LA PLATA - As 25 anxious hunters readied for their final exam in the pre-dawn chill, a grizzled veteran had some last-minute advice.
"Please, ladies, anything eight points and over, you leave them for me," Ernie Licalzi counseled, breaking the ice literally and figuratively.
From inside the mounds of insulated camouflage came laughs and catcalls on white puffs of breath.
"In your dreams, Ernie," shouted one over the clatter of the idling pick-up trucks.
Then the latest students of the "Becoming An Outdoors Woman" program rode off to their tree stands to see if what they learned in the classroom would translate into hunting success.
It didn't take long for Licalzi, the self-proclaimed mayor of the Army's old Blossom Point Proving Ground, to be pleasantly disappointed.
Less than two hours after sunrise, Janet Norman brought down an 11-point buck. Talk about beginner's luck.
"I'm a minivan mom from Annapolis. I wasn't after a trophy. I was after some good old meat without steroids or hormones or other nasty stuff," she said, beaming. "This is as free range as it gets."
Norman's shot was no fluke. Four other women bagged eight-point bucks, one took a four-point, one got a button buck and one killed a doe.
Not everyone at the BOW hunt was a first-time hunter, though. Desira Fritz, a 41-year-old school bus driver from Westminster, got the four-pointer to go with the eight-pointer she killed several years ago and the others she's taken over the years.
"I really wanted to get a trophy buck, and they have big ones down here," she said. "But you don't always get a deer, so I was thrilled to death when I saw him coming."
Field dressed, her deer weighed 103 pounds. The meat, she said, will be mighty welcome in her freezer.
"I use venison for everything. I don't even buy ground beef. I make venison tacos, hamburgers and meatloaf. This won't go to waste," she said.
BOW, run by the Department of Natural Resources, began in 1995. It's modeled on an 11-year-old Wisconsin program that has been adopted in all but three states. The Maryland edition is offered several times a year, teaching women how to fish, shoot a bow, camp, canoe and cook game.
Last weekend was the second time for a deer hunt. The women paid $40 for the two-day course at the 1,600-acre Blossom Point Field Test Facility along the Potomac River.
On Friday morning, they learned about deer biology and state hunting laws, game care and hunting ethics. In the afternoon, they lined up at the range for shooting qualification.
For Norman, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it was a struggle to hit the bull's eye on three out of five shots.
"I don't have a sight on my gun, just a little bead up front," she explained.
But with coaching from Natural Resources Police Officer Eileen Soper and some patience, Norman finally made the grade to the cheers of the other instructors and students.
With the hunt scheduled to begin Saturday at 0-dark-30, folks didn't dally at the end of the day. Some dashed off to buy a hunting license, warmer camo clothes and safety orange vests and hats. Then it was off to the home of the sister of one participant for dinner, a few "RealTree Big Buck" videos and a couple of rounds of that popular Wisconsin hunting rap song, "Da Turdy Point Buck."
The instructors slipped off for a quiet dinner of Chinese food and flaming drinks in Aku-Aku heads (OK, I'm fibbing about the flaming part).
"This is one of our favorites, one of the most rewarding," said Karina Blizzard, the BOW coordinator. "It's the one workshop when, truly, the women would not have the opportunity to experience the activity in a nurturing environment where they feel safe. You just can't go down the street and sign up for a guided hunt. "
Blizzard works with a committee of eight women volunteers - most of them DNR employees - to build and fine tune the curriculum.
"They put a lot of their own time in it because they believe in it. They add character and make the program what it is," she said. "With budget cutbacks, we couldn't afford to do this without their donations."
In addition to promoting hunting for women, the state sponsors Junior Deer Hunt Day, which falls this year on Nov. 16.
Youths 16 years or younger can hunt white-tailed deer and sika deer with a firearm, if accompanied by an unarmed licensed adult at least 21 years old.
Each junior hunter can take one antlered or antlerless white-tailed deer that day. In addition, junior hunters in management Regions B, C and D may take a second deer, but only one can be antlered. In Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties, junior hunters may take one antlered or antlerless sika deer.
Last year, junior hunters killed 2,283 deer.
In their one day, the women at BOW didn't put that kind of hurting on the Blossom Point herd, but they turned the heads of the male mentors, who had a definite case of antler envy.
"Girl, you're bad," said Dan Conner, who high-fived Norman when he saw her buck. "My hat's off to you."
Conner paid to attend the course so that he could sit in a tree stand behind his wife to provide encouragement and take pictures if she bagged a deer.
Susan Conner was more than happy to provide a Kodak moment, dropping a doe at 80 yards.
"I was behind her going, 'Shoot it, shoot it,' " said Conner, jiggling his legs nervously. "I think it was worse on the bystanders than the hunters."
With the late fall sun sliding toward the horizon, some of the hunters realized they hadn't had lunch. It was minivan mom to the rescue, pulling out a cell phone and calling a pizza shop in La Plata. A short time later, a half-dozen boxes arrived.
"They didn't have a venison pizza," Norman joked as classmates and mentors chowed down and then packed to go home.
As Licalzi watched Maryland's newest hunters exchange phone numbers and say their good-byes, he smiled and invited them back. And he noted that the women may have taken some of his big deer, but not all of them.