She caught me right away.

Saturday, August 28, 1999

She caught me right away. In the act.

She pulled up next to me at the gate of the Cedar Valley Conservation Club (CVCC) off Highway 218 North in her roving, sport utility outback steakhouse wagon and caught me before I even got out of the car.

"I didn’t know it was you," I said.

We park and walk a few steps before the joke explodes on me like a snake from a peanut can.

"The most fun I have being a bartender and wearing a dress is when the guys get to talking about hunting and shooting and somebody says, ‘Sue knows, ask her.’

"They get this look on their face. Kind of like the one you had."

Same reaction goes for people at the Hormel corporate office, where Olson has worked as a paralegal for one year.

The woman who serves beers, set-ups, pickled eggs and 4-foot long beef jerky at the Park Plaza downtown so she can pay for her ammunition is kind enough to wipe the egg off my face with her next sentence.

"It sort of snowballed," Olson said. "I never picked up a gun before I was 30 years old and I am so hooked. I shoot 400 rounds a week – at least."

While she talks, Olson’s Springer Spaniel, Ebson – named after Buddy Ebson of "Beverly Hillbillies" fame – is licking water out of a pretty clear mud puddle.

Olson’s other dog is a Labrador-Chesapeake she got from the Mower County Humane Society. Dog’s name is Ruger, after Olson’s .22-caliber pistol, but he’s the gun-shy sort.

Ebson, on the other hand, was 8 months old when he heard the cannon fire of Olson’s .20 gauge Remington semi-automatic shotgun, with which Olson can fire four rounds in succession.

"He looked back at me like, ‘Why are you being so loud?’ " Olson said. "He didn’t scare a bit."

Neither did Olson at the male-bondage associated with firearms. She’s the first female officer at CVCC - a vice president enjoying her second term.

"I was running opposed," she said, then unsaid. "Oh, did I say opposed? See what happens when you’ve got your ear plugs in – your brain stops."

Olson picked up her first lesson in the summer of 1995, after badgering a trap-shooting neighbor to take her with him and his son. She got off rounds from a .410 shotgun and her life hasn’t been the same since.

She competes in separate trap and skeet leagues at CVCC and two trap leagues in Albert Lea. She prefers skeet – an exercise that requires the shooter to lead, then knock down a clay pigeon flying from the left or the right. (In trap shooting, the clays fly straight out from the shooter and float left or right.)

Olson wouldn’t miss pheasant-hunting season in mid-October for anything. She’s walking 2 miles a day to prepare for the sometimes six-hour hunting hikes.

Olson first deer-hunted in Northern Minnesota, where she bonded with the only other member of her family who likes to hunt.

"Nobody in my family hunts except for my sister-in-law," Olson said. "We call her Dead Eye, because she usually has her deer on opening day. By noon. First shot."

Olson isn’t a bad markswoman herself.

The first time she picked up a weapon, that .410, she rang 65 percent of the targets she aimed at. Puff. Puff. Puff.

She knew right then, she’d been missing something.

"I felt cheated," Olson said. "This could have started 25 years ago."

To keep other would-be members of the female firing squad from letting the years slip away, Olson has made up her mind to set them on the lock, stock and barrel path.

She’s been instrumental in securing a "Women in Outdoors" event at the CVCC on Sept. 18. The event is sponsored by the National Wild Turkey Federation. She got the idea while attending a three-day version of the program in Lanesboro last April.

Olson expects 60 women to fill the day-long event, featuring nine programs. Attendees select three programs they’d like to see most from among deer hunting, fly fishing, rifle and handgun, bird hunting, small-game hunting, shotgunning-trap, wild turkey hunting, bird and backyards, and shotgunning-skeet.

"The basis of the seminar is that women can hunt, fish and become outdoorspeople without being in an intimidating environment," said Olson, a trained Firearm Safety Instructor – "I’m one of the tougher ones," Olson said. "I don’t put up with any crap." – who once taught a 62-year-old woman how to fire a handgun. The woman was hitting targets within the first hour.

"She had the biggest grin on her face," Olson said. "It changed her whole attitude."

Mine too.

· With a "Women in Outdoors" sign-up table at the upcoming Cabela’s Fall Expo, spots for the seminar are expected to fill up fast. Call 433-1048 if you’re interested in registering.