Outfitter hopes to takes skills on hunting show

Mike Moore
Posted 5/5/17

You could say local outfitter and avid outdoorswoman Melanie Peterson was born to be a hunter. Her folks tied the knot on opening day of hunting season back in 1965.

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Outfitter hopes to takes skills on hunting show

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DANIEL – You could say local outfitter and avid outdoorswoman Melanie Peterson was born to be a hunter. Her folks tied the knot on opening day of hunting season back in 1965.

“They spent their honeymoon in deer camp and I was born a short nine months later,” she laughed.

An early interest in pursuing a career in law was derailed after meeting a woman in a mountain lodge at the age of 10 on the way to her father’s favorite lake to fish. She overhead the woman talking about her work as an outfitter, and when it came her time to step up to the cash register, she asked if the woman got paid to take people hunting and fishing. The woman told her that was the case, which spurred a passion that has guided the course of her life to this day.

In her younger years, Peterson had an obsession with hunting trophy mule deer. Her desire to hunt a 200-inch mule deer took her to Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and eventually Wyoming. Her dream came true in 1995, when she finally got the mule deer she’d been looking for. The following year, she moved to Wyoming and met her husband Kirby Peterson.

“I fell immediately in love with Wyoming,” she said.

She soon began operating Big County Outfitters and started building Timberline Lodge in Daniel in 2003. Currently, she is looking to take her passion for hunting to the next level.

Peterson is currently in the running via online voting for a chance to make it on Extreme Huntress, a show on GetZone.com. The hunting program is currently in its ninth year, with the goal of providing role models to mothers and their children through hunting due to increasing divorce rates, according to extremehuntress.com.

“It’s a really neat show,” Peterson said. “The goal is to get women and children involved with the outdoors.”

Currently, Peterson is up against 13 other skilled female hunters around the world, and if chosen, will be featured in up to 26 episodes lasting six to nine minutes beginning in September. The grand finale will take place during the Dallas Safari Club’s annual awards dinner in January 2018.

At the age of 50, she says she is likely the oldest contestant in the running.

“Age is just a number,” she smiled.

The show revolves around head-to-head competition with other contestants where skills will be tested in a gauntlet of challenges.

Such challenges include scouting, stalking capability, physical agility and marksmanship with various weapons, to name a few.

“Last year, they had to run a mile through the mud; if a bear is not chasing me, I usually don’t run,” Peterson laughed.

A total of six contestants will be chosen for the show out of hundreds of online applicants, Peterson said.

Filming will take place at YO Headquarters Ranch in Mountain Home, Texas, from July 9-14, which is when all of the show’s head-to-head competition will take place. In total, 26 episodes will be filmed.

“Every episode will feature different skills,” she said. “I’m strong in long range, but my weakness is archery.”

A winner of the competition is partially determined by each contestant’s score in the outdoors skills competition, along with a separate score from judges in the hunting competition. Lastly, viewers can vote online after each episode is aired to account for a percentage of the score.

“I’m just really looking forward to encouraging women on the fence in trying (hunting),” she said. “Even as an adult, they still have opportunities.”

Votes for the contestants are still being counted online, and to vote for Peterson visit www.extremehuntress.com and click on semi-final voting. Once there, you can watch her application video and can vote via the column on the right side of the page.