Stay Strong Hunters

If any of you have been watching my stories on Instagram, you’ll see screenshots of the countless amounts of animal-rights-activist hate comments I’ve been getting on almost every one of my posts.

Many ask me why I post them on my story over Instagram. The reason is not what many people think.

I block every one of these people immediately. I never reply to them, or give them any more of my time than necessary.

I post the screenshots on my story to show others what we as hunters have to go through, and how we should never let it slow us down.

I try to present these screenshots as a joke, so that it will better help others to take their comments lightly. Some of them can be as extreme as death threats, but even those can’t be taken seriously.

Never argue with someone who is blatantly rude and hateful on your page; they will not listen to anything you have to say, no matter how logical.

The best thing to do, is to block these people and move on.

I get anywhere from 5-50 hate comments and messages a day.

I post one every now and then only to bring awareness to the things we have to deal with, and to show others who are going through it that they are not alone.

As Hunters we all need to stick together and stay strong. We are a strong community, and if we stick together by lifting one another up, no one will be able to tear down our hunting rights.

Those who leave these comments do not understand how we as hunters contribute to wildlife.

Money from hunting license is put toward state parks and management areas.

Many hunt for the sole purpose of bringing meat home to our families.

Hunting is also a form of population control to keep one species from becoming too large and getting a disease that wipes them out (this happened in Alabama in the 1950's. Deer had to be brought from Texas to resolute the area).

Some people hate what they don't understand. If you find yourself with these comments on your page, just remember to stay strong and take it lightly. Never let them get to you!

Thank all of you who support me; y’all have been amazing!

Archery Shooting

I have bow hunted for several years now, and I practice as often as possible. With the help of the accubow (an archery training device), I have increased my draw weight to 60 pounds, maxing out my elite bow. 

I have practiced all the way out to 50 yards, which is my bottom pin on my sights. My dad on the other hand, is proficient with a bow out to an unbelievable 100 yards. 

Many do not believe me when I tell them this, so I decided to record him shooting a few times with my phone to make a video for my YouTube channel. 

In this video I made, the first two shots were low, but the fact that he hit the target at all at that distance still astounds me. I told him it was low, and on the third shot, he center punched the small, orange Tinks bottle he was aiming at. I think I was more excited about the shot than my dad himself. 

The video is worth watching if y’all have free time. I tried videoing from two different angles to get the best footage for an edited YouTube video. 

This video is actually of 6 shots, but for the sake of a good video, I edited it all into one. The first three I filmed, I was standing behind dad while he shot. The grouping of dad's arrows was actually better on his first shots, but I didn't have an extra camera to record the arrow hitting the target. 

The group wasn't as good in the second round of shots when I was standing near the target (at a safe distance away), but he hit the Tinks bottle on the last shot. 

I am still working on my editing skills over iMovie. If I can get good enough using iMovie, I may invest in a better software to do my editing. 

What do y'all think?


YouTube Video:

Jeff Barron 100 Yard Bow Shot

Predator Control

Yesterday was the opening day of Alabama's bow season. 

On my first mornin hunt, I heard something behind me. The gait sounded a bit fast to be a deer, but I stood up and got ready with my bow anyways. 

As the source of the sound came into view, I noticed it wasn't a deer. It was a coyote. 

He stayed in thick brush and made a beeline around my tree avoiding any possible shots I could have made with my bow. 

My hunt ended, and that afternoon I sat in a different stand. I watched two big doe and one fawn. The fawn belonged to one of the doe, but the other had obviously lost her baby. 

The fawnless doe's milk sack was abnormally too full and could be seen easily from my elevated position. Without a fawn to nurse, she had an excess amount of milk in her system. 

It made me sad to know that she had lost her fawn, and it is a problem we have often because of our increasing coyote population. 

Right at dark that evening, the coyotes began their nightly howling in the distance. 

I tried to record a bit of it for y'all. I am attaching a SoundCloud link of an audio file. I encourage y'all to have your volume all the way up when you listen. The coyotes were a good ways away and I had to do a lot of editing with Garage Band to get them where they could be heard at all. 

It doesn't do the sound justice, but it can give you an idea of how eerie they sound when you're in the woods at night.

 Me and my father have been working to decrease the overpopulation of coyotes in our area, but it isn't easy. Dad has caught many in foot traps he has set. 

We have also killed very many while predator hunting. 

Predator control is a must in quality deer management. Coyotes are one of deer's biggest threats, and they need to be handled in whatever means possible, whether its trapping or hunting.

