Youth offered early start in hunting sports

The hours are bad. The work is dirty. Conditions often are best when the weather is cold, wet and windy.

You can see why introducing a kid to waterfowl hunting is a gamble.

But the Idaho Fish and Game Department has been improving the odds with a well-organized youth waterfowling hunt and clinic that’s become an annual Panhandle event.

“The idea is to give the kids and their parents a love for the sport and the wildlife resource and the skills to repeat the experience on their own,” said IFG clinic organizer Bryan Helmich.

The event is scheduled each year for the last weekend in September and a two-day hunting season that’s open only to youths under the age of 16. Up to 25 kids are accommodated at each of three sites in Boundary County, near Clark Fork and at Heyburn State Park.

In seven years, the program has had perfect attendance by the youths who register even though they must show up to meet mentors at 5 a.m., Helmich said.

This year, 60 youths and 37 parents joined with 20 citizen volunteers and 11 Fish and Game Department staffers to treat the kids to the hunting experience and a very full morning of skill-learning, along with a pre-hunt shooting skills clinic.

The kids and their parents get a primer on setting decoys, calling, dog training, how to clean their birds and other skills before they gather to share their stories over a barbecue.

And it’s all free.

“Cabela’s deserves special recognition for providing seven citizen mentors and camouflage hats for the youngsters,” Helmich said.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation paid for much of the equipment, he added, with a nod to IFG Director Cal Groen for encouraging department employees to organize events that help get children into the outdoors to maintain Idaho’s sporting traditions.

“Wildlife and their habitat stand a better chance of survival if people are tuned in to their value,” he said.

While the post-hunt smiles on the kids’ faces vouched for the success of the effort, one volunteer had a candid observation.

“Actually, the biggest factor keeping kids from getting outdoors is their parents,” said a hunter mentor who asked to remain anonymous. “Whose fault is it when volunteers organize an ideal free hunting experience for kids and 15 slots go unfilled?

“I feel bad for kids with parents who don’t introduce them to the outdoors. I feel bad for the country.”

But Jeff Strauss of Sandpoint isn’t feeling bad at all.

“We had a fantastic experience,” he said, referring to the family affair he had at the Clark Fork Delta duck blinds with his 12-year-old daughter, Hannah, and their golden retriever, Buster.

The next day, Hannah persuaded her dad to buy some decoys and take her out for an evening hunt to close out the weekend youth waterfowling season.

When Strauss probed to measure the success of the effort, he got the answer a hunting dad dreams to hear:

“I can’t wait to get up (at 4 a.m.) and go hunting again next weekend,” Hannah said.