My Husband Doesn't Hunt
Fighting sexism in the outdoor industry one punched tag at a time
I killed a deer. It was two days before Halloween, two days after I dug through the chest freezer, spying the white bottom for the first time in years. I only killed a small seven-pointer last season, and we’d gone through most of the meat. The only packages left were a couple of bags of steaks and one pound of venison sausage that fell between the stacks of summer-caught fish filets.
Spying the white empty floor of my chest freezer felt like criticism. Successful hunters have full freezers. Mine was decidedly not full and mocking me. Plus, my old pre-OL writer bio boasted a full freezer.
Alice Jones Webb is a lifelong hunter, experienced shooter, blah, blah, blah….She currently resides in rural North Carolina with her children, a non-hunting husband, and a well-stocked chest freezer.
I hit the woods that evening knowing I would probably shoot anything that passed my stand as long as it didn’t have spots.
Just after the sun sank under the horizon and the woods were fading into gray dullness, a young four-pointer came traipsing toward my stand. I pulled the trigger when he turned broadside at 50 yards, sending a .30-30 round from my Winchester ‘94 straight through his heart. He bucked once and stumbled into a thick tangle of river-bottom reeds and brambles.
I sat there swatting mosquitoes, giving him a few minutes to expire, not wanting to bump him in that knotted mess and then have to trail him in the dark.
Then, with darkness closing in fast, I followed a thick trail of blood to find him not 10 feet inside the briars. I texted my husband and son, but when I didn’t get an answer, I realized I was outside of cell service. So I pulled out my headlamp, rolled up my sleeves, and got to the bloody business of field dressing.
By the time I was done, the river bottom was black as pitch. I pulled my dragging rope from my fanny pack and started hauling my deer out of the bottom all by myself.
Even after sunset, the temps were well above 70. I worked up a sweat pulling more than 100 pounds of meat behind me, struggling more than once to heave the carcass over some gnarly deadfall. The woods looked like they were sprinkled with glitter as the light from my headlamp reflected off tens of thousands of tiny insect eyes.
Almost an hour after shooting light, I finally bumped into my son on an old, grown-over logging road. Thankfully, he helped me haul the buck back to the truck.
It was well after 9:30 when we finally had the buck skinned and quartered. I sat down to scarf down a cold dinner before heading off to bed, filled with immense gratitude for the hunt and the meat.
The following day, I was sitting in an edit meeting, listening to a co-worker tell the story about a buck he shot over the weekend. Hunters love to share stories and his was a good one.
“I also killed a little freezer buck yesterday,” I interjected when he finished his tale. I launched into a quick retelling, not wanting to get too specific. My deer wasn’t the kind to brag about, at least not in regards to rack size or scorable points.
A co-worker cut me off mid-story.
“Wait. Did you say your husband killed a deer?”
And there I was again, fighting the same old societal doubt. Only, I wasn’t expecting it here.
“I work for freakin’ Outdoor Life,” I thought to myself.
In the next half second, I remembered the days I spent scouting before the season. The hours I spent alone in the stand I set up.
I remembered the way I coached myself through the shot, reminding myself to breathe and relax, telling myself that the deer deserved for me to have a level head and a steady hand before I pulled the trigger.
I looked down at the bruises on my forearm from struggling alone in the pitch-dark woods elbow-deep in the buck’s ribcage to cut through the windpipe and pull out the organs, including the heart mangled from a crackerjack shot.
I thought about how my thighs quivered from fatigue as I pulled that weight through a soggy creek bed and over fallen trees to get that precious meat to the truck while a billion glimmering insect eyes watched me from their hiding places.
“My husband doesn’t hunt,” was all I said in response.
I churn out a lot of content these days. Occasionally, I write something that makes me genuinely proud. Most recently, it’s this one:
A Gold Star Son Learns the Hunting Lessons His Father Left Behind
Congratulations Alice! Thank you for continuing to prove that women too can fill the freezer!
A friend of mine told me his son went hunting one day and killed a deer a little bit late in the day. When he brought it home, he called the young lady he had a date with that evening and told her he had to dress his deer. He said a few minutes later she pulled up with some coveralls on carrying a pair of gloves. The next thing he saw was the young lady in the shop helping his son dress the buck. He told me it was their first date, and he told his son "This girl is a keeper".