Deer Hunting The Sisterhood Of The Outdoors

The Sisterhood of the Outdoors started with the dream of hosting hunts for women all across the US. They wanted to empower women to feel comfortable in the world of hunting and learn something new and try different pursuits. Amy Ray, the CEO and Founder of the organization, talks about what the group does for women. She shares why we have to be part of the equation to save our lifestyle and save the wilderness through conservation efforts. According to Amy, it’s your hunt and it’s your experience to live and build those memories, so make it that way.

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Deer Hunting The Sisterhood Of The Outdoors – Amy Ray

I’m joining with Amy Ray. If you don’t know who Amy Ray is, she is the Founder and CEO of The Sisterhood of The Outdoors. Women are the fastest growing segment in the outdoor industries, all the industries. Amy and her husband decided to do something about getting women in the outdoors. Amy, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Bruce. I’m glad I’m here. It’s awesome.

Let the audience know about The Sisterhood of The Outdoors right off the get-go, then we’ll talk about how your husband helped you get into the hunting community and a lot of other things. Please tell us about how The Sisterhood of The Outdoors began.

We started with the dream of hosting hunts for women all across the US. These hunts that we put together are bookings with outfitters who know we’re coming as a group of four, six or eight women. What we wanted to do is empower women to feel comfortable in the world of the guided hunt and learn something new and try different hunts. Our system or business is set up to make a comfortable environment. You book a hunt with us. You’re going to be well prepared. It doesn’t matter what your level of experience is. Our girls are going to be there for you from the booking all the way up until you arrive and hunt with you if that’s what we need to do. We wanted to make sure that women were maybe reaching out to different areas of hunting besides just hunting their own family farm. 60% of our guests are on their very first guided hunt, and another 60%, if you look at the statistics from our guest survey, book a second guided hunt after they’ve been with us. We’re good for outfitters to have us come and visit your place.

If I understand correctly, you have a group open to anybody. Is there any age limits for somebody who wants to say, “I want to hunt with you guys?”

Most of our hunts are eighteen and up because we’re booking with outfitters that have certain rules of liability insurance and it’s an all-women’s hunt. We do take children on hunts with us, mostly when it’s just our staff members or the Sisterhood hunting. We host an annual youth hunt that we’re proud of because it’s for antelope in Wyoming. We have sponsors and partners to help us pay for four young ladies between the ages of twelve and eighteen to hunt antelope. Their parents get to come along on the hunt free of charge, too. We have all their expenses covered. That is an amazing thing that we get to do.

What part of Wyoming is that?

It’s in Gillette, Wyoming. One of our staff members, Shantane, is a guide and she owns her own outfitters business called Crazy Horn Outfitters. It was her dream to put this together, so we attempted it for our first ever youth hunt in Wyoming. The reason we chose the antelope with Shantane is not only because she’s good with the kids and wanted to do it. If you think about learning to big game hunt, it’s different than whitetail hunting in the south where you sit in a stand, and you’re in a box stand or a ladder stand. This is spot and stalk, running and gunning. I think antelope is a great first animal to learn how to go after elk later or go after mule deer in the west because it’s a different style of hunting.

It’s fun because the girls get together as a team of four. They ride in the car together all day and they’re from all over the US. They get to know each other. We let their parents tag along in the car behind them. It’s almost like hunting with the paparazzi. Everybody is there when the girls make that shot and harvest their antelope. Everybody comes in for pictures and there are high fives all the way around. The way Shantane gets the girls to see whose turn it is because you can only hunt two girls per guide in Wyoming at a time, so they have to take turns. They do rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to shoot first. Our partner is the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. They give us a grant from the Georgia chapter. That helps pay for hotels and meals for the families. We also have Pass It On! Outdoor Mentors partnering with us to send one of their girls from Kansas with a mentor out of their organization. We’re excited about having them there.

I’m going to find out what the date is because I could run up there and we could do an episode right from the cabin, the lodge, the bunkhouse or whatever. That would be fun.

We’re in Wright, Wyoming, just outside of Gillette.

It’s kind of Powder River country.

