where the group gathered, stressed the importance of events like Women on the Wing that get folks outdoors.
“Without this, the conservation side doesn’t happen,” Staker said.
The Izaak Walton League, often called “Ikes,” is similarly positioned at a crossroads of outdoor recreation and water and land conservation. Many of the chapters, like the Ankeny Ikes, will focus on hunting or fishing, but overall the organization fights for clean water, soil and climate solutions.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the percentage of the population that hunts has remained at 6% from the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation survey to the most recent survey in 2022. However, the percentage of female hunters has increased from 1% of the total population in 2001 to 2% in 2022.
Becky Wu called it a “privilege” to attend the event and to have access to outdoor activities. Wu grew up in China and said she never had an opportunity to go shooting, nor does she recall anyone she knew hunting large animals.
“Millions and millions of people in China don’t have these opportunities,” Wu said.
Without this workshop, and others she has attended in the past, Wu said she would have no one to go shooting or hunting with.
“So I hope to join more events like this,” Wu said. “I just like being outdoors.”
Buckendahl will have another Women on the Wing workshop and field day in January as Iowa enters its 100th year of pheasant hunting.
Meet them ‘where they’re at’
Lyndsay Krueger traveled to attend the event from Mason City. She said for years, she and her husband have said they wanted to start hunting, but it never happened. When Krueger started eating a more carnivorous diet, she became invested in where her meat came from and interested in procuring wild meats.
“That’s been a motivator to learn more about harvesting my own food,” Krueger said. “So I’m doing it on my own I guess.”
Krueger said she attended a female only hunting weekend in South Dakota, but said the women who attended were all seasoned hunters and she wasn’t able to learn much through the process.
“It’s a little overwhelming,” Krueger said about being a new hunter. “Hopefully going out (during the field day) will help me feel more comfortable.”
Buckendahl is aware of the intimidation factor of breaking into the sport – it’s part of the reason why all-female events can be so important. The main thing she reminds the mentors who help with the field days is to “meet the attendees where they’re at.”
“We’re not going to just show up and drag them around like we would if we were going to go out hunting for ourselves or with our friends,” Buckendahl said. “This is a teachable moment.”
On Saturday, the group met for a mentored field hunt in the morning and a bird cleaning course in the afternoon.
“Several of the ladies said that it was nice having a women’s only group, because then they didn’t feel like they had to compete with anybody, that they were just there to learn,” Buckendahl said.
For some of the folks who grew up hunting, Buckendahl said that rather than feeling competitive or like they were a burden to the group, they “were able to just enjoy their time.”
Megan Garrett said she joined the event to “‘break up the boys club” and find some folks that she can go hunting with, besides the men in her family.
On Friday as the participants munched on slices of pizza before heading into the cold to shoot, Garrett said some of them were already considering how to get together in the future.
“I really appreciated the coaching,” Garrett said of the workshop. “And just knowing there are other girls out there like me.”
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