On a Saturday morning twelve years ago, I remember fifteen year-old Trey Steen, shot a full six-duck limit his first time out. What's even stranger is he did it a week after the season closed. No, Trey didn’t break the law. His hunting trip was perfectly legal. Jan 24, 1998, was designated as the first Youth Waterfowl Hunting Day in Louisiana. It was such a success that 3 years later it was expanded to 2 days and became even more popular when it was moved to the weekend BEFORE the regular seasons. This means the weather and number of young and unwary birds available should be much better than at the end.
In an effort to introduce more youngsters to the sport of duck and goose hunting, Louisiana followed a national trend in establishing a special season outside the regular season for young hunters. On these days only hunters 15 and younger accompanied by an adult 18 or older are allowed to participate. Only the youngsters are allowed to shoot, the adults are only along for supervision. The goal: to bring new hunters into a tradition that is rapidly fading. And because hunters are by far the biggest contributors to conservation, that is bad news for duck and other wildlife that share their habitat.
A lot of hunters talk about needing to get more youngsters involved in outdoor sports, away from the TV screens and computer monitors, and off the streets, but it's mostly talk. Those who invite youngsters to accompany them on duck, deer and turkey youth hunts are truly “walking the walk.”
"Mr. Hil Wegner (Steen’s supervisor) was awesome calling in those ducks. I learned how to identify different ducks by the way they fly and that you have to be patient before you shoot. The ducks try to tempt you by moving in and then away from the decoys. You have to know just when to jump up and shoot. “A couple of times I went to shoot and had the safety on,” Mr. Hil said. “That's happened to him before," Trey said, while admiring his mixed limit of birds. Trey also got lessons in dressing ducks for the table, conservation and hunting safety and ethics.
"It was just as much fun even though I wasn't shooting," said Wegener, a Mandeville resident. "I'm glad they had a good trip and the chance to experience what duck hunting is all about. You can talk about it all you want, but until you get out here in the marsh, you really can't understand what it is that keeps you coming back again and again."
Tommy Lott of Slidell had set the trip up and his youth hunter, Charles Gibson also bagged a full limit. "They got to see all of it. They even got to see how something could go wrong when the go-devil broke down and we had to paddle pirogues a half-mile in a strong wind. They learned you have to get wet, be cold and, in general, pay the price to be a duck hunter and they were up for it. I was really surprised how well they both shot," Lott said.
But not all is well across duck hunting land. You see not everyone believes in the special youth seasons. “It’s already difficult to find room to hunt now. When these kids turn into adults and I’m already fighting for a place to hunt it’s going to be that much more difficult and I think it will only drive more hunters away than it will recruit,” blogged one anonymous Minnesota hunter.
Greg Franke, a member of the Illinois-based organization, Migratory Waterfowl Hunters, Inc., doesn’t like it either. “You can’t tell me the birds aren’t affected by two days of hunting pressure less than a week before the regular opening day. To me, that’s too close and it’s having a real impact on our duck hunting,” he said.
Two days of pressure? Greg, you big wuss, try hunting Louisiana where we open only after every other state between here and Canada has for months, opened fire on migrating ducks and geese. Now that’s pressure!
Still others argue that the special season doesn’t really bring any new hunters to the sport. They say those who go are members of families with strong hunting ties and would have been brought by their friends and relatives regardless. Maybe, but isn’t any effort to promote hunting to boys and girls better than doing nothing at all? And at what risk? Maybe it will be a little tougher for older hunters on opening day, so what? Bob Norton, a retired psychology professor and a life-long waterfowl hunter says one hunt does not make a lifetime hunter but it needs to start somewhere.
“It takes much more than a day in a blind to make a hunter,” said Norton. “Hunting is a learned skill that takes years to hone and ideally one that starts with basic woodsmanship before a child is old enough to carry a gun.”
If you’re not too greedy to add a little pressure to opening day in your spot and you’re the kind of hunter who enjoys seeing a youngster’s eyes light up at the sight and sounds of a sunrise in the marsh, whistling wings overhead, outstretched orange feet slowly gliding towards your blind, and the splash of a retrieving dog here’s the low down on this year’s LA Youth Duck Hunts. Dates are Nov 7-8 in the West Zone and Nov 14-15 in the East Zone. Hunters 15 and younger need no licenses or waterfowl stamps. Only the kids are allowed to shoot ducks, geese, mergansers, coots and gallinules under the regular bag limits. Even if you don’t create a lifelong hunter, you will at least be preparing him or her to understand and defend hunting when confronted by ignorant antis.