It’s Area 23, it’s all around Gillette. You’re not too far from town when hunting these antelope.

You’re spot-on with one of the easiest big game animals to start to hunt is antelope, and they’re spot and stalk and it’s fun. It’s a great hunt and you see a lot of game and good for you on that. If somebody is interested in supporting Sisterhood Outdoors, you mentioned Pass It On!, you mentioned Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. How would they get a hold of you and say, “I’ve got a couple of bucks and I’d like to sponsor a girl or a girl in the family?” How would they do that?

We’re always welcoming partners for our youth hunt and partners to scholarship, any ladies we can scholarship on hunts are awesome. They just need to email us at [email protected] or call me. My number is on the website. If you dial the phone number on SisterhoodOutdoors.com, you’re going to get me.

Think about that because to get geared up to go hunting is expensive, and we all know that. One thing, you don’t have to worry about, “I don’t have X gear.” Let’s talk about that. A lady says, “I’m interested but one, I’m a newbie. Two, I don’t have any of the gear.” How does that work?

When you stay true to what you are focused on, great things happen. Share on X

Most of our hunts are booked with one of our staff members going on the hunt. We call them our host of the hunt. Our hunts are more like events. Once you contact the host and you book, you have not only myself but the host staff member who’s an expert there for you to guide you and help you. We even share our guns all the time. We have extra shotguns, extra rifles, extra bows. Although bowhunting, you’ve got to have time to sight in and check draw lengths and it’s a little more in-depth, but we’ll take the time to help you if we can.

Sometimes a girl may not want to fly with a rifle to a hunt out west per se and I’ll be like, “Don’t fly the rifle, you can shoot mine.” We want them to be comfortable. We want them to feel welcomed and not feel intimidated by what’s about to happen when you get there. There are no dumb questions. We answer all kinds of questions all year long on all these hunts and it just gets them more prepared. We do a lot of guest surveys, and one of the things that are a repeating sentence in all of their remarks is, “Thank you for preparing me. I felt well prepared.” That’s what the Sisterhood does the best.

That comes right into the mentorship where you’ve got it set up that it’s a one-on-one relationship for any lady to join you. You also said you do fishing, and it’s not just hunting, it’s also fishing adventures. The same thing holds true if somebody hasn’t ever gone out and caught some fish offshore.

That’s true. We have a thing on our website. If you click on the About Us, you’ll see a map of the United States. There are little targets on each state. If you scroll over that target, you will find the email of one of my staff members. If you click on it, their bio will show up. We call it our Click to Connect Map. Basically, we’re not only available through Facebook. We have a private Facebook page called The Sisterhood of The Outdoors Girls. You have to ask for permission or be invited to that page. A lot of other organizations do this, but it’s a place where you can ask questions, share pictures and share success. There are over 1,200 women across the US on that page. We spend a lot of time not only working with our hunters and our guests, but also through our social media accounts. We’re making sure that we have access to people on our staff to be there for everyone. The Click to Connect Map and to be their mentor online is just as important as taking someone hunting or being there for them to walk them through their first hunt.

If you haven’t figured it out, Amy Ray’s got this down. There should be no hesitation. If you’re even having an inkling and saying, “I’d like to join the gals on a hunt or fishing outing or some outdoor adventure.” They’re organized and they’re waiting for you to raise your hand and say, “Let’s start a conversation and let’s start talking about it.” You said in history, I think you bought the company from another entity and then what happened?

We ran it as Babes, Bullets and Broadheads for a year. Some of our hunts are annual events. We just throw them out every year with the same outfitter. It’s so great we keep going back, and then we added some more hunts and we sold all those out. I’ve worked with some mentors in the industry and I think for that entire year we would say, “Babes, Bullets and Broadheads #SisterhoodOfTheOutdoors.” We call ourselves that anyway. I said, “Why don’t we rebrand it as The Sisterhood of The Outdoors? The name says what we are.” We are The Sisterhood of the Outdoors.

