A venue for traditional wingshooting will soon open, tailored specifically for women – and it’s about time.
Called the Ladies Shooting Syndicate, it’s the brainchild of Blixt & Co. in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Ladies Shooting Syndicate is by membership only. It organizes splendid shooting trips to luxurious destinations for like-minded women. In effect, Blixt & Co. has transported the Golden Age of Shooting into the 20th century for women with adventurous sensibilities.
The superb Austrian firearms engraver, Martin Strolz, accepts two assignments at most per year. Now Martin tells us in a phone conversation that he is available in 2010 – for only one gun.
Martin tends to work close to home in the town of Steyr. He teaches engraving at the Higher Technical School, and the few outside assignments he does accept usually originate from the prestigious gunmaker and outfitter, Lechner & Jungl, in nearby Graz.
There was a golden time in America when fresh-faced kids could routinely bring their guns to school, stash them in their locker with books and lunch boxes, and then after football practice all run out to a big field and shoot at rusty cans and elusive squirrels with their very own .22.
As a girl growing up on a ranch in Texas, those days are still a living memory for Judy Rhodes – and it’s her mission in this God-given life to share that boundless joy with other women today.
Judy has been toting a gun since the age of four and she got her start hunting rats, pigeons “anything that was a nuisance” using her first Red Ryder BB gun. At 8, she got her first real gun, which was a .410 shotgun.
Judy recalls that during those days she was “a ringleader of organizing people to go out and shoot. Maybe 30 kids would go after a game… only two girls, and the rest were guys…it was a time when girls weren’t encouraged to play sports.”
But being a rancher’s daughter, Judy said she didn’t know there were any limitations for girls. “I was used to the call of the wild.”
Little did Judy know at the time that those wonder years of her life would set the foundation for her to become one of the leading advocates for introducing women to the shooting sports and that very same call of the wild.
When she left home to attend Oklahoma University, her natural talents as a hunter and leader roped in some “Yankees” from the East Coast, where she demonstrated her early talent to get people involved in the kind of life that Judy loved.
She recalled how she had invited those East Coast guys back to her home in Texas. “It was my first time around Yankees who had never been exposed to the outdoors,” she says, laughing.
Judy remembered how she would get them on a horse and to touch a cow – often the first time her new friends got that close to livestock – or any big animal. Then, at night, Judy introduced them to hunting as they stalked coyotes.
After college, Judy returned to Texas where she landed a job as an interior decorator working on high-profile projects such as the Ritz Carlton in Dallas. Back home now, she got right back into hunting, which turned out to bring her some business because there simply weren’t that many women at the time who shared her passion for the sport.
One day, she was on the job and “a cowboy gets in the elevator. He’d just come back from hunting in Wyoming.” What neither of them realized was that they both worked for the same company. In fact, as the vice president of finance, he signed her checks.
The stars were aligned, and they got married. For their honeymoon, they went hunting in Wyoming.
In 1999, Judy was recruited to the board of the Women’s Shooting Sports Foundation — an arm of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The charter of the WSSF was to get women more involved in the shooting sports and hunting, as well as function as sort of a lobbying group to influence manufacturers and retailers on the special needs of women shooters (and Judy has some strong opinions about that).
When the WSSF ultimately dissolved, she started the Texas Divas, which is short for Texas Women’s Shooting Sports/DIVAS. It is now known as Women Outdoors Worldwide – Divas WOW – and remarkably is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
Today, DIVAS has members in 49 states and 15 foreign countries. Over the years, DIVAS has taught over 800 women how to shoot a shotgun. They don’t call them chapters, they’re called liaisons because it’s a sisterhood – women who need encouragement to enjoy the outdoors.
Her motto is “Women Helping Women…Women Teaching Women…Women Supporting Women.” Her leadership in shooting, hunting and civic organizations led to a major story with photograph (including shotgun) in the Today Section of USA Today in March 2006.
She has also been featured in stories promoting women’s positive outdoor experiences throughout the world, including broadcasts on German Television and the United Kingdom BBC Television.
Maybe that’s where she got the TV bug. She started Divas in the Outdoors Television Show for reaching women and families worldwide. The show taught simple techniques from professionals. Divas in the Outdoors was the number-two show on MOR (Men’s Outdoors and Recreational) shown on Direct TV, DishNetwork, Comcast and Turner Media.
All the while, Judy has been to South Africa 18 times, in addition to Spain, Argentina, Scotland, England, Canada and Mexico, as well as all over the U.S.A.
