TRAVERSE CITY -- Yes, Rachel Gauthier is a teenage girl.
True, she loves to hunt.
But, you won't find her in pink camouflage during this weekend's opening days of firearm deer season.
"No, I like pink, but I won't go that far," said Gauthier, a 15-year-old sophomore at Traverse City West Senior High School.
Women are in the minority of people who take to the outdoors with gun or bow. These ladies said the time they spend on the hunt in the woods and fields is a chance to relax, bond with family, test their skill and marvel at nature.
Gauthier grew up watching her dad, a hunter safety instructor, and began hunting at age 12.
"I actually started with squirrel hunting, and then I moved up to turkey and then to deer," she said.
People are often surprised when they learn it's a passion of hers.
"If you were to meet me, I don't look like a person that hunts," she said.
More women are taking up hunting. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service national surveys indicated the total number of hunters dropped from 14.1 million in 1991 to 12.5 million to 2006. The number of women hunters actually increased from 1.1 million to 1.2 million during that 15-year span, the surveys reported.
Sharon Case of Kingsley has hunted since she was a young teen, along with all of her sisters. In the decades since, Case bagged big bucks, including eight- and nine-pointers. Many of her friends hunt, and it's long been a way of life in her family. Women face "no limitations" when it comes to hunting, she said.
"But, my job is over when I shoot it. I never gut 'em, and that's just never been my job," she said.
Case enjoys the quiet of the woods and the taste of venison, on which she was "born and raised." She fixes the meat almost any way, canning it or making it into sausage, even passing it off as beef.
Lynn Marla is the coordinator for the state Department of Natural Resources "Becoming an Outdoors Woman" classes. She says she's seeing an increase in the number of women who are fishing, hunting, camping and backpacking. "I just want to make people comfortable in the outdoors," Marla says, "and help them enjoy natural resources." Two "Outoors Woman" workshops are scheduled for February; more information is available at www.michigan.gov/dnr.
A pheasant hunting trip to Kansas sparked Diane Speas interest in the pastime. She lives near Cedar and shot skeet and clay targets before trying her hand at bird hunting. Her husband even bought her a target-shooting vest one year as a gift. She discovered she liked hunting -- a lot. It required real skill and the birds are "awfully tasty."
"The bird hunting is something that my husband and I can do together, and watching the dogs work is just amazing," Speas said.
Donna Rector of Brethren started hunting with her brother around 1959 and hasn't stopped. Some years when she was working, Rector nearly had "to beg to make sure I got time off during deer season." Throughout the years, she collected many hunting stories, like the time she shot and tracked a deer into the Manistee River, lost her footing and, all of a sudden, went swimming.
"Certain ones you remember," Rector said. "It's hard to explain. You walk along the river there, and sit where my blind was, and think about previous years... It's so peaceful. You remember this curve and that curve of the river, and the one you swam across."
The woods give off an "almost meditative" quality, she said. Visitors include little chickadees and, maybe, a mouse looking for bits of candy bar.
Women can match men in almost all aspects of hunting, Rector said. It can be a challenge to pull a deer in, because she doesn't have the strength. And, there are the occasional looks of "disdain" from some male hunters. Most are nice. One of Rector's biggest problems used to be gear.
"Years ago, you looked like a refugee, because everything was cut and made for a man," she said.
But now, companies make clothes and hardy outdoor wear just for women. Gander Mountain in Traverse City sells racks of women's hunting clothing. A green camouflaged, heavy-duty button-down shirt, lined with a hint of pink, sells for $39.99; bib overalls in a camo pattern go for $69.99; and a camo baseball cap with the pink embroidered saying "Shoot like a girl" is $9.99. An employee said the store recently stocked more women's equipment, partly because "guys' stuff is so baggy." Women still want to feel feminine, even when they're hunting.
For some ladies, some hunting couture is just too much.
"They have pink things -- pink camouflage -- I mean, I go, 'Oh, this is just not right,'" Case said.
Gauthier sounds like the kind of girl who gets more excited about hunting for deer than shopping for deer season. She talks modestly about outshooting the guys, that moment when a hunter must decide to shoot or not, her first turkey (a record book bird) and the hunting tradition she shares with her dad.
"We sit out there and buy a bunch of candy and wait for a deer to come by," Gauthier said.
There are Web sites, organizations and programs devoted to women hunters. A local retailer even sells pink crossbows with a 3-D deer target. The box proclaims: "Bring 'em up right!" Rector counted 13 girls in a hunter safety class.
"So, there will be a lot more women hunters, thanks to the women who came before," she said.
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