It was well-taken in the industry. People loved the fact that I didn’t use pink, black and gray anymore in the logo. I was like, “That’s good.” Sometimes those things matter. If you want to build a company and take it to the next level, you have to be broadly accepted to have an appealing brand. We worked hard on that. We stay true to our mission. We’re not trying to be famous or get a TV show, but I’m not saying that we’d ever turn stuff down. I do what makes business sense and what stays true to the mission, which is to create opportunities for women to hunt, shoot, fish, go outdoors and to be mentors.

What I’ve found is that’s very rewarding, number one. That’s why my husband and I do what we do. It’s the passion to be out there and to meet the people, but when you have a one-on-one encounter and you’re there for that girl’s first shot. I know a lot of other mentors and people who do youth hunts will tell you how that changes their life, but I like teaching what I know. I’m not an expert, but I like being there to share what I’ve learned with the next person and maybe they’ll share that with another person. It snowballs and then you build this whole community. It’s gotten to be an amazing journey, it might be a great way to put it. A lot of great mentors along the way, including Brenda Valentine and my friend Karen Butler with Shoot Like a Girl, encouraged me to get my pistol instructions license.

I think when you stay true to what you are focused on, great things happen. That’s where we are since we rebranded to The Sisterhood of The Outdoors, so that’s exciting that we’ve come this far. I have great partners in the industry supporting The Sisterhood of The Outdoors. We couldn’t do it without them, but I’ve studied the mentorship area. I study what makes an event the trip of a lifetime because women don’t want to spend money away from their family. If you think about a mom with two kids, she’s going to spend her money on vacation at Disney World or the beach. It’s hard for that mother to take $1,200 to $2,000 or even more and go by herself for five days on an elk hunt or an antelope hunt. It’s a big family decision if budgets are tight. We want to create events that are inexpensive and over a weekend, straddle a holiday. We’ve got a strategy in place that we’ve learned that creates the best booking for the busy working mom or the single outdoor enthusiast that has a full-time job and wants to go on one of these hunts. It’s just been awesome.

Let’s talk about your husband and he got you into hunting. We’ve got to go further back than that and talk about your hunting tradition. Didn’t you hunt with your family? Tell us that story.

Growing up, I would call myself an outdoor girl from day one. I was daddy’s girl on the farm bush hogging, horseback riding, we boarded horses. I went hiking, camping, boating, skiing, fishing, all of that. My dad and my grandparents were big hunters, but I never went. He taught me to shoot guns as a kid. I had a BB gun on the farm. I shot revolvers with my dad sometimes. I think my papa taught me to shoot a shotgun, but I never asked to go hunting as a teenager or young girl because it never dawned on me to do so. I was having so much fun doing all the other stuff in the outdoors and playing sports, but it wasn’t on my radar.

I’m not going to tell you how old I am. Back then, Brenda Valentine was hunting, but the rest of us were still waiting on her to pave the way. I got married and had two beautiful children and my precious husband died of cancer when my kids were eight and thirteen. For a few years, I was grieving. I was raising my boys by myself, which all you single moms out there, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I met Scott, who’s my husband. He and I actually had a history. We dated in high school, and then we found each other again. If you’re going to date Scott, you better learn to hunt or you won’t get to see him very much.

I went to deer camp with him for the first time. He’s been in the same deer camp for 35 years in South Georgia with his dad and it’s a big part of his life. I went to deer camp and the first few times it was to spend the weekend, hang out in the old rusty campers and see what it was all about. I said, “I want to learn to shoot and learn to hunt deer, but I’d like to see you kill one first and let me sit there while you harvest a doe and just see how I do.” That was an interesting first step for me because you don’t know how you’re going to react when you first see someone harvest an animal. It didn’t go as planned. He shot a doe, it got shot in the spine, it flopped around on the ground. He had to go make a kill shot on it. I’m sitting in the box stand freaking out, but he took care of business, made a humane shot. We harvested the doe, we put it in our freezer. I love deer meat because I grew up eating it. We always had wild game and never harvested it myself.

