BELOIT — Sixteen young hunters aged 8 to 16 took advantage of the Izaak Walton League Beloit Chapter hosting a Wisconsin Learn to Hunt Turkey Program over the weekend and if Dave Giddley has anything to do with it, that’s just a start.
“We ran the program successfully for about half a dozen years and then we stopped for a few, but I wanted to get it going again,” Giddley said Sunday morning. “I missed it. Taking these first-time hunters out to do something they’ve never experienced before is really rewarding.
“Next time, we’ll have even more mentors and more kids.”
The state-wide Learn to Hunt program is a partnership between the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and local clubs and organizations. The program combines four hours of classroom and field instruction and the novice hunters are paired up with qualified mentors who have at last five years of turkey-hunting experience. The rookie turkey hunters went out Saturday and Sunday morning.
“(The program) is held the week before the youth turkey hunt season which is next week and the regular season opens the week after that,” DNR Game Warden Austin Schumacher said. “The first-year hunters are paired with mentors who have gone through background checks who donate their time and energy to make this work. We want mentors who are experienced hunters with five or more years of turkey hunting to teach the right practices and how to stay safe in the field. That’s the goal.”
The DNR waives licensing and tag fees for the young hunters the weekend of the program.
“It’s really pretty much cost-free for the participants,” Giddley said. “The mentors aren’t paid. The only cost for the parents is a little gas money to drive their kids to the classroom instruction and to where they’re going to hunt. We hunt Rock and Green Counties, mostly private land we have to get permission to hunt on.”
The 16 hunters bagged six turkeys in all.
“We had six or seven other kids who took shots and missed, but all in all that’s still a pretty good rate of success,” Giddley said. “The state average is around 16 percent. So not bad, considering the rainy weather.”
Giddley said there is a great deal of time invested in the program and it’s well-spent.
“It takes time to line up the spots to hunt and to take the mentors there in advance,” he said. “The mentors go out scouting for turkeys to make sure there’s birds there to give the young hunters the most success we can give them.”
The young hunters were treated to a lunch at the Izaak Walton clubhouse on Sunday.
Schumacher said Giddley and his mentors did a terrific job.
“I want to thank Dave and the mentors for setting this up here,” he said. “There haven’t been that many of these the past five years so it is good to see this start up again. It is really good for the kids and the mentors and I think it will continue to grow.”
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