Time to Go Hunting for Girls Again
Magan Hebert, 15, poses with the young buck, or "spike," that she shot in Waynesboro, Miss., in November. Magan has been hunting since she was in the fourth form. Tamara Keith/NPR hide explanation
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Tamara Keith/NPR
Magan Hebert, 15, poses with the immature cadet, or "spike," that she shot in Waynesboro, Miss., in November. Magan has been hunting since she was in the fourth grade.
Tamara Keith/NPR
Looking at Magan Hebert in her orange-and-bluish cheerleading uniform, you lot'd never estimate that she could shoot a rifle and impale a deer with a single shot.
Her hair is teased up and pinned back into a pouf. Her cheekbones and eyelids are defined with bold, colorful sweeps of makeup.
Magan, 15, of Wayne County, Miss., defies the typical paradigm of a hunter -- a human wearing camouflage, holding a gun.
But an increasing number of girls at present hunt. According to the latest data from the U.South. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are some 300,000 female person hunters nether the age of 16. From 1991 to 2006, the number of girls who hunt in this country nearly doubled.
'I Like To Cheer. I Like To Chase.'
On a contempo Sabbatum morning, Magan is headed to a cheerleading competition at her loftier schoolhouse in Waynesboro. She sings along with the car stereo on the drive over.
Magan, especially in her cheerleading compatible, defies the typical image of a hunter. Courtesy of Marcy Hebert hide caption
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Courtesy of Marcy Hebert
Magan, especially in her cheerleading uniform, defies the typical image of a hunter.
Courtesy of Marcy Hebert
"I similar to cheer. I like to hunt," she says. "I get really skilful grades in schoolhouse. I go on an A."
Magan is tiny -- one of the girls at the top of the pyramid who flips through the air like a rag doll. And on this day, she lands every stunt. Merely the team comes in second identify out of two. Magan is quiet on the drive home. Maybe she'll accept improve luck hunting deer on Dominicus.
Magan started hunting when she was in the fourth form. Her dad hunts every spare minute he can get.
"He would ask, like, every fourth dimension he went if we wanted to go," she says, reflecting on how she got into hunting. "One fourth dimension I was similar, 'Aye, I desire to go.' I just idea it would exist pretty absurd, you know, and I just loved information technology."
For Magan'south mom, Marcy Hebert, it was a bit of a surprise that her little girl wanted to hunt.
"She wanted to practice information technology, as a thing of fact, before my son did," Marcy says. "Of form, a lot of the girls up here hunt."
It took a twelvemonth of hunting before Magan killed her beginning deer. Information technology was a doe.
"I started shaking when I put the gun up, so [Dad] had to concur information technology steady for me," Magan says.
Just she did information technology. She hit the doe in the shoulder. Marcy couldn't believe it. Magan was hooked.
"I only similar the peace and quiet," Magan says, explaining the appeal.
She says she likes it when she sees a mother deer playing with her fawns. "I think it'south cute. 'Cause, you know, you can't kill them nonetheless. But when they grow upwardly, information technology'due south really adept food. I don't know. I simply similar information technology."
The family gets about all the carmine meat information technology needs for a whole twelvemonth during hunting season.
Hunting And Texting
It'southward still manner earlier dawn and freezing cold when Magan and Marcy load into the truck and caput out to the spot where the family hunts. Information technology'due south in a private, wooded area. They have a stand -- a modest, slightly elevated shack with slits for windows. There's a feeder off in the altitude that occasionally spreads corn and protein pellets on the ground.
Amidst hunters, baiting is controversial. It's illegal in some states simply standard practice in Mississippi.
Marcy lights a propane camp heater inside the stand, but it's still common cold.
Magan killed her first deer when she was 10. Courtesy of Marcy Hebert hide caption
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Courtesy of Marcy Hebert
"Basically, what you sentry for is -- at the border of the tree line, you watch for move," Marcy says.
The sunday is rising in the sky. The frost is melting off the grass. Magan and Marcy haven't seen a matter.
Magan flips open her phone and updates her Facebook status: "Sittin' in the stand, freezin', waitin' for the deer to come out," she taps out on the small keys.
She's texting, besides, and occasionally nodding off. And Marcy says this is how it goes: sitting side by side in the repose, staring out at trees and grass, hoping to see a deer and breaking the colorlessness with text letters.
"A lot of times nosotros'd text back and forth, sitting in the stand," Marcy says. "That's how I learned how to text, was sitting in a deer stand up with her."
A little before 9 a.k., they surrender.
They go back to the house empty-handed, and Magan's little brother is gloating. He has killed a deer -- his second i of the weekend.
"Like, every time he goes hunting -- almost every time -- he kills something," Magan says, clearly a little fleck jealous.
It'due south been five years since the last time she got i. That'due south partly because she hasn't had as much time to chase now that she'south on the varsity cheerleading squad. But partly, it's luck: catching the right deer, walking into the right spot at the right time.
"I want to get a buck," she says. "I don't care how big. I just desire a buck."
Getting Her Cadet
In the afternoon, they get back out, hoping for that buck. They wait and wait. And then, "Shhhh," Marcy says as she spots a deer. "Information technology's a spike."
A spike, a young cadet, walks into a clearing near the feeder. He's most 120 pounds, with just ii small antlers. Magan starts texting excitedly.
"You'd better put the phone downwards and put the gun upward," Marcy whispers firmly.
Magan picks upwardly the gun and releases the safe. She is tense. She takes several deep breaths as she gets the deer in her sight.
There's a long silence. Then a single gunshot. The sound reverberates around the stand.
Magan's mother, Marcy Hebert, says Magan was interested in hunting before her blood brother was. Tamara Keith/NPR hibernate explanation
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Tamara Keith/NPR
Magan'southward female parent, Marcy Hebert, says Magan was interested in hunting before her brother was.
Tamara Keith/NPR
"You lot got him, y'all got him," Marcy says.
The deer runs nigh 50 feet before collapsing. The shot is clean, and fatal, just behind the front leg. Magan has her cadet.
"Some guys call up, you know, 'OK, well, y'all're a girl, you can't kill a deer,' " Magan says, reflecting on her triumph. "Y'all know, I can say, 'Yeah, I've killed 2 of them. What now?' You know? Not a lot of people tin say that."
Mother and daughter come out of hiding in the deer stand up, grab the lifeless fasten past the legs and hoist him into the dorsum of the truck. Information technology takes all the strength they have to become it in. They close the truck gate and drive abode.
There are bragging rights in the bed of that truck -- and there'due south venison. Within the hour, Magan'south dad will butcher the deer, filling a libation with the meat.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2010/12/09/131390073/for-some-girls-the-ultimate-goal-is-to-kill-a-buck
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