Steve Knight/Staff There are a large number of women in Texas interested in outdoors activities, but unlike men they don’t always have someone to guide them to activities or to learn from.

Opportunity is often the lock on the door that prevents youth, minorities and women from becoming active in the outdoors.

Youth are typically dependent on relatives for that introduction into hunting and fishing, and based on hunting license sales in Texas (youth 16 and under aren’t required to have a fishing license) that is happening in greater numbers each year.

Women (which make up about 15 percent of huntes and over 20 percent of fishermen in Texas) also have family, husbands, fathers, boyfriends, to help them find their way outdoors.

But what if they don’t have that mentor, someone to help them get on a deer lease, find a place to dove hunt or go fishing? What then?

One women’s-only option is the Texas Outdoors-Woman Network or TOWN. There are currently eight TOWN organizations with a ninth holding its first meeting Tuesday in Gladewater.

The TOWN groups are an offshoot of the Becoming an Outdoors Woman program that started in Texas in 1993. The program consists of a three-day weekend in which women are introduced to a variety of outdoors activities.

“A third of the program is hunting and shooting, a third is hunting and a third is non-consumptive activities like birdwatching and camping,” said Heidi Rao, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s BOW program coordinator.

TPWD hosts a spring and fall BOW workshop each year. Its upcoming fall event set a record filling 130 positions in 16 hours without advertising.

Rao said the TOWN groups sprung up after women left a BOW workshop, but wanted to remain active.

“What was happening was they were coming to the events and would get excited and confident, and then they would get home and didn’t know where to go next,” she explained.

Gladewater’s Nancy Hudgins was one of those women. The avid camper and fisherman attended a BOW workshop and then came back to East Texas and didn’t have anyone to camp with.

“My husband will pack my car when I am leaving and upack it when I come home. That is the extent of his camping,” Hudgins laughed.

So she helped form TOWN East Texas a decade agao that grew to 30-plus members.

“We had members from Tyler, Longview, Marshall,” Hudgins said.

However, a change in job description caused her to have to travel more and there just wasn’t time to maintain the group and no one to pick up the torch.

After she retired, Hudgins was encouraged to reorganize the group. She said it is designed for any woman who enjoys outdoor activities.

“We do a variety of things. It is not just camping or fishing or dutch oven cooking. We want to do a variety of activities,” said Hudgins, who is interested in adding kayak fishing to her list of outdoor activities.

The original group had programs on fly tying and fly fishing, information on traditional and more. Hudgins said members can network through the local group or others around the state. Members are notified of all TOWN programs and events in Texas.

“If there is something they want, we will find an avenue for that experience,” Hudgins said.

Hudgins said the old East Texas group ran the gamut of members from their 20s to the 70s. Some were married, some single and some were widows. They varied in degree of outdoor experience, and not all had attended one of the BOW camps.

While the BOW and TOWN programs helps meet the needs of women interested in the outdoors and has attracted members of all races, there is still a need for a program that introduces minority men to hunting and fishing. There is a demand and like with so many other newcomers the doors aren’t locked, it is just difficult to know which to knock on to get started.

East Texas TOWN’s first meeting will be at Tele’s Mexican Restaurant, 401 S. Tyler U.S. 271), Gladewater. To RSVP or for more information on the group, contact Hudgins at 903-843-2914 or email towneasttexas@yahoo.com.

For more information on the BOW workshops go to tpwd.texas.gov/learning/bow or email heidirao@tpwd.texas.gov.

Have a comment or opinion on this story? Contact outdoor writer Steve Knight by email at outdoor@tylerpaper.com. Follow Steve Knight on Facebook at TylerPaper Outdoors and on Twitter @tyleroutdoor.