And a special hello to Jeff of NO EXCUSES OUTDOORS — television show! I was very impressed the first time that I went to your website and listened to your theme song. It was definitely a priviledge to meet the singer songwriter, Dale Littleton, and listen to his new music. I will add deails and a link so others can share his music also.

Great meeting and visiting with all of you at the NWTF Convention in Nashville.

MY seminar went well — 100 to 125 people in the audience. If you are interested in information on the topic: Make the Shot Count, you will be pleased to find an article by the same title that I will post within a week.

If you were in the audience at the Ladies Lunchon, I trust that you saw some Foxy Huntress Clothes that you can not do without. You can find them at special prices on the website. We had a lot of fun strutting our stuff on the runway, but the turkey woods are calling my name.

I got to visit with lots of old friends and as always, I met some new people that are now considered friends. One such person is Kevin Blake Weldon, a singer songwriter from the Nashville area. You must check out his music. If you are a hunter, he has a song that you can relate to.

Well, the library is closing and they are getting ready to turn out the lights. I guess that means that I must let you go for now.

Jeff Gagnow here from No Excuses Outdoors I just wanted to say thank you for taking time to stop by and say Hi to us and our singer Dale Littleton………it really makes me feel good knowing that we are touching people and that our message is being heard…

Thank you so much and I hope we get to work together in the future…

Good luck and thanks for what you do for the sport, the industry, and the future!!

Jeff Gagnow

Once again, I had an opportunity to visit with folks that I had met over the last few years including a young man named Joey whom I helped three years ago with the purchase and tuning of his first bow. Now he and his father are making plans to hunt with MO Majic Outfitters, an outfitting business owned by my husband Dan DeWitt and Daniel Cordray of Missouri. Other Raven Wear patrons that I measured for clothes will be our guests in MO this fall. It definitely pays to be good to people. I look forward to having these folks as guests in our home and hope they find incredible success in our woods.

Tonight Dan and I had dinner with friends from Warthog Safaris of South Africa. Oh to dream of returning to the Dark Continent to hunt again!! Watching their footage and looking at their photo albums makes me yearn for Africa. The smells, the sounds,the sunsets are all vividly etched in my memory. I can’t wait to return.

But first, I must catch some sleep and give my body time to recover from this bug!

Good night all.

Joella

In my years in the outdoors, I have met many amazing people, several of which our friendships have blossumed as a result of introductions made at the Harrisburg Sport Show.

It was 13 years ago that I met Susan Hindbo. We were both working in the Dream Catcher’s booth owned by the late Pete Rubianus. Pete’s display was like no other in the show; it spanned 30 feet in one direction and wrapped another 20 feet in the other while taking in the corner by the ladies room. I had just gone to the doctor for a nagging problem that had been diagnosed as tendenitis from overusing the joints while shooting my bow. Having had cortisone shots in both elbows and shoulders, I had very limited use of both arms. Now, I had been scheduled to work at the show for several weeks and would not even consider cancelling. Pete had lined it up for Susan and I to room together. After talking for hours, I felt like I had found a long-lost sister. We became instant friends and 13 years later we still cherish that friendship.

Again this year, I work in the Raven Wear of Canada booth with fellow pro staffer, Bonnie Friend, of Garrett County Maryland. Bonnie is also a lady hunter who prefers shooting a muzzleloader for her hunting adventures. Bonnie developed the Convert-a-Muff that is manufactured by Raven Wear. It functions as a hand muff, tree shirt, seat warmer, gun cover-up, knee warmer, foot warmer, and place to stand when I take off my boots to put on my heavy bibs. I’m sure that there are many other uses also; try it for yourself then let me know what works for you.

Three years ago, I ran into Dan DeWitt in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Hotel after a long day at the Sport Show. We had been introduced by the Preston Pittman of Pittman Game Calls three years prior to that at the NWTF. In my opinion, Preston is the guru of turkey calling. Preston had actually introduced Dan as the BEST deer caller bar none that he had ever met. Preston advised me to go hunt with Dan if given the chance. Dan and I became good friends via the telephone. Last year at the SHOT Show, Dan and I had our first date. Within a month, he invited me to spend the spring turkey hunting with him. I did and now I am his wife. So this year, the Harrisburg Sport Show is our first as husband and wife. Dan is getting used to all the folks hugging on me.

The weather has been great for the Show so far. On Monday, I sported my Foxy Huntress pants with zip-off legs. They were the perfect compliment to the new Raven Wear ladies vest in black, brown, or camo.

Next week, I will be in Nashville at the National Wild Turkey Federation Convention. It was at NWTF three years ago that I met Shelah by way of an introduction by her sister. This Foxy Huntress is an outstanding huntress and an even more incredible lady.

Both of my other lady friends, Susan and Bonnie have developed products that I use while hunting, but Shelah Zmigrosky took her own personal need for appropriate ladies hunting attire from a need to a business. In 2005, Shelah introduced the first complete line of ladies safari, upland and field wear for women. Foxy Huntress incorporates their exclusive camouflage pattern, available in shades of greens and ond oranges accented with browns, into the entire line.

At this year’s NWTF Convention, I will be presenting a seminar sponsored by Foxy Huntress, one of the centurion sponsors of NWTF on Friday (I believe at 12:00 or 12:30 pm). The seminar is 3-D Archery and Bowhunting: make the shot count. It will feature tips and techniques that will help the shooter be more consistent at the moment of truth.

I cherish my friendship with all three of these ladies and value the products that they provide to hunters and particularly to lady hunters. In a lifetime, we meet many people, but very few of them turn into lasting true friendships. With these three ladies,

My babies enjoying the Biloxi, MS beach before Travis was deployed with the Air Force to Afganistan.

Two years ago, I attended the ATA show the week before he was born and came home with his first bow. It was just a toy, but it was the start. I fondly remember starting his mom, Jana, and his uncle, Bo, in archery with toy bows not even 20 years ago. Toys only satisified them for a very short time. They both desired to have their own real bows.

Just this past fall, Jana was complaining to me that Laken didn’t think that she had anything to do except shoot his bow with him. Laken and his dad, Travis, had opened Laken’s Next Generation compound bow set. Travis, being a young father, flung an arrow at ZEBCO, the family’s Boykin puppy. Laken found that to be great fun. Jana soon convinced Laken that he needed to find a new target. Now he shoots lots of stuffed animals, toy trucks, toy tractors, and any other object that he deems a qualified target. Between his parents and grandparents, he owns the Next Generation Crossbow and Shotgun, both presents from 208 Christmas.

I have a ground blind that is waiting in a box for the family’s first hunting outing. I am sure that it will be a long time before Laken is quite enough and still enough for his parents to actually shoot something from the blind. But Jana has it coming, because I took her and her brother on many hunts in our family groundblind that would have been considered by many hunters to have been a waste of good hunting time. I believe that those hunts were very successful. We shared time together. We even occassionally saw a squirrel or chipmunk.

I want to share an article with you that I wrote several years ago.

We can assure that our Hunting Heritage will be perpetuated if we start’em young.

• Work as a full-time professional ambassador - promoter - consultant for the archery and hunting industry locally, nationally, and internationally.
• Balance some competing with hunting, writing, and educating persons using archery, bow hunting, shooting, and hunting on a global basis through demonstrations, seminars, workshops, newspapers, magazines, television, and videos.
• Field test archery, shooting, and hunting equipment and provide feedback on design, quality, and function.
• Attract and develop new and lasting customer relationships for manufacturers, dealers, and outfitters of shooting and hunting products and services.

Now that we got that out of the way, lets talk HUNTING!