After that event, I was like, “I’m ready. Let’s buy me a rifle. Let’s get me a hunting license.” Oddly enough, I already had hunter safety classes because I had worked for a mining company that offered them and I had taken it. I didn’t have to redo my hunter safety course. He taught me how to shoot at the range. The next season we sat in a box stand together in October during the rut and, lo and behold, a doe came out broadside at 100 yards and he said, “Hang on, she’s probably being chased.” A buck came out right behind her broadside and I shot him. He went down and it was like, “I can do this.” It was a big nine-pointer and we celebrated.

I told him from then on he created a monster because after that it was like, “What else can I hunt?” The next year it was like, “Can I get a bow? Can I get a muzzleloader?” I didn’t want to not be in the woods when they were in the woods because I couldn’t bow hunt or muzzleloader hunt. I wasn’t good at bowhunting because I just picked it up, but I went with my bow to see the deer. Being outdoors for me was a challenge. It was the first time I ever sat still and was quiet with myself, which I found very cathartic, meditative. Healing is another word I like to use. Did we spend some money on the sport goods stores because then my boys got into it? Everybody got a rifle and everybody got a shotgun. He taught us all to hunt, fish and shoot, and the rest is history. He has always been my encourager.

After a couple of years of getting pretty good at it, and this was a great story. My dad calls me and says, “One of our elk camp friends is not going. What do you think about going elk hunting with me if I can convince my other friends that it could be a father-daughter/father-son hunt?” I almost wrecked my car on the interstate because I was so excited. My dad was taking joy in watching his daughter learn to hunt and he wanted to share that with me. When the opportunity arose, I got a spot at elk camp. I’ve had it ever since. This will be my fifth year. That’s how I learned to hunt elk was going with my dad. This has been awesome. I’ve done pheasant, quail, rabbit. I’ve done it all. Big game and duck hunting are the best.

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You mentioned the healing process and the catharsis of being in a deer stand or being in the Rocky Mountains waiting for elk to bugle. You’re alone with yourself and your thoughts. You’re safe, you’re secure because you figured out what you need to do and how you need to do it. A lot of people never put themselves in that place and that’s one thing that hunting allows people to do. You can do the same thing if you fish and hike, but being outdoors, that’s the central theme that allows you to get with yourself and figure stuff out. You were so honest and open. It took you a while to grieve through when your first husband died, it took time. I’ve had so many people on the show. Bianca Jane of Her Humble Hunt. She talks about how hunting healed her from a lot of personal challenges. Let’s talk about that because I think ladies, it’s the hunt. It’s an adventure, it’s the adrenaline rush, but there’s also a beautiful part of hunting that people never see and never talk about. Can you talk about that for a little bit?

Personally, for me, I’ve enjoyed seeing the things I’ve seen. I’ll sit on a mountain sometimes and think, “I’m over 40-years-old. I’m sitting here. How did I get here?” The greatest thing is the gratitude that I have for the wilderness, for the opportunity to hunt. The gratitude that I have for my Second Amendment rights and the freedom to harvest meat for my family. It’s very gratifying to cook a wild game meal for your family, but I think for me going from a new hunter and learning whitetail first, then duck and then turkey. I cannot stop challenging myself. I booked a mule deer hunt. It will be my first mule deer.

I’ve done more things in the outdoors than I ever dreamed possible. Thanks to the support of my family, my husband, and Sisterhood. It strengthens my heart. It fills my confidence. I love sharing that with others because I don’t always want to be alone meditating on the outdoors. I want to be with someone on the outdoors and I want to share that with someone on the outdoors. I think that sharing what you’re doing, whether it’s with your husband, with your children, with your father or with girlfriends, the sharing on the outdoors is what makes my heart happy. You just have to do it. I want women, men and children to learn to do that. It’s sad for me that I didn’t get here sooner. I wish I had learned what I know earlier.

It’s a journey. I think that’s the way I like to look at it. God put people in my life for a reason. There have been some great mentors along the way. I’ve met some incredible women on these hunts. I meet girls that have a boyfriend. Taught them how to hunt, they hunted together, and they broke up. They’ll call me and say, “I’m single and my boyfriend taught me to hunt and now I don’t have anywhere to hunt. I didn’t get the land in the breakup. I want to go on a Sisterhood hunt.” I’ve met other widows who found that they needed to learn to hunt or wanted to harvest their own meat. I’ve taken breast cancer survivors hunting who are into sustainable food and eating healthy, so they want to deer hunt. For me, it’s the journey and the people, not just the wilderness.

