TWENTY-FIVE MILES southwest of Missoula, Montana, DeAnna Bublitz steered her Subaru Forester into a snowy parking lot. As she stepped into the mid-November chill, wearing camouflage and a blaze-orange beanie, several men looked up from their revving snowmobiles.
“Where’s your rifle?” one asked, teasing.
“I already got my buck this season,” Bublitz said, calmly returning his gaze from behind blue-framed glasses. For her, it was a routine interaction: When she’s out hunting, or at the shooting range, she’s often asked where her husband is, or — despite her gear and confident shot — if she’s ever been hunting before. She answers with hard-won authority.
Bublitz, 39, was out that day not to hunt, but to mentor a new hunter — a role she’s aspired to since she started hunting almost a
