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Member Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 128 Location: NE

Our chapter held one yesterday (Sat. 10/13), has to be about the 10th one we've done. We have an almost ideal setup for it. We hold most of the activities at the local Ike's club, and then on the same section of land is a 1/4 section WMA where we do the hunt and a couple of other things. I have mentioned this WMA in a couple of posts in the past, the farm was owned by an old guy that loved pheasants and hunting, and we did a great deal of habitat work out there. One of our members was his lawyer, got it setup so that the land was donated to the state, yet our chapter retains a great deal of control for management and use of the land.

We get right at 25 kids each year, and it takes about 75 adult volunteers to run the whole thing. The kids have to be 12 to 15 years old and have completed the Hunter's Safety course. While the program is kind of intended to introduce kids to hunting who may not have a lot of other opportunities, locally we don't have a lot of that. We do get some kids from single mom's and others whose dad's are truckers who are on the road a lot, or kids whose parents don't hunt, but other family members do.

We start showing up at 6:30 a.m. to get the coffee pots going and things set up. Coffee, donuts, hot chocolate, and b.s. while everybody shows up and gets signed in. We divide the kids up into groups of four, assign a mentor to each, and set up a rotation through the different stations we set up. At the Ike's club we have stations where one of the members gives a 15 -30 minute talk to the groups on a variety of subjects.
One of our members works for the state Game & Parks commission and talks to the kids about a pheasant's life and habitat needs from nesting and brooding cover in the spring, food needs throughout the year as chicks develop, roosting cover, winter cover and back to spring.
One of our guys talks about finding hunting areas and how to approach a landowner to ask for permission. He talks about what he likes to see when a somebody comes knocking on his door and what will be likely to get him to allow hunting or to tell the guys no.
One of the local vets comes out and talks about dogs. General information about different breeds, selection of a dog, general care, exercise, feeding, first aid, etc.
I give a talk about gun care and cleaning, have several guns in various state of takedown to show them how they work and how the different actions all require a a different type of care to keep them functioning properly and safely, and how a gun that is properly cared for will last for generations of shooters. Also used this as an opportunity to show off a couple of my 16's!
One member, the local 4-H shooting instructor, brings out a portable air rifle range trailer setup, and another brings out a bunch of archery equipment and targets.
Then it is over to the WMA where we have the rest of activities including a pattern demonstration, and a couple of traps set up to let the kids try out the guns we use before the hunt. Our chapter purchased a half dozen youth model 870 20 gauges to use for this event.
For the hunt, we then split into a group of two kids, two mentors and two dog handlers. About a dozen guys will bring out their dogs, we prefer to use pointing breeds for this so their is a little more time to get the kids into position for the shot. We have to buy birds for this since it outside of the regular season, so we also have a crew of guys planting the birds in between each group. The kids get to do a half hour hunt and hopefully bag a bird or two.
After all of the kids have rotated through, it is back to the Ike's club for a lunch of hot dogs, brats, chips and beans. We give the kids a bunch of prizes, and one lucky one goes home with a new youth model 870.

Only bad thing about the day was that every once in while somebody who had been listening to a radio would give the score of the game. General consensus is that Callahan has completely destroyed the once mighty Huskers. Not a single person there that didn't think that the entire coaching staff along with the AD shouldn't be fired.

berg

Member Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 230 Location: SW Idaho

You and your crowd are saints. There is nothing better for the kids and huntings future than to share the experience with them.

There are many forms of Heroes (and I don't use the term lightly as I spent 21 years in the USMC) and you folks are Heroes in my eyes.

Job well done.

Member Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 128 Location: NE

After the hunt, since we have the throwers set up we have a little informal blue rock shoot for the members. The chapter provides all the rocks and the shells ( I had received a little bit of crap about being an oddball at the meeting two weeks before when I asked if they were going to get me some 16's, but they did bring out a flat Win. Super X game loads for me.) One of the members is a dealer and he just loads the back of his pickup with cases of rocks and shells, whatever we use we pay him for and he puts the rest back on the shelf.

When I get up there, about 15 to 20 guys are there, with one crew on the line shooting, everybody has a 12, mostly pumps or auto's, one citori and a berreta o/u. I'm carrying my 50+ year old Win. M24, and when I ask for a box of 16 gauge shells, everybody starts in on me about the old double and the oddball gauge.

When the next round is ready to start up, I step up to line. They have been playing the game where if the guy ahead of you misses you can shoot and put him out of the game. A box and a half of shells later when everybody else has had to go sit down twice, they are starting to admit that the 16 might be okay after all. Of course, it can't be my shooting, it has to be that the old double is just a good gun.

They then decide to move one of the traps so that it is sitting about 40 yds away out to the right so that it is throwing straight across at about 35 yds out. Now it is setting out there in waist high grass, with plugs or muffs you can't hear it, and the clay just sort of appears out of the grass, but you never know whether they are going to trip that one, or the one sitting off to the left that is on a wobbler base. To further complicate things, the one out to the right is throwing into the breeze, so the rock might just float, hop or sink, but it is definitely slowing down about the time you can spot it and swing, very tough to hit.

Well, the next round I miss the first bird that I get from the right, and the guy next to me puts me out as the rock slows to almost a hover.

Since I am sitting out for a while, I go back up to the car and get my (American) Browning auto. When I get back down there, they start giving a hard time, saying that now I must be getting serious, and one guy hands me a box of 12 ga. shells. I say I don't need them, I need 16's and I don't even know if this OLD gun even works.

Proceed to set everybody down again before getting tripped up on one of the crossers on the second go around.

Anyway, we had a good time, did a bunch of free shooting and I kept all of the 16 gauge hulls I picked up.

berg

Chorizo,

thanks, but hardly heroes, just a bunch of guys that love guns and hunting and want to see the tradition carried on. A lot of the work we do is completely unnoticed. Here in Nebraska we have put a lot of time and effort into habitat projects that benefit all kinds of wildlife and anybody that enjoys it.

Unfortunately with the high prices that corn is bringing due to the "ethanol boom" and a lot of CRP contracts that expired this years there are thousands and thousands of acres being plowed up that have been wildlife havens for over a decade. Hunting is going to get a lot tougher in the next couple of years.