Carrie's Blog

Last year Wisconsin legislatures came up with a great way to introduce our youth to the wonders of hunting.

After failed attempts to try and reduce the minimum age a new plan was hatched.  Enter the Mentor...

The new law allows an adult licensed hunter to take a new hunter with ages starting at 10 or 11, out into the woods.  The mentor and the new hunter must share a weapon and be within arms reach of each other.

This allows the new hunter to try out the whole hunting experience without fully committing to it; they get to experience the wild without first having to go through hunter's safety and also ensuring that an experienced hunter is right there with them every step of the way.

So, was the program a success?  A resounding "yes!" can be heard all across the state.

More than 10, 000 ten and eleven hear olds were introduced to hunting for the first time. A bit more than one fifth of that population was daddy's little girl.  More than 20% of the 13,000 mentored licenses sold were in conjunction with new female hunters.

Many child advocacy groups were screaming about the safety of allowing a 10 year old to hold a weapon.  There were a lot of safety concerns. 

Happily, there were zero incidents of injury or death.  In my humble opinion, it has been one of the most successful hunting programs in Wisconsin history.

As a program geared towards introducing hunters to the sport in a strictly controlled and supervised environment, it also has a few additional benefits.

Most states across America are steeped deep with hunting traditions, as cities encroach upon our forests and the pure necessity of space constraints weigh heavily on the conservationists mind, a lot of these traditions have fallen by the wayside.  Slingshots are replaced by IPods and recurves are replaced by video game machines.  Instead of someone making a bird whistle to let you know where they are, you get a text message.

Programs like these help to recreate family traditions.  Out in the woods, wandering "aimlessly", pursuing your quarry, you are taken back to the days of hunting with your mom or dad or uncle or family friend.

And programs like this one may trigger something in a 40 year old man who used to hunt with his dad, who went to college and moved to the city.  He might look at his 10 year old son or daughter and say "you know, I used to love going hunting with my dad, let's get back to our roots".