The Hunt For Two Octobers, Alabama

As I drove the rental car north through Virginia, with my hunting stuff and a little dog that was barely alive, I wondered again why it is that many of my hunting trips don't turn out exactly as I'd planned.

I'd just been at the 8th annual Does and Bows hunt, held at White Oak Plantation in Tuskegee, Ala. Every year, the for-ladies-only hunt attracts at least 20 women from all over the country.

Ladies AND Hunters

It's an awesome experience. All year long, you hunt with the conviction that you're an oddity, the one-of-the-guys girl. You feel unconnected, alone.

And then you go to Does and Bows and realize that it's OK to prefer Essence of Fall cover scent to Estee Lauder perfume. Yes, shooting squirrels is a cure for PMS. It's normal to have four pairs of camouflage boots. It's OK to love a good blood trail. You just probably shouldn't talk about it all on the plane if the lady next to you is reading a woman's magazine.

Arrival day for Does and Bows is always pretty crazy; everybody is checking in, unloading tons of gear, with lots and lots of chatter. We're women and huggers. Imagine trying to get through a receiving line at a wedding while maneuvering a big bow case and tow-along luggage. It's kind of like that.

Right after check in is lunch, and we all immediately go off our diets. The hunting is good, and the camaraderie fantastic, but I'm telling you: I wouldn't care if I had to pick up aluminum cans, I'd go back there just for the banana pudding! I can hide the pounds. Isn't that what camouflage coveralls are for?

8-Point Shooter' Rule

Robert and Hilda Pitman own White Oak, and their son Bo is one of the guides for the hunt. The plantation and its leased land are managed to grow big deer. In Alabama, hunters can shoot a doe every day. There are that many deer. You see dozens. And during the three-day hunt, you can shoot one buck, but it must have at least eight points, or a 16-inch spread to its antlers.

Make a mistake and it will cost you. For example, if you shoot a buck that has six or seven points, you pay a $500 penalty to White Oak. We call those VISA bucks. Every year, the ladies shoot a lot of does and somebody gets an 8-pointer. Last year I was lucky enough to get the buck, and this year a woman named Kate Pugh, a nurse from Lowdensboro, Ala., shot a beautiful buck.

The additional bounty comes in the form of lasting friendships. Many of us have hunted together in other states, and visited each other. I met my best friend Florella Crouch yeah, that's her real name from Georgia at my first White Oak hunt seven years ago.

This year, she picked me up in Macon, Ga., for the drive over to White Oak, and after the hunt we were on our way back when we spotted a dead pup on the red clay road. I hate to see that, and hate to see them run over repeatedly. So I asked Florella to stop so I could pull the dog's body off the road. But it was alive.

Helps Injured Puppy

He managed to wag his tail but he couldn't walk. It looked like he'd walked as far as he could and just lay down. Flies were already hanging around him and he stunk. He was impossibly skinny. I wrapped a T-shirt around him and picked him up, and the second I did Crouch shook her head.

"Big, tough hunter, going to try to smuggle a little dog on a plane from Macon, are you?" she said in her Georgia drawl. And then a second later, "First place we see, we'll stop and get him something to eat."

It's something that anti-hunters would never understand. We hunters love animals, even the ones we hunt. Hunting is a way for us to slip into their world and in a limited way, share the experiences of that life. I admire and love that world and hunting lets me be a natural part of it. When I find an animal I've shot, I offer up a silent prayer of awe and thanks.

In Macon, I cancelled my flight and rented a car. I settled the little dog on the passenger seat and drove him 836 miles from the life he'd known to a new one, with fresh food and a warm house. As I write this, little "Alabama" lays happily at my feet, snuggled up on a deer hide.