Columnist Susan Snyder: Show is as big as outdoors

Tuesday, May 28, 2002 | 8:19 a.m.

I like the idea of a woman toting her own shotgun. Tying her own flies.

And making her own way in the "No girls allowed" treehouse of hunting and fishing.

Most people probably know Barb Henderson through her "Outdoors with Barb" television show on Clark County Community Access Channel 4. Our waitress at Marie Callender's did.

"Aren't you that TV lady?" Ronda Mathes finally asked after refilling our coffee cups for a third time. "We watch you all the time. That show you did on renting houseboats at Lake Mead? Well, we went out the next weekend and did it. We've only lived here six months. We never would have known about it."

Henderson grinned widely. It happens all the time and yet not nearly enough. She knows there's always someone else out there wondering where to hike, fish, hike or bike in Nevada.

"I want to make a difference. I enjoy the outdoors so much, that I want everyone to enjoy it too," she said.

"So many tourists come here and don't know what all we have. They go down to the Hoover Dam, and they fail to see the beauty around it," she said. "And our state animal is right there."

No, silly, not the desert lounge lizard. The desert bighorn sheep.

Her favorite pursuits are fishing, hunting and sports that require guns. But her TV shows run all over the map, from bird-watching and wildfire prevention to sailing, hot-air ballooning and Dutch-oven cooking.

"She does excellent stuff on wildlife conservation. Her topics really vary," Geoff Schneider, Nevada Division of Wildlife spokesman, said. "So many residents are new to this area, and she has really highlighted for them what there is here."

Henderson has been fishing since childhood. Fly-fishing is her favorite sport, and Alaska is her favorite spot. With her husband's encouragement she began learning to shoot in 1972. They hunt and fish together. When she's the one who gets the game tag, he goes along for the hike.

She angled her way into outdoor reporting the hard way -- as a woman without journalism training. She started 20 years ago with a 10-minute AM radio spot about local non-profit groups. She added outdoors groups as guests, and within a year she had a 30-minute outdoors show.

Her "Outdoors with Barb" radio show now airs at 6 a.m. each Saturday on KBAD-AM 920, the local ESPN radio affiliate. Check out the website. All the ESPN hosts are guys, as are most of the people in Henderson's audience.

But that, she says, is changing.

"Women are being accepted more. We no longer just tag along," she said.

Henderson's long blond ponytail has become her trademark. It's even on her business card. But being a blue-eyed blonde hasn't made the trail any easier to tread. She is often told she doesn't "look like a hunter" or is "too pretty" to fish.

She ignores it most of the time. Henderson says there is plenty of controversy in the world of outdoor sports to ignore, and she does.

"I promote fun. I promote the positive," Henderson said. "I want to enjoy my life. There's enough room for everybody. Just don't close the door on each other."

And don't ask if she needs help baiting her hook.