Her leadership, enthusiasm and commitment have made Judy the voice of outdoor women within the industry. As you can appreciate, she has a word or two for shotgun makers.
“Make guns that fit us.”
Judy believes that the Beretta 391 semi-automatic is probably the best-fitting full-size gun for women on the market. Otherwise, she recommends that smaller framed women get themselves a youth gun.
But knowing Judy, we can expect to see a lot more shotguns on the market tailored to women.
“When we conduct our clinics women are afraid and we tell them that women can’t be afraid. They know what guns can do, but don’t know how to use them. But once a woman hit her first target its amazing how they want to go out and be a marksman and buy their own guns,” she observed.
There was something else Judy discovered about women involved in the shotgun sports.
“Women enjoy the smell of gunpowder.” She went as far as to say that women considered the smell of gunpowder a turn on.
Does that mean there’s a new women’s fragrance in Judy’s future? Not really, but she is exploring the possibility of returning to TV this September.
“It will involve a lot of women and the outdoors,” she said.
Judy honestly feels that she has been chosen by a higher power to get women involved in hunting, shooting and the great outdoors. “It’s a sisterhood, a bonding, to make sure we have that next generation of women shooters. This is a mission I believe that I have in life.”
Irwin Greenstein is Publisher of Shotgun Life. Please send your comments to letters@shotgunlife.com.
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For the First Time, the Shotgun Industry Can Combine Quality Editorial With Digital Advertising Aimed at Affluent Shooters
Pikesville, Maryland, January 15, 2009 — Shotgun Life (www.shotgunlife.com) opened the door to a new, digital era in the “Best Gun” category as the first online magazine devoted to wing and clays shooting.
In addition to the digital format, Shotgun Life breaks new ground as the only publication with comprehensive, quality editorial of both wing and clays shooting, and a section devoted to the rapidly expanding audience of women who participate in the shotgun sports.
By being online, Shotgun Life lets advertisers, for the first time, adopt a complete “cradle-to-grave” strategy that begins by reaching a new generation of Internet-savvy professionals and retain their loyalty through a lifetime of upgrades to higher quality shotguns, accessories and shooting venues. At the same time, Shotgun Life appeals to the established audience of affluent shooters who use the Internet in their daily lives.
Moreover, Shotgun Life lets advertisers reach readers in places that were previously off limits, such as the workplace.
In addition to the free online magazine, Shotgun Life publishes a free weekly e-letter whose mission is to help shooters improve their skills with tips from world-class instructors. In less than four months, the Shotgun Life e-letter has garnered nearly 700 subscribers who signed up for it. As another new marketing tool, the Shotgun Life e-letter is the first online, direct-response vehicle for the shotgun industry.
“We have been beta-testing Shotgun Life since the middle of September 2008, and now it is clear that the industry recognizes that the need for a robust online venue is long overdue,” said Publisher, Irwin Greenstein.
We anticipated an extraordinary weekend of shooting and dining, since we also had dinner reservations at another great American institution, the Culinary Institute of America in nearby Hyde Park.
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First the black lab shows up at the door, then the gunsmith, who escorts me through the utilitarian building into a workshop where the president of shotgun maker Caesar Guerini, Wes Lang, has a file in hand working on a customer’s barrel.
It’s the dream of every American wingshooter to visit the British Isles for a driven shoot.
If you’re into fried seafood, hand-carved decoys and the pleasures of small-town life then the 38th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland was the place to spend a leisurely autumn afternoon.
It started in a pizza and sandwich shop in South Philadelphia, and eventually led to one of the great finds in the world of big-bore collectors.
Today, Bernie Liberati can legitimately claim he is the only man to own two consecutively numbered L.C. Smith 8-gauge shotguns — a highly coveted find given that only 35 total were ever made.
The achievement is a far cry from the kid who delivered pizzas and sandwiches in South Philly. Delivering food in that neighborhood may not sound glamorous, but it opened the door into the world of big-bore shotguns for Bernie…
After working there for a while, the shop owner had taken Bernie out hunting one night.
“We didn’t get anything, but I had fun,” he said.
The Boy’s First Shotgun
Afterwards, his boss suggested that Bernie may want to buy a shotgun. Bernie didn’t own a shotgun (or any other kind of gun for that matter). The man offered to get one for Bernie, and soon the delivery boy entrusted his boss with the cash to buy his first shotgun.
It turned out to be a 12-gauge Daiwa, made by Singer Nikko in Japan.
“It was beautiful,” Bernie recalled.