Here's the link to the audio file:

Coyotes Howling

My Opinion On Monuments

After all of the controversy centered around Confederate monuments lately, the state of Alabama passed the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017 to protect monuments over 40 years old.

I was proud to hear of this because I do not agree with any historical monuments being torn down.

There are Confederate monuments in the state of Alabama (and other states I'm sure) that list the names of those who died during the Civil War. Whether or not the descendants of those whose names are on those monuments agree with the Confederacy, it is still their family members' names listed on them, and I'm sure they would find it very disrespectful to those who died if these monuments were taken down. 

The act was passed to protect all monuments. The Confederacy was never mentioned in the act. The act protects all monuments that are over 40 years old. 

On Al.com I learned that the number 40 was picked to protect all civil rights monuments. 50 years was the first number picked until a Birmingham Senator brought up the fact that 40 years would better cover any civil rights-era monuments because it ran from 1954 to 1968. 

Rep. Butler stressed the importance of protecting civil rights monuments while Sen. Allen made a valid point that I agree with. "How can you tell the complete history of the civil rights movement if you take away the Confederate monuments?" Allen said.

I believe that historical monuments should be left alone if they are old enough to be considered historic. 

There are monuments of all types in this world, and theres no doubt in mind that anyone could be offended by at least one of them (whether they're confederate monuments, or any other kind).

If they've been around for 40 years without people getting so upset over them, why make such a fuss over it now? Leave these historical monuments for those who respect them, and if they're offensive, ignore them. 

Please do not take this post as me being partial to the Confederacy. I just don't like seeing pieces of history being torn down. I would say this about almost any monument. 

I agree with Sen. Allen when he said that the Confederate monuments complete the civil rights story. It was a terrible time, but to me it represents how far we have come as a country. 

This is only my opinion, and many would disagree. Thank you all or your time!

Why I Watermark

After several of my pictures were stolen from my social media pages to use by individuals to create their own fake profiles using my pictures over Facebook, Instagram, and even Farmersonly.com, I decided it was time to start watermarking some of my pictures. 

A watermark is writing in a picture that is conspicuous without being gaudy. My photos were mainly stolen from my Instagram account, so I used Aviary.com to place the text "@hannahbarron96" in my photos somewhere that couldn't easily be taken out. I did the same thing with my Facebook page including a watermark that read "Hannah Barron Outdoors" in my profile picture.

I started doing this is in the Spring, so most of my recent noodling pictures contain my watermark. I will do the same thing with my hunting pictures this season. 

I don't mind people using my photos, I only ask to receive credit when they're used.

So far, the pictures I have watermarked have not been stolen. People continue to use my older photos I posted before I began using Aviary, but theres not much I can do about that other than addressing the accounts personally.

I also want to thank everyone who has brought these different accounts to my attention. Thank y'all for the amazing support you have given me over the last year!

Here are some examples of the watermarked pictures I have posted recently: 

Just an Update

The weather is getting a little sketchy here in South Alabama with Hurricane Irma way-laying Florida and Georgia. I have spent my time indoors trying to learn to edit. I will be the first to tell y'all, I am about as technologically illiterate as they come. This is not easy for me! I'm working on it though, and hopefully I will have a YouTube channel up and going pretty soon for y'all. 

I also just got done with my giveaways on Instagram for 100,000 followers. Giveaways are not easy for me! I use a random number generator to pick a number, count through the comments manually, and then check the person who's number was drawn and make sure they met all the criteria to be eligible to win. My last giveaway for ORCA cooler had almost 5,000 comments! So many to count! Lucky the first number drawn was a girl named Madison who had met all the requirements. I'm glad I didn't have to count through all of that to get to the second number generated. 

Thank you to all who participated! More giveaways are coming on Facebook and Instagram once I hit 150,000 followers on either platform. 

Y'all be safe during the storms! I'll keep y'all in my prayers. 

How It All Started

Until last June, barely anyone outside of my home state of Alabama knew who Hannah Barron was. From the time I could walk, I've been in the woods following my dad around. I began skinning and boning out deer by myself before the age of 10. I killed my first deer when I was eight years old; it was a seven point buck. I used a Zebco 33 to catch my first bream as a toddler. I learned how to use a bait caster shortly after. I never thought anything about it because it was the way I was raised, and it was a lifestyle that was as natural to me as breathing. It still is.

Five years ago, the local game warden moved in next door. When I say next door, I mean several miles away from my rural home. My family lives a mile off an unpaved road, so we don't have neighbors in the traditional sense of the word. My dad owns a saw mill. Brad Gavins, the county game warden and our new neighbor, asked him to cut up some logs for him. A friendship was struck between the two, and Brad offered to take us noodling. Although it was something we'd never tried, it fit perfectly into the lifestyle we already live. 

