This year, a new law went into effect in Wisconsin, allowing 10-year-olds to hunt. My motherly protection made me wish for my 10-year-old to ignore this law, and my survival instinct wanted all of us to stay out of the woods entirely. But since I married into a family of hunters, my vote didn’t really carry.
The new Wisconsin law requires all 10-12-year-olds to be accompanied by an adult mentor who had completed hunter safety. So both my son and husband took the course together this summer. For my husband, all the material was review – he’d never taken the course before and had been “grandfathered” in. But his own dad was such a stickler about safety, he may as well have already earned the certificate 30 years ago, when his dad started taking him into the woods.
Father and son dutifully went to the class this summer and I’ve never seen my son study for anything like he did this class. He practically memorized the book, and made note cards to practice the questions he thought would be on the test.
Both passed the course and earned their hunter safety badges.
A couple weeks ago, they participated in Wisconsin’s “Youth Hunt” – two days designed to give youth hunters ages 10-15 an opportunity to hunt deer and gain valuable hunting experience at a time when other hunters are not authorized to hunt deer with a firearm.
I couldn’t have been prouder to hear my 10-year-old explain that “he just couldn’t squeeze the trigger” because he wasn’t sure it was a clear-enough shot. Craig didn’t want to wound the deer without killing it. He let Dad take her down and they got another doe tag for the next day, but never got another shot.
Though this can be a dangerous sport, I’m comforted to know both the men in my life approach it with such serious thought. Craig told me, “I think next time I’ll be ready to squeeze the trigger.”
Tags: hunting
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6:04 pm
One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is send my boys out into the woods with guns. I know how you feel. And I know that you’re proud that they take it so seriously, and rightly so. What a great father/son experience.
11:08 pm
that Duplo ad keeps bouncing out in front of your post!
Hey… I worked with a guy in his 70’s who NEVER pulled the trigger. He’d been hunting since he was craig’s age.
But he had such wonderful stories.
6:30 pm
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