So beautiful, in fact, the man offered Bernie $175 — a full $25 more than what the boy paid for it. Did Bernie bite? No way. But it was his first introduction into the value of shotguns — planting a seed that would grow into a fascination with the thunderous big bores.
Telling Dad About the Shotgun
In the meantime, though, Bernie had to contend with his father. You see, when he came home that night with a shiny new shotgun in a cardboard box, he father reprimanded: “You can’t bring that in the house.”
I said “I have no place to put it.”
Dad: “That’s your problem.”
As the sun went down, young Bernie was relegated to the porch. Wearing only a t-shirt, it was like sitting in a refrigerator out there — until his mother intervened.
“My mother was inside, complaining, ‘How could you let my son sit out in the cold?'” Finally, his father let the boy in…along with his brand new shotgun.
Bernie and his friends loved to take his new Daiwa out to a field near the Philadelphia airport. “We’d set up a skeet machine and no one would bother us. The police would come by to make sure we weren’t doing anything wrong, that we weren’t drinking.”
Yes, those were the good old days.
Fast forward to 1992…
Bernie’s father, now 78, wanted to retire from the customs house broker company he owned since 1963, Morris Friedman and Co. So rather than sell the business to a stranger, he gave it to Bernie.
A Fateful Meeting With Jim Stahl
One day, Bernie was hard at work in the office, when one of his regular contacts from U.S. Customs stopped by — a guy named Jim Stahl. He suggested to Bernie they go trap shooting one night. (As fate would have it, Jim would become active in the L.C. Smith Collectors Association.)
They had such a good time they thought it would be a good idea to make it a regular Wednesday night ritual.
After a few times out trap shooting, Jim invited Bernie to go hunting… and they had a great time doing that too.
As their friendship grew, Jim introduced Bernie to side-by-side shotguns. Bernie was bowled over when he discovered that Jim’s collection actually reached 25 side-by-sides.
“That’s unbelievable,” Bernie told Jim, laughing about it today and given the size of his own collection.
Bernie’s Shotgun Education
In conjunction with the side-by-side collection, Jim was an avid collector of books related to vintage and big-bore shotguns.
Thanks to Jim, Bernie embarked on his shotgun education.
But Bernie was about to get hooked.
One Saturday afternoon, Jim took Bernie to visit Hollowell’s Gun Shop in Connecticut.
“We’re walking around and Jim says what kind of gun do you want?”
Bernie’s wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted, but he knew what he didn’t want: a 12-gauge.
“Everybody has a 12 gauge,” Bernie remembers telling Jim.
As they wandered the around the store, Bernie thought he would go for a .410.
“But there was this 10-gauge Remington. It was cheap and unique,” Bernie said.
Out of the Corner His Eye…
Then lightning struck…
Out of the corner of his eye, Bernie spotted an 8-gauge J.P. Clabrough “in the middle of the table. It was the first 8-gauge I’d ever seen.” After negotiating about 90 minutes, Bernie brought home the first two big bores of what would become an extensive collection.
“And that’s how I started. I was fortunate in that people were not that enthusiastic about buying them, and the prices were pretty affordable,” he said.
After years of collecting 4-, 8- and 10-gauge vintage beauties, Bernie was finally able to put it together: his prized consecutively numbered 8-gauge L.C. Smith Grade 2 shotguns.
The first one he purchased was number 46291. As fate would have it, Bernie bought it on Valentine’s Day 2006.
Only three weeks later, another 8-gauge L.C. Smith Grade 2 became available.
As Bernie tells it, “There was a fellow who was member of the L.C. Smith Collector’s Association. Unfortunately, he was going through some rough times.” The man needed to liquidate his collection, and the dealer who got it immediately gave Bernie a call.
When Bernie got it, he realized it was numbered 46290.
Bingo.
Well, from the kid sitting out on the porch that one chilly night with his first shotgun, Bernie now owns about 50 big bores.
“I like the fact that they’re unique, and have a history behind them,” Bernie said.
But these stunning shotguns aren’t mere museum pieces for him.
“I shoot them at least twice a year.”
Bernie Liberati today with his son, Bernie.
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Shotgun Life is the first online magazine devoted to the great people who participate in the shotgun sports.
Our goal is to provide you with the best coverage in wing and clays shooting. That includes places to shoot, ways to improve your shooting and the latest new products. Everything you need to know about the shotgun sports is a mouse-click away.
Irwin Greenstein
Publisher
Shotgun Life
PO Box 6423
Thomasville, GA 31758
Phone: 229-236-1632