For those of you who don't know, noodling, also known as handfishing or grappling, is catching catfish with just your hands (no rod, no reel).

After a few trips with Brad, we were hung. It became a sport as important to us during the summer as deer hunting was during the winter.

Last year, my cousin Ryan Sanders recorded me catching a 30 pound flathead catfish. I posted it on Facebook and Instagram. To my surprise, this video went viral reaching over 25 million views in the first week. 

My social media grew to numbers that are still amazing me. This week I broke 100,000 followers on Instagram. 

People ask me how I got to where I am with my social media, and the best I can tell them is to be themselves. My followers like me because I'm real. I don't do any of this for the attention. I do it because it's a part of my life that I will never give up. It's my passion, and there's nothing else I would rather do. Hunting, fishing, and even noodling are in my blood. The fact that I'm in a position to help those who want to get started in the sport is just a bonus. Thank you all for your amazing support! 

Introduction

Ever since my social media began to grow, I've thought about making two things: a youtube channel and a blog. As with everyone, life happens and I put them behind other events that I felt were more pressing at the time. Now, in my final year of college, I'm taking a reporting class. This class requires its students to create a blog of their own choice. For me, this is a blessing. It gives me more incentive to start on what I have put on the back burner for far too long. 

I am also learning how to edit my own videos, so hopefully a YouTube channel will be coming soon!

In this blog, I would like to discuss a few things that I've felt strongly about for the most part of my life and some things that have been brought to my attention when my social media pages became more prominent to the rest of the world.

 I've been an outdoors woman since before I was old enough to understand the meaning of the word. My family brought me up to love wildlife, but to hunt them as well. They taught me to respect nature, how to utilize what the land provides us as a means of survival, and how to enjoy the simplicity of life's purest elements. 

Hunting, fishing, trapping, and gardening have been traditions of my family for generations. These are traditions I do not intend to break, and ones that I will put forth my utmost efforts to pass on to my children. 

My father taught me clean a deer before I ever harvested one for myself. This taught me the true purpose of hunting. Although I will always take joy in the thrill of the hunt, I will never take for granted the meat the animals we take provide us with. I was taught to respect these animals, to always take an ethical shot that results in the least amount of suffering, and to utilize every part of the animal that I can manage.

There is more that goes into hunting than just the kill shot. This is one of the topics I would like to discuss in this blog, along with several others such as the threat of anti-hunters and women in the outdoors.

I've received insults of the most degrading manner along with death threats from those who oppose hunting. In my blog I would like to share these experiences with those who may have the same problem. 

In my experience, I have learned that it is best to block the antis who obviously have no intent other than to upset those they criticize. It is not worth arguing with these types of people because they refuse to reason with facts. They have no interest in learning our side of the story, so there's no point in trying to enlighten them when they refuse to acknowledge any truths that we may reveal to them. 

As hunters and fishers, we need to support each other in this sport we all love in order to keep it alive and under enough protection to make it indestructible in the hands of the antis. It is easy to disagree about small things among ourselves, but we always need to remember that we are a small group of people who believe in the same bigger picture: conservation. Although we may disagree at times, we must stick together to protect our way of living as a whole.

I was raised into a world centered around the outdoors. Now that I have more exposure to he outside world, I realize that many people, women especially, were not as lucky as I to be brought up in such a setting. There are many women who would love to have the opportunity to get started in the outdoors but are not sure where to start. Many even feel intimidated because hunting and fishing have always been known as a "man's sports." I'm here to tell you that we have the ability to redefine the word as women. 

Over this blog, I will share experiences I've had as a woman in the outdoors. I've been underestimated many times, but I have learned that being underestimated can often work in my favor. It has given me the chance to prove myself as an equal to any man in this industry, regardless of my gender. 

I will use this blog as a page to share with y'all some of my stories (hunting, fishing, noodling, etc), how I got started in every sport I now feel is a part of my life, and how much social media has impacted me so far. I would also love to help y'all in any way I can, whether you're having trouble with anti-hunters, or if you're a woman in the outdoors either wanting to get started in it all, or you're just here to relate with another woman who is in about the same boat. Thank y'all for reading! Stay tuned, I will be posting a new entry every week. 

Facebook: Hannah Barron Outdoors

Instagram: hannahbarron96

Blog: http://www.hannahbarronoutdoors.com