Targeting women

BATH, Mich. – One of 6-year-old Kristen Carroll’s feet dangles above the ground as she perches on her seat and focuses on shooting a .22-caliber rifle at a paper target 25 yards away.

“Watch where your gun’s pointing,” warns her mother, Michelle Carroll, as the ponytailed youngster in her bright orange sweat shirt and pink capri pants wiggles momentarily.

Only one of Kristen’s shots hits the target at the Rose Lake Shooting Range northeast of Lansing. But she points excitedly at her mother’s bull’s-eye after the two wrap up practice at a mother-daughter shooting and hunter safety event sponsored by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

“It was fun,” said Michelle Carroll, who runs a daycare business in Leslie. Although Kristen wants to hunt with her dad, Michelle has another goal.

“I’m more interested in target shooting,” she said. “I’m not a big fan of hunting. I don’t eat meat.”

As the number of hunters dips in traditional hunting states such as Michigan, efforts are being made to tap a group that hasn’t participated much in shooting sports: mothers and daughters.

The potential is there. While 13 million people nationwide hunted in 2001 – the most recent year for which data is available – females accounted for only 9 percent of the total, or 1.2 million, according to a report by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Nationally, about 12 percent of all males hunt, while only about 1 percent of women do.

Many more women target shoot than hunt, but their numbers still lag. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry’s trade association, said about 24 percent – or 4.7 million – of the nation’s 19.8 million target shooters in 2003 were female, according to American Sports Data.

Many states are trying to lure more women to shooting and other activities through women-only outdoor sports workshops.

The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the National Wild Turkey Federation, for instance, are sponsoring the July 9 Wild Wonderful Women’s Outdoor Event that includes archery, shooting, fishing and hiking.

In Alabama, a three-day October event will let women choose from sessions on shooting, fishing, hunting, canoeing, archery, nature photography, motor boat handling and other activities.

But Michigan is one of the few states to sponsor a female-only seminar strictly on shooting. The workshop filled up two hours after enrollment opened, attracting nearly 30 women and daughters to the shooting range on a recent crisp spring morning.

The seminar included a box lunch, long-sleeve souvenir T-shirts and four hours of instruction in shooting, handling and cleaning guns. A $2,000 grant from the National Shooting Sports Foundation Step Outside Program covered most of the state’s costs.

As the participants tried to absorb the flood of information and instructions, conservation officer Scott Berg assured them they’d quickly get the hang of shooting the Henry Mini-Bolt .22s.

“Your first shot is going to be your most nervous one. After your fifth shot, you’re going to be saying, ‘Bring it on!’ ” he said.

The enthusiasm level was high as mothers and daughters moved to the shooting range and took turns putting the bullets in each other’s guns. Each shooter got five chances to hit her target.

“Front sight, front sight, front sight, squeeze,” Berg repeatedly reminded them as he dispensed bullets and advice.

All of Sherry and Kyan Thelen’s shots hit the target’s black center rings, making the Pewamo residents among the most accurate teams.

“I think hunting as a sport would be fun,” said Kyan, 12, a sixth-grader at St. Mary’s Elementary School who wants to go hunting with her dad when she’s old enough.

Jeanette Bailey, 51, already hunts. The event gave her the chance to get her 16-year-old daughter, Taryn Hoffmaster, more interested in the sport.

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” said Hoffmaster, a junior at Ionia High School who hit the bull’s-eye with one of her shots. “I’m planning to go hunting next fall.”

Michigan DNR director Rebecca Humphries, who attended the seminar along with her teenage daughter, Jenny – both of whom hunt – said getting more women and girls into hunting and target shooting could help sell more state hunting licenses and raise more federal excise dollars for the states to share.

In 2004, the federal excise tax on firearms, ammunition and archery and fishing equipment brought in $500 million to be split among the states. Michigan’s share was about $15 million, Humphries said.