2024-2025 High School Rifle Season

[Aragorn243]

Yes, there is a definite difference between the boys and girls. I always take surveys before the season starts of the kids joining the team. Most of the boys have shot rifles before, most of the girls have not. But that is not set in stone. I have at least two girls this year that hunt deer and have been successful hunting deer and this has been consistent during my 13 years. Always one or two out of the 10 or so on the team that hunt.

The boys have a higher percentage of hunters but they still are a minority of the boys. That has changed a lot. My first year, all the boys were hunters. I live in an area that used to give the first few days of deer season off before they started to a Saturday opener but I believe Monday and Tuesday is still off.

The girls also want to do well, they are very competitive, sometimes want to be better than the boys, etc. They also tend to feel bad when they don't do well. A lot of the boys just don't seem to care. I've seen crying in rifle. I don't like to see it but with a mixed team it happens. We talk, they stop and move on. The dancer was also quick to anger and in all my 13 years she was the only one that shot better when she was angry. Somehow it just focused her.

The boys can sometimes be jerks too but in general, they all get along fairly well. One thing I haven't seen is the boys freaking out because the girls are better than them. I wouldn't allow that in any case if I did see it.

The type of shooting we do is strictly prone, with slings, gloves, jackets so it is completely unlike other forms of shooting. So the more shooting experience they have, the harder it is for them to adjust to this. They have to unlearn everything they were taught to learn this style. The girls just do it better. They are generally more mature, they listen, they want to learn and they seem to handle the pain better. It is painful to shoot this way. Their wrists get strained, their non-trigger hands and arms go numb from lack of circulation.

One of my best shooters was a girl, a dancer who had never shot before in her life. She was shooting in the 90's almost immediately. And the odd thing is, her mom came in during family nights and shot in the 90's on her first attempt.

My best boy shooters in recent years were computer geeks that were on the robotics team.

The redneck hunters are the worst. They don't want to give up their old habits no matter what and until they do, they will be 96-97 shooters at best, those last couple or points require full attention to the new form of shooting. They can take four years to finally figure it out.

11 earned varsity letters this year. 9 of them were girls. Only the two boys in the above photo lettered They were number 4 and 7 on the team.

Politics was mentioned earlier. I live in a conservative district to most of the kids are from conservative families. I make it a point to not discuss politics in practice or out of school but I hear them talking on the van when we travel sometimes. Two were very eager to vote for the first time this year. Not all are conservative which is why I don't discuss it. They need to be a team and they mostly succeed at that.