03/11/2026
In honor of Women's day...... Rachel Voss, director of Share The HERitage, shares you're never TOO old to learn to waterfowl hunt.
Jan, nearly 80, was tiny in stature but larger than life the morning of her first waterfowl hunt. When I stepped into the lobby before daylight, she was already there—first one ready, bundled up and grinning like a kid on the first day of school. She had the kind of excitement you don’t often see before a hunt, the kind that tells you someone knows they’re about to experience something new. Out in the field, when she climbed into the layout blind, we realized something that made us laugh—she was so small she could sit straight up with the doors closed and never even had to lay down.
As dawn cracked and the spread settled across the frosty November field, Jan watched it all with wide-eyed excitement. Earlier she had bee-bopped around the field helping set decoys and later picking them up, moving from decoy to decoy with an energy that made the rest of us smile. Now tucked into the blind beside me, she listened to the distant wings and watched the first birds circle high above. She had never laid beneath a sky full of waterfowl before, and when those geese finally locked up and started working the spread, the suspense built with every pass. Wings whistled overhead, the birds honked, banked, and dropped lower, circling the decoys with growing interest.
When the flock finally committed, everything happened fast. “Take ’em!” came the call from Trevor.... and our blinds burst open as the first volley rolled across the field. Feathers drifted and birds folded out of the sky. Then from the blind right next to me, over the echo of the shots, I heard Jan yell out a triumphant “WOOHOO!” Her voice carried across the field, full of pure joy and excitement, the kind that reminds you exactly why moments like this matter.
That’s what the First Hunt Foundation is all about—showing people that a first hunt doesn’t have an age limit. Whether you’re 8 or pushing 80, the anticipation leading up to the hunt, the quiet moments before sunrise, and the thrill when it all comes together feel exactly the same. Jan proved that in every way that morning. Before the hunt was even over, while we were still sitting out in the blinds watching the sky, she was already planning her next trip. Age wasn’t a factor at all—just another number in the story of someone discovering that the first time can happen at any time.
To become a mentor: www.firsthuntfoundation.org
