The Mt. Jewett Sportsmen’s Club continues to advance their recruitment of women into the outdoor heritage experience by offering another shooting course for women. On Saturday and Sunday, July 25 and 26, the first two days of a four-day course will be held at the club. Women will learn the basics of shotgun safety, use, ammunition, and experience shotgunning with expert advice.

The Women’s Introduction to Wingshooting program is a national shooting program for women and girls, taught by women. The Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS), Allegheny and Upland Bird Hunt Chapters, and the Mt. Jewett Sportsmen’s Club are bringing this national program to Pennsylvania once again this summer. Training will be held on July 25-26 and August 22-23. An upland bird hunt will be offered on September 13.

Women have been picking up shotguns in record numbers in the last decade. So much so, women shooters have increased a whopping 189% in the last five years (www.shootlikeagirl.com).

National sponsors such as Sportdog, Federal Ammunition, and Purina help make this program available to women. “Once again, this program filled quickly with women from all over the state of Pennsylvania and out-of-state, and we are so glad that the Mt. Jewett Sportsmen’s Club hosts this nationally recognized program right here in north central PA,” said the seven women instructors of the Women’s Introduction to Wingshooting Committee. “We thank the Mt. Jewett Sportsmen’s Club!”

The program will teach women the basic shooting sports, and how to hunt game birds of Pennsylvania: grouse, pheasant, turkey, quail, woodcock, snipe, doves and crows, and ducks and geese.

The Ruffed Grouse Society was founded in 1961 to promote and increase awareness of young forest management and to maintain suitable habitat that supports healthy populations of ruffed grouse, woodcock, deer and many songbird species that depend on forest diversity to survive and prosper.