Wahpeton Daily News – September 6, 2024
By Wayne Beyer
The upcoming hunting seasons are opportunities for outdoorsmen to mentor young hunters.
The Red River Area Sportsmen’s Club (RRASC) offers a Youth Waterfowl Hunt on Saturday, Sept. 14 and a Youth Pheasant Hunt on Saturday, Oct. 5. Kevin Manock / ducks and Mark Althoff / pheasants both organize super mentored hunts that include trap shooting practice, identification, safety, ethics, a box of shotgun shells, delicious breakfasts, game processing and lifetime memories. Both youths and mentors can register at rrasc.net.
Mentoring young hunters continues an important outdoor recreation tradition. Consider mentoring your child, grandchild, a relative, the neighbor kid or guide somebody new at the RRASC hunts.
Anytime we can get a child outdoors and hunting is a gift. Egg yolk sunrises with orange skies are best seen peering from the camouflage of cattails alongside a prairie pothole. Walking the prairie for ring-necked pheasants, immersed in browning grasslands habitat, is why October is treasured. Mentors can help foster a love for the outdoors.
Mentors teach youths the right things about hunting, including ethics. Sportsmen only shoot at what they will consume or use. There will be other wildlife like cormorants, muskrats and blackbirds around, only to be observed. All birds and animals have their place in nature. One of the most fun aspects of mentoring youths is identifying other wildlife.
Mentors are valuable to teach patience, letting young hunters know ranges, the right time to shoot and identification. Fair chase is important so youths act responsibly and respectfully.
Safe hunting practices need to be emphasized. Youths are required to have hunter education certification. There are no second chances after the trigger is pulled so mentors are diligent about safety. Dogs are often used for quality hunting that brings other important safety measures.
Mentoring hunters afield offers many teachable moments about the value of conservation and healthy habitat. Duck hunting is fantastic on Waterfowl Production Area sloughs that have been purchased with hunters’ duck stamp purchases. Pheasant hunting is often on private land like the youth hunt on the farm land of Chuck Haus, Hankinson, a superb conservationist.
Mentors model the importance for respecting the environment, picking up after themselves, including spent shotgun shells. They even pick up after anybody who has left any litter.
Every hunt has fun, memorable times. Learning to call ducks takes time and experience so might as well start. Blue-winged teal will fly through the decoys at 45 mph. A ring-necked rooster will cackle and bust cover a few feet away.
Take pictures in the field. Cell phones make it easy. Starting a journal or scrapbook is something that will be treasured later in life.
Appetites are ravenous after outdoors exercise and pancake and sausage breakfasts are gobbled up. It is a good time for young hunters to bond, enjoy social time and swap stories.
Take time to show young hunters how to process game. Roasted duck, stir fry pheasant and pheasant dumpling soup are tasty recipes.
Volunteering to be a hunting mentor is time to give back. Consider it payback for the mentors in your life.
Mentoring a young hunter is one of the best investments a sportsman can make to ensure hunting for the next generation.