An Outdoorsmans Journal
by Mark Walters
Prepping a Young Lady for the Hunting Season
Hello friends,
As I write this, we are less then 72 hours away from the opening of the early goose season and about two weeks away from the opener of bow season. This week I am going to write to you about what I have been doing to get my 12-year-old daughter, Selina Walters, ready for what is going to be a very busy fall.
Last year, Selina told me that she was seriously interested in getting into the sport of bow hunting. For myself, the decision on exactly how to go about properly introducing Selina on bow and arrow education and then where to purchase a bow was one of either go to a large chain type sport shop or a privately owned sport shop.
About 8 years ago the folks at M&M Sport Shop in New Lisbon, Mike Wanderle and Jenny Hanson, did an excellent job of introducing my stepson Travis into the world of archery.
Though I love to bowhunt I am exactly like my buddy Jeff Neitzel says “A jack of all trades, master of none”.
Jenny Hanson is well aware of my weaknesses and first recommended that I purchase a Mission Craze by Mathews, which I purchased and just as importantly, Jenny taught my daughter how to shoot her new bow.
M&M has a Techno Hunt video archery system, as well as, a standard indoor range. With Selina’s bow rigged with a lighted site, a case that Selina personalized at home, and a dozen arrows, Jenny Hanson began giving classes that are standard with a purchase. In between classes, Selina practiced at home and since July 20th Selina has gone from being able to shoot comfortably at 23-pounds to 38 and that will be going up to 40-pounds very soon.
I wrote a month ago about planting a food plot for Selina and I to hunt in this fall. The oats and soybeans need rain and the deer are tearing them up. The rape, radishes, and brasseca need rain as well, but are holding their own. Yesterday, I purchased a bag of rye to plant where the soybeans and oats used to exist.
This weekend, Selina and I are going on a canoe, camping, and goose hunting trip. The biggest preparation for that trip has been routinely have Selina shoot clay pigeons. If you have not raised or taught a young hunter how to shoot flying objects it is hard to understand. Ten to 14-year-olds do not have the body for it to become simple to have the swing on a clay pigeon, goose, or pheasant. Practice and patience is the only method that works.
Three weeks from today about a dozen of us head over to the Mississippi River for the opening of duck season. This will be Selina’s second year of waterfowl hunting and it made my day a couple of weeks ago when out of the blue she told me that she was really looking forward to that trip. The shooting of clay pigeons is going to make that experience which is centered on camping, hunting, friends and family even better.
Five weeks from tomorrow Selina and my favorite KAMO Kid, Jamie Bistodeau are heading over to Stevens Point for a camping and hunting trip that will take place during Wisconsin’s Youth Deer Hunt.
Joey Gillis will be guiding Jamie on his family farm and I predict that hunt will be a blast.
Then, in late October and early November I will be going on a ten-day trapping and hunting trip. If Selina wants to, I will bring her along for a couple of days to teach her about the very cool sport of trapping.
Hunting camp trumps everything that I just mentioned and that is where The Red Brush Gang gets together for the nine-day deer gun season and pegs out the fun meter every waking moment of the day “and night”!
Keeping a balance between school (Selina is bummed when she gets a B) and her friends is something that her outdoor writer dad is very careful of.
In writing this column and realizing all the trips that I have without Selina, it becomes very clear for me why I am as run down as buck after the rut once December arrives.
Play with your kids in the outdoors and they will be your life long friends when they are adults. Sunset
THIS WEEK’S COLUMN IS SPONSORED BY: Cedar Country Cooperative.