Your Daughter Shoots Like a Girl!

Growing up in a neighborhood full of boys, it wouldn't take long for someone to make a bad play during a street game and someone would mouth off to the tune off - you swing like a girl!.  Everyone would laugh and away we went.  Being all grown up now and having a daughter of my own I can admit that she does throw like a girl, shoots like a girl, fishes like a girl and hunts like a girl and I am proud of it.  Heck I wish I could shoot like a girl sometimes, because she is pretty darn good and getting better every day.  My daughter Kaleigh has always loved to fish and shoot, but just in the past couple of years has she taken the plunge into hunting and I must admit, she is getting really good at it.

With our busy schedules time in the field with my kids is limited so any time that our schedules open we jump on it and our schedules allowed us to enjoy an afternoon in a backwoods puddle for an waterfowl hunt.  I picked my daughter up at school, made a quick trip to the archery shop to have a quick fix done to her bow, grabbed some lunch and headed home to load up the gear and head off to the swamp.

On the way up the road I got a call from Busch Pilot who was on his way to join in the fun.  Kaliegh and I got the canoe unloaded and I loaded it up with the decoys and headed out to setup a spread consisting of some mallard decoys and some goose floaters.  While I was doing that, Kaleigh was carrying gear to the blind and keeping our lab Hannah from following me out in the canoe.  Once the decoys were set, I pulled the canoe up on shore and hid it in the brush and joined Kaleigh and Hannah in our hide.  Busch Pilot showed up about 30 minutes later and joined our group.  After BP got his  normal welcome of a face full of smelly lab tongue from Hannah, we settled in and started scanning the sky and listening for any hint of ducks or geese all while enjoying the incredible fall colors that were made even more vibrant with the setting sun.

It was a pretty quiet afternoon, right up until about 20 minutes before sunset, which is legal shooting light in CT, when I swore I heard geese off in the distance.  Busch Pilot and Kaleigh both claimed I was hearing things but I did convince them to hit the call and sure enough we got a response.  We couldn't see them yet but could tell they were coming in for the night and hopefully they would land on the X which was wide open and out in front of us.  I picked up the 4 geese just as they broke the trees about 50 yards behind us and they were low and heading in and looked like they were going to land short so Busch Pilot told Kaleigh to go ahead and take em.  Just as they were about to get their feet wet, she stood up with her Remington 870 and squeezed off a shot and two geese hit the water.  We all stood there in amazement with our mouths open and forgot about the other two geese that were making a hasty retreat for safety, which they succeeded at.

Kaleigh had fired one shot and had her limit of two geese while Busch Pilot and I were lighter a couple of shells and had to hit the drive thru for dinner.   So when I say she shoots like a girl there is nothing negative about that comment.  Heck, both Busch Pilot and I wished we had shot like a girl that night and couldn't have been more proud of her.  Maybe if we are lucky she will gives us a lesson or two.

You go Girl!