At home, we seldom cook bacon on the iron skillet.

It smells up the house, says Diane. So our bacon is always nuked in the microwave. Ugh. Radiated bacon. It’s just not the same.

Maybe this is why I like deer camp in November. The place has an olfactory presence all of its own: hints of gun oil, wet wool, cigar smoke, old whiskey, and, yes – bacon frying on an iron skillet. I love the smell of deer camp.

When I was a younger deer hunter and returned to my wife after eight or nine days at deer camp, she would greet me outside the house with a kiss and an admonition: “Whew, you smell like a grease pit. Take off your clothes outside, please, Hon.”

But, my, how times are a changin’. Diane, like more and more women across America, has taken up hunting. She is into it all, the guns, the woods, the cold-morning vigils, the quest for wild meat. During her relatively short hunting career, she has bagged (and field dressed) a Maine black bear, a moose, a nice whitetail buck, a Colorado elk and a number of pheasant and partridge.

Flyrod Crosby, the Maine backwoods heroine who broke ground for women in the outdoors, would be goggle-eyed at the changing culture. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of male hunters in America decreased. But there has been a corresponding increase in female hunters. In fact , from 1985 to 1990, the number of female hunters has more than doubled – from 1.3 million to 2.7 million.

This fact has been conveniently ignored by the anti-hunting media, which continues to report that hunting is a sport in cultural decline. In fact, the irony is that female participation in hunting has kept the total hunter head count stable for the past decade.

Do women belong at deer camp?

Twenty years ago, the male response was predictable. “Men are the hunters. Women are the nurturers, gatherers.”

Interestingly enough, if you fast-rewind back through human evolution and look at life before modern patriarchal societies, women hunted and eviscerated animals. The short answer to the question is probably that some women – like their male counterparts – want to hunt, and some don’t. Those who do, should. And they belong at deer camp, either with other female companions, or with males who are enlightened or secure enough to welcome a female into what has traditionally been an exclusionary male bastion.

I enjoy Diane’s company in the deer woods and the bird covers. But I am glad that she learned her gun and hunting basics from other mentors more patient than I. She received her grounding in hunting and firearms safety by attending the Maine Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) programs. She recommends it highly for any woman wanting to become more skilled and knowledgeable about the outdoor world.

Again this year, the BOW program will conduct its annual fall program at Pattee Pond in Winslow. Sponsored by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIF&W) and the Maine Warden Service Association, the BOW program is designed to help women of all ages learn more about the outdoors, and activities ranging from map and compass work to fly fishing, whitewater canoeing, gun safety and hunting. Courses are also offered in outdoor cooking, wildlife photography, archery, self defense, trapping, backpacking, sea kayaking, fly casting, muzzleloading, and survival. This is a national program that has been helping women from all walks of life become knowledgeable and accomplished outdoor enthusiasts.

A three-day BOW weekend will be held Sept. 16-18, at Camp Caribou in Winslow. Called Becoming an Outdoors Woman Introductory Skills Weekend, a busy schedule of activities is planned. Instructors include veteran Maine guides and members of the Maine Warden Service. Tuition fee is $200. Some $100 scholarships are also available upon request from those needing financial assistance.

More information about the Maine BOW program is available from the activities coordinator, Emily Jones. Her e mail address is: [email protected], or she can be reached by phone at 207 287 8069.

If you ask me, the Maine BOW program and female participation in hunting and other outdoor activities, is the best hope we have of preserving and even enhancing our hunting heritage. Male hunters who care will celebrate this cultural shift. One day I expect Diane to show up at deer camp. She’ll just have to get used to the smell and sizzle of bacon in the skillet. That will always be as much a part of deer camp as beans for breakfast or those smelly socks drying on the crossbeam above the old Clarion.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].