With our launch of The Women's Outdoor Wire, we've been getting a lot of comments from other services about possibly overemphasizing women's roles in the outdoors. As is always the case with the first to try anything, there's more than a healthy bit of skepticism from those who just don't see the need. Nearly seven years ago, several people told me there was absolutely no need for a daily outdoor news service. Today, some of those same people send me an email if their edition isn't there first thing in the morning.

In today's edition of The Women's Outdoor Wire, an interview with hunting celebrity Brenda Valentine. Over the past week, she's been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and interviewed on Fox News. It's been a busy week for the lady who the mainstream media seems to have adopted as one of the spokespersons for the outdoor industry.

Today, the story of a magazine that stepped a little outside its comfort zone, too.

First woman on Shooting Sportsman
magazine cover draws great interest

Rockport, Maine --At last month's Vintage Cup World Side-by-Side Championship in Queenstown, Maryland , the event was abuzz with questions about the November/December issue of Shooting Sportsman magazine. Wing-shooting aficionados all knew it was news that the 20-year-old magazine had put a woman on its cover for the first time. And, according to the magazine's editor, Ralph Stuart, "The response was overwhelmingly positive."

She's a model, but April Moritz is a hunter, too.

Stuart said he was not surprised when sportsmen and women wanted to know, "Is she legit? Is she actually a hunter?" While most of us realize magazine covers in all areas of interest frequently feature models who know nothing about the subjects they are representing, "Sportsmen are more demanding," Stuart said.

In the cover photo, hunter and model April Moritz is carrying four mallard drakes and a Benelli Super Black Eagle II. Sportsmen and women demanded to know, could she have taken the ducks herself? Since she is outfitted entirely in Filson clothing and her cheeks are almost too beautifully rosy to be true, many also asked if she'd been made up for a fashion shoot to look flushed from the outdoor experience.

Others wanted to know if Shooting Sportsman editors, who work months in advance on each issue, were clairvoyant enough to know a dark-haired woman hunter would make the ideal November cover image even before the name of the maverick-vice presidential candidate was announced.

According to photographer Lee Thomas Kjos, model April Moritz did not shoot the particular mallards she is carrying in the cover photo, but she did bring down some pheasants during the three-day, dark-to-dark hunting trip-during which fellow hunters shot the ducks. And when she strode through the grass at the edge of a prairie slough near Veblen, South Dakota, her cheeks were flushed from the frigid temperatures rather than from makeup. "It was raw, raw-boned chill out there," Kjos recalled. "That face and her lips and her chin-that's not makeup. That's [due to] cold!"

Because Kjos was doing some advertising photography for Filson during the three-day outing, the hunters in the group were wearing gear from that company. But, in fact, the photo was not posed. Kjos snapped it from across the slough using a long telephoto lens, which he had set up to focus on some men bringing in decoys and boats. "April just picked up that bird strap and started back toward the truck," he said. "I saw her coming through the grass" and just started taking the pictures.

Moritz recalled the hunting trip, too. "We didn't have a makeup artist out there," she laughed. "What you see is windburn. The wind chill was so cold, I was hurting. My cheeks were flushed for a couple of days after that."

Why did the editors of the world's premier wing-shooting magazine wait so long to feature a woman on their cover? Shooting Sportsman Art Director Lynda Mills said she long had been open to considering a woman for the cover. After all, Mills hails from a traditional Maine hunting family herself. She said she'd evaluated photos of women for this purpose before but that this image was the first that met all of her criteria for a cover. "I chose this photo because of its vitality and the fact that I knew the subject was the real deal. I thought people might question the authenticity, and I knew we had the facts to back it up."

And here are the facts. Born and raised in rural Emily, Minnesota, Moritz grew up in a family of eight. Both of her parents hunt, with her mother even more keen on the sport than her father. Moritz holds an MBA and a job in the field of financial management, and she sometimes models for Kjos. But she sees herself as a genuine sportswoman first. Moritz is a professional snowmobile racer who also pursues motocross (dirt biking) in the woods around her home. Moritz is also a hunter whose first love is wingshooting.

She's accustomed to receiving attention for her beauty but, she said, "People think because I'm a girl and I'm pretty, I might not be capable. Guys all the time want to arm wrestle with me. When they see me hunting or on a dirt bike, it gets attention because they think it's unique. I get comments that start, "I didn't expect….' And I'm, like, 'Well, yuh!'" It's just obvious to her that plenty of women are capable at sports.

Moritz is not related to Sarah Palin. And Shooting Sportsman editors did not see Moritz in a crystal ball along with predictions of the vice-presidential news. They did know something about the future, though.

"Women are the future of our sport," Stuart said. "As overall hunter numbers have decreased in the past couple of decades, female participation has increased. And when women become involved with the sport, they ensure that their families will take part as well. We're proud to have a woman on our cover who truly represents the face of hunting's future."