You mentioned something and this is a good segue. I try to ask everybody. What do you wish you knew about hunting that you know?

I wish back then I could have known how much of a personal journey being outdoors can be and how healing it can be. How much confidence you can gain by hiking over the next hill or finally sitting still and quiet enough to have that big buck you’ve been pattering walk out. I think that when you’re a new hunter, and this is my personal opinion, but I have a hard time with decision-making processes. There were times when I would finally sit alone, my husband had said, “I taught you how to hunt. Go to your own stand.” A deer would walk out and I’ll be like, “Do I shoot it now or do I wait on a bigger one?” or, “Do I take a doe or do I wait until later in the season?” or, “Is this going to be the only deer?” You play a lot of mind games. It’s a few years into learning to hunt before you become a good decision-maker with wildlife management, your goals on your land. If you wait too long, you’ll miss that shot on the buck because he’s out of there as soon as he smells you.

All of those things that I’ve learned along the way that you don’t get a manual when you join the outdoor world. I think those are things you learn when you go by yourself and you learn on your own land. It’s easy to go to a guide and have them put you in a stand that they have done all the homework on. They’ve got the trail camera, they know the pattern and they know the deer. They’re putting your client there. That’s different than the everyday hunter who’s on their own land learning and trying to figure out ways to improve wildlife and find out if you can make that shot or not. I’ve missed, I used to tell everybody I’m the queen of misses. If I had more information early on, I might not have spent so many years playing mind games with myself and questioning whether or not should I shoot now or shoot later. You go back to camp and just like, “I blew it. I missed him. I let him get away because I waited too long,” or “I didn’t take a doe because I thought I’d sit another hunt.” The next day you don’t see anything. It’s all about the decision-making process.

Thanks for that. That’s perfect of what you share with somebody that’s new because you can accelerate their learning process so much more and say, “Here’s the game plan and you just run with it.” You’ve already set the goals. Every hunt I go on I set my goals. Sometimes it means I don’t come home with anything, and that’s okay because it’s my hunt. Brenda Valentine told me that. She was one of my first ten guests on the show. She said, “Bruce, remember, it’s your hunt. It doesn’t matter the size. It doesn’t matter anything. It’s your hunt and it’s your experience to live and build those memories so make it that way.”

Many times unfortunately, in the hunting industry it’s, “Why did you shoot a doe?” or, “You let your kid shoot a spike buck?” We’re our own worst enemies. Social media is not friendly sometimes and it’s wrong. If you’re doing that, please stop. Don’t become a keyboard warrior. Keep your opinions to yourself and celebrate the hunt because we’re all hunters. We need everybody to pull together as hunters and you just celebrate everybody else’s win, everybody else’s success, everybody else’s hunt. By doing that I think we’ll be a stronger community. There will always be Ford and Chevys, and Remington’s and Winchesters. You’re always going to have those discussions around the campfire, I get that. Let’s celebrate exactly what Amy Ray has shared with us, what hunting means when you get down to the heart of the matter. What are your thoughts on that?

I think that one of the things I try to teach my staff members as a leader with The Sisterhood of The Outdoors is that we can never forget where we came from. I was with Brenda Valentine at the NWTF seminar she gave. She let me speak and I was so starstruck, I barely could talk. She paved the way for other women. She wore army camouflage and fatigues when there was no women’s camouflage. She is somebody I look up to and would love to be like because I don’t think that’s possible. Even in the few years that I’ve been in the sport, I never forget where I came from. I always remember what it felt like to be a new hunter. I would encourage every new hunter out there not to give up and to keep going and I would encourage the seasoned hunters to be proud that there’s a new hunter. We have to be part of the equation to save our lifestyle and save the wilderness, the conservation efforts, and that’s something the Sisterhood is all about.

