Rachel Dabbs - Featured Lady Archer/Bowhunter

I am the luckiest women alive, I have a wonderful husband, and outstanding son and a family that cannot be bought or purchased, you know one of those families built from love & compassion as well as good times and bad. I married my husband (Ken) in 2000 and at that time he was still in law enforcement (narcotics) and if he was not at work he was in the woods hunting.

Now I love Ken with all that I am and I would not lose him to anything so silly as hunting, so I made a comment in 2004, one year before Ken's retirement from law enforcement that I would like to start shooting a bow, not hunting just shooting a bow. It took about 30 minutes or seconds? For Ken to get me in the truck and we were at our local pro shop (David's Outdoors) and I was custom fit with a Mathews LX completely rigged out and ready to go.

I started the process of learning what was what, how to hold, how to grip, where to look, how to aim, poundage, draw length, draw weight, sore shoulders, peeps, releases, and frustration. But I overcame all the obstacles and improved with every session and found out why Ken like (loved) to stand out on our place and shoot shot after shot into that target & go down to the pro shop and shoot for hours with the other archers, and have that burning need to be in the woods all the time.

I was not raised as a hunter and at that time in my life if you would had said "Rachel" someday you will harvest your first Whitetail, Ram, Turkey and Hog with a bow and you will love it, you will be featured on a Bohning Archery commercial, and catalog, and have your photo featured on websites like Mathews, Bohning, Tru-Fire, Steel Force, Simmons Sharks, and release your first hunting video and negotiate air time for your TV show, I would have said you are out of your mind. But this is exactly what has happened. Since 2004 I have taken three Whitetail deer, Two Trophy Rams, Several wild hogs, and I am working on my Turkey Grand Slam, and Texas Ram Slam. We will release our first video in August and we will debut our first TV show in 2009/2009 with Wicked Weapon 10X Scent Elimination.

As I said I am the luckiest woman alive, and I am blessed more than any one person I know. I am a legal assistant with a large law firm, I translate for our local courts, I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a best friend and a bow hunter. It doesn't get much better than that. I challenge other women to get involved in archery and hunting and have introduced my youngest sister and a cousin to the sport, Ken and I on every Tuesday night work with the local youth archers and shoot along side them also. One of our concepts and objectives through ‘Oak Lane Outdoors with Ken and Rachel’ is to introduce youth to the outdoors and archery in a positive and Christian atmosphere, and so far it has worked well for our local youth archers.

Well, that is me in not so many words, and I will part on this. Women, with men that live in the woods don't be afraid to mess up, or to talk to loud, or to wear makeup to the stand, or stand on that line, because I promise you will do all these things, you will harvest game, you will out shoot that man next to you on the line and you will love this sport we call archery. All you have to do is do it! God bless our Troops and always remember-

"Integrity is doing the right thing even if no one is watching"

AIM FOR THE HEART AND THE X RING

God Bless you all.

Rachel Dabbs