Ticking them off the list

SnowmanMo

SnowmanMo

Administrator
Staff member
This was a busy weekend. I spent Saturday volunteering for a Hunters Ed field day helping to get 22 new hunters off to a good start in our sport. It really feels good to volunteer.

20171014_080825 by Jason Mosler, on Flickr

20171014_080843 by Jason Mosler, on Flickr

Talking so much about hunting on Saturday made me itch to get out on Sunday. Well, I wasn't alone. Sunrise found Myself and Drew along with his friend and fairly new predator hunter JR. Unfortunately the area we had chosen had also been chosen for a mountain bike race as we soon found out. We managed to get in one, half way decent stand where we saw two foxes come in. Unfortunately JR didn't get to see either fox, so we moved on. Just about every stand from there on out was broken up by bikers, hikers, campers, or just people driving like lunatics through the forest. It was very frustrating to see such a beautiful day yielding nothing. So I had to dig into my bag of tricks. We dropped in between TWO dispersed camp sites and a road, into a canyon that bordered some power lines. I told the guys that we were going to go where no sane man had gone before.

About 4 minutes into some cottontail distress and I see this male grey coming bombing into the call. JR let it get all the way to the call before he let the air out of the fox.

Congrats to JR as he can now tick off the grey fox on his list of predators he has taken. We are pleased to have been a part of continuing JR's education into the predator hunting world.

IMG951161 by Jason Mosler, on Flickr
 

Great way to help keep the sport alive. Helping new people get started is a very worthy cause. Nice shooting range too.
 
It was 41 degrees when we started but the winds dropped off and the temps starting to creep up. That was our indication that our day was over. They don't seem to want to move when the temps get up too high.
 
I became a volunteer three years ago in Mass. Its a great feeling, and gives me hope for the future. Its been running about 25 to 30 percent women and teen girl for us, and also single moms. Also a mixed bag of students and new Americans. I would encourage anyone with some spare time to consider becoming an instructor.
 
This is my 29th year volunteering as a hunter ed instructor here in Iowa. We do one class each year for the county I live in. When I first started we had about 20-30 students, then it jumped to 50-70 students, one year we had 105 students, for the last 5 years we have had 20-25 students. It's sad to see the number of people wanting to take the class declining more each year.

Booger
 
Originally Posted By: Infidel 762You are sportsmanship defined.

You put in more to give back to the sport than any...

Yep.
thumbup1.gif
 
I am just trying to do my part. Arizona Game and Fish does a great job supporting hunters. I found a good group of Hunter's Ed instructors that I routinely work with. AZGFD likes to see one instructor for every two students on the firing line. Normally there are 8-10 of us on a regular field day. The group I work with usually does 2-3 field days per month, so it's gets kind of busy this time of year. We usually get 200-400 students through per year, anywhere from 20-40 per class.

My hat is off to ALL Hunters Ed instructors and to ALL my fellow PM members who volunteer to take out new hunters and help to keep our sport alive. It really helps the kids to stay out of trouble giving them a healthy hobby like hunting.
 
Back
Top