Pennsylvania native Outdoors Allie turns love of hunting, outdoors into influencer career

A Pennsylvania native has made the outdoors her full-time job and is sharing her experiences with tens of thousands of fans.

Allie D’Andrea is a content creator perhaps better known to her followers as Outdoors Allie. She's amassed 182,000 followers on Instagram, 154,000 on her YouTube channel and 156,400 on TikTok.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor’s degree in emergency medicine, the Pittsburgh native lived in several parts of the country. The 31-year-old now lives in Florida with her husband, Nick Berger, who is her camera operator.

“We still spend quite a lot of time in Pennsylvania because our family and friends are here and we love hunting here. It’s a place we always want to spend time in the fall,” she said during a telephone interview.

She can be seen hunting in a variety of states explaining different aspects of her hunting and fishing trips as well as the best ways to prepare animals and fish.

D’Andrea said she first started sharing her experiences on social media when she learned how to shoot a compound bow.

“My friend and I spent all summer practicing and preparing for the fall and there was something when I bought that bow that I was excited to share experiences. I thought it was the coolest thing ever ― the opportunity to hunt with a bow. So I started sharing my outdoors adventure on social media, first via Instagram,” she said.

From there it’s grown into a way of life for the couple.

“It’s now my full-time job. My husband and I work full time together creating social media content surrounding being in the outdoors. I really focus on sharing the experience of whatever the adventure, whether it be hunting or fishing, the process of butchering and the process of cooking," D’Andrea said. "I try to share the whole story, the whole journey, because learning how to hunt and learning how to fish are not easy if you didn’t grow up doing it. So I feel like I’m able to give a little back to help people figure out the outdoors, and hopefully they’ll fall in love with it as much as I have."

The importance of public land

D’Andrea expanded her experiences by going to different states. “Shortly after college I moved to Idaho. I was introduced to this whole world and concept of public land and gained a deep understanding of what it meant and how important not only access and opportunities for hunters and anglers to be in the outdoors, but also for the wildlife and ecosystem.”

Now when spending time in her home state she looks at public land with a whole new appreciation.

“Public land gives people a place to go and gives wildlife a natural environment to exist. So it’s really important to protect and preserve. Of course, I hunt private land as well, but I’m a big advocate for public land. I think it’s a super important part of what makes Pennsylvania so great.”

Hunting big and small game with @Outdoors_Allie

She hunts with a muzzleloader, archery gear and a rifle for deer during the fall and winter months. “I hunt with anything that will expand my seasons, give me more opportunities. Here in Pennsylvania I always start the season with my bow. I hunt with a compound bow. I really try to take advantage of the muzzleloader doe and bear season. I haven’t harvested a bear in Pennsylvania yet, but I have been hunting and it’s one of the most fun times to be in the Pennsylvania woods. Then I’ll continue hunting with my bow,” she said. She participates in the rifle deer season as well.

She’s shot a turkey in Florida and has had some successful small game hunting days as well. “So far it’s been a really great year,” D’Andrea said.

Her dog Abbie, a 5-year-old Labrador, hunts small game with the couple and is featured in many of their videos. “We didn’t get her with the intention of her becoming a hunting dog. We both grew up with Labs and golden retrievers as family pets. So as soon as we were off on our own, we knew we wanted to get our own dog.”

They took Abbie to stocked pheasant fields in Pennsylvania to see how she would respond. At first she didn’t want anything to do with the birds, but was comfortable around the firearms. “We were out there flushing the birds and retrieving them ourselves and she was just kind of there, bopping around having fun. The next year she started flushing the birds,” D'Andrea said. “Now she is a full-blown pheasant-hunting dog and she just loves it.

“It’s a really special experience to be able to hunt with your dog that you love so much and see them beaming with joy, it’s a blast.”

'The Butcher's Table': Processing wild game

As of Nov. 28, she had shot a doe and her husband had shot a buck and a doe. She’s aging some of the meat before processing it. “I like to butcher all of my own animals,” she said.

She wrote a book, "The Butcher’s Table." “It’s all about how to butcher meat and then make the most of each cut. The book actually expands beyond wild game and includes poultry, pork and venison,” she said.

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D’Andrea started processing meat because she was always interested in learning. Trying to figure it out by herself was a process of trial and error.

“Now I have it dialed in to where I feel like I know exactly what to do with every cut of meat and, again, make the most it. The butchering process is one of my favorite parts about hunting, and the cooking is a huge part of why I do this. A Pennsylvania whitetail tastes so good, specifically the does. It’s fun to see your hard work being created into something delicious,” she said.

She writes in her book the wide variety of possibilities for wild game preparation and meals. “The basics are great, but there are a lot of fun things you can do with the meat,” she said. One recipe she has on video is for venison smash burgers.

When people process their own game, they can focus on the types of cut they prefer, such as ground meat, steaks and jerky.

“There’s just something cool in doing it yourself and knowing every single step that it took to take that animal from a beautiful, breathing, living animal running around the woods to what you’re pulling out of the freezer to cook for dinner.”

The future of @Outdoors_Allie

Reflecting on why she and her husband do what they do, she said. “It’s really just about appreciating these beautiful wild spaces that we have and the wild animals that live there and feeling lucky enough that we get to interact with that and be part of it, through the hunting process."

Emily Kantner, communications manager for the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Marketing and Strategic Communications Bureau, said when it comes to recruiting, retaining, and reactivating hunters, the Game Commission, hunting organizations, and hunters themselves are engaging with thousands of people from different generations on social media every day.

“In Allie’s case, she’s a Pennsylvania native and shares her hunting adventures in her home state, as well as other parts of the country. Beyond that, she regularly shares wild game recipes, butchering techniques, and what hunting and conservation means to her. People follow Allie because they’re interested in the hunting content she shares and what her next hunt or recipe will entail,” Kantner wrote in an email.

What's next for D'Andrea? SHe hopes it looks a lot like what she's doing now.

“I think I just want to be able to continue doing what we are doing for as long as I possibly can. I want to keep sharing this with people. I want to keep inspiring people to get into the outdoors, helping them know how to make the most of wild game meat, how to enjoy it, how to just enjoy the outdoors as a whole. That’s really my goal. If I can keep doing that then, I’m a happy camper.”

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: PA native Allie D'Andrea hunts, fishes, cooks way to social media fame