What Sisterhood of The Outdoors is, the type of ladies that you’re looking for or would welcome?

The Sisterhood of The Outdoors’ mission is to empower the next generation lady hunter. By that, we mean everyone’s welcomed. We want you to book hunts with us. Our number one business model is to create these hunting events for women across the US, and we hope you’ll go online, look at our website where it says “Schedule a hunt.” You can see our listing. If you want to join the membership program, we can share partner discounts with you. You’ll get early reservations, early bookings, and sometimes we do members-only hunts. A lot of our outfitters have been wonderful to us over the years and sometimes they’ll call me with open dates or cancellations, so we always pass those on to our members.

Don’t forget that if you need a mentor in the outdoors, we have our Click to Connect Map and our ladies, our field staff who are the best team in the industry. I couldn’t say enough about the team that we’ve formed. Their credentials, they’re instructors, they’re champion callers, they’re guides, they’re outfitters. These women know what they’re doing and contribute to the Sisterhood greatly. If you’re interested in field staff, every now and then we’ll make some online applications. Most of my field staff are on staff because I’ve met them in person. I’ve vetted them through a process and they had credentials to make the team. Even though some people say, “Field staff is a diluted thing,” it’s not with The Sisterhood of The Outdoors. These women have a job to do and it’s to take new hunters hunting and to mentor women in the outdoors. That’s what they do best.

Amy Ray, thank you for being a guest on Whitetail Rendezvous.

Thank you.

We’ve got thousands of people that are going to read this. Tell them how to reach out and get involved with The Sisterhood of The Outdoors.

You don’t get a manual when you join the outdoor world. Share on X

The web address is www.SisterhoodOutdoors.com. There’s an information email, that’s [email protected]. We’re on Instagram @Sisterhood_Of_The_Outdoors. We’re on Facebook, Sisterhood Outdoors Inc. If any of you women want to join our private Facebook page, you can request to join there and it’s The Sisterhood of The Outdoors Girls page.

With that, we’re going to say thank you, Amy Ray, and it’s just been a pleasure.

Thank you, Bruce.

I wish you all the best. Let’s stay in touch because I look forward to doing some things for you guys down the road as things develop over here at the show. You’re the type of organization that whatever I can do, I certainly want to help you and that goes for your Pro Staff. You’ve got an open invitation for your Pro Staff to be on the show. All they have to do is email me at [email protected] or if they have questions. Sometimes people have questions. I’ve been at the game for a while. I know you have a lot of people that have supported you. If you have gals that have some questions about Colorado because this is where I live and hunting North America, I’d love to make myself available.

I’ll be in Colorado chasing elk and mule deer, so come see me in Meeker.

I’ll be in my tree stand in Wisconsin chasing running buck. That’s one thing. It’s funny. I live in Colorado. I’ve hunted Colorado for many years and because of the show, I typically hunt multiple states and spend a lot of time in a tree stand. I elk hunt. I hunt the archery season. The rest of it I don’t hunt until the late season hunt with my grandkids. Having said that, it’s been great. Amy Ray, keep up the great work because you are a champion and you are somebody that’s making a difference in the lives of hundreds of women. Thank you for that.

Thank you.

About Amy Ray

Amy Ray is the President and CEO of The Sisterhood of The Outdoors. A company dedicated to creating opportunities for women to hunt, fish and learn to shoot. Amy is an NRA certified pistol instructor, and a member of the NRA, a staff shooter for Shoot Like A Girl, Pro Staff at Cabela’s, a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, The National Wild Turkey Federation, and Ducks Unlimited.

Amy purchased the Babes, Bullets and Broadheads business from the former owners in December 2014, and changed the name to The Sisterhood of The Outdoors. Since 2010 the business has grown 300% and over 150 women get the opportunity to go hunting, fishing or shooting with the Sisterhood each year. Amy is an avid hunter and shooter. She has harvested, bull elk, cow elk, antelope, whitetail deer, geese, ducks, turkey, and pheasants.

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Deer Hunting The Sisterhood Of The Outdoors – Amy Ray

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