Girls who hunt: More women and youth are hunting in B.C. Here’s why and what it means

By Glenda Luymes – Vancouver Sun

A flicker in the underbrush catches Charlie Coombs’s eye.

Gun slung over a shoulder, the 13-year-old girl walks carefully over rough ground, her gaze sweeping the forest. But the deer is gone, swallowed by green and gold foliage.

It’s a lesson in patience and persistence — one of many Charlie is learning in the B.C. backcountry.

One of a growing number of teen girls who hunt, Charlie is drawn by family tradition and a sense of adventure. Some of her earliest memories involve driving down a logging road near her home in Lumby with her dad and grandpa. In her family, hunting knowledge is passed down not just to sons, but to daughters as well.