Women Go Hunting Awards Challenge: This Winner Wanted Something Epic for Her Birthday

Melissa Neppl was the winner of the First-Time Entrants category in SCI’s 2025 Women Go Hunting Awards Challenge. The challenge encourages women of all experience levels to document their hunting journeys by submitting photo entries of their trophies into the SCI World Hunting Awards program.

We asked each of our 10 winners to share her hunting story and encourage other women contemplating hunting. Here’s how Melissa describes her journey:

I began my hunting adventures with whitetails in North Dakota at the age of 13. I love hunting every year with my husband and two sons in the Colorado Rockies. Hunting is a passion for our family of four. While life sometimes gets really busy, we never fail to stop and connect in the great outdoors when hunting seasons roll around.

When I told my husband I wanted to do something “epic” for my 40th birthday, I was not prepared for just how memorable it would be. He coordinated the hunt-of-a-lifetime with New Zealand Trophy Hunting. I was able to fulfill my red stag hunt with a single shot as my husband and boys sat on the next hillside over, watching through a spotting scope and then clapping with excitement when the stag dropped in his tracks. Over the next few days, I was also able to get a fallow deer; my husband got a Himalayan tahr, and both of my boys (ages five and seven at the time) were able to get arapawa rams.

Being able to share these moments with our kids provided life experiences and lessons that are absolutely irreplaceable. None of that would have been possible without the world of hunting.