Sign Up NOW For The 2021 Bull Creek Youth Pheasant Hunt

 Sign up NOW for the 21st annual Bull Creek Youth Pheasant Hunt on October 16th 2021! All kids age 12 to 16 are welcome to sign up. Kids will be taught hunting safety and will be able to learn about pheasant hunting over dogs. Spots are LIMITED so do not wait to sign up. You do NOT have to be a member of Bull Creek. Click here to register and for directions to the club:

 https://www.register-ed.com/events/view/171045

PA Sportsmen Already Paying The Price

By Bob Frye, Tribune-Review

You walk into your doctor's office with a bullet hole in one leg, stab wounds in your chest, severe burns on your feet and, what the heck, let's throw in a doozy of a hangnail, too.

Clearly, you need care.

And your doctor's response?

He asks if you've been taking your vitamins. He wonders if you've considered getting more exercise. He suggests you fundraise to buy bandages and promises you baby aspirin, maybe, later, if you can convince the neighbors you need them.

That's how Pennsylvania lawmakers treated sportsmen last week.

The executive directors of the Pennsylvania Game and Fish and Boat commissions delivered their annual reports to the members of the House of Representatives game and fisheries committee. As expected, both spent a significant portion of their time asking for money.

Hunting and furtaking license prices haven't changed since 1999; fishing licenses not since 2005.

Increasingly, that's leading to consequences.

The Game Commission has already closed two pheasant farms, something that will mean 50,000 fewer pheasants ­­— at least — for hunters this fall. Next up, said executive director Matt Hough, might be the shuttering of the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area and Howard Nursery, which provides trees and shrubs for game lands.

The Fish and Boat Commission, meanwhile, will have no choice but to make “deep program cuts” starting in 2018 without additional revenue, said executive director John Arway. It's likely some of those will come via hatcheries, he warned.

Both agencies are short on law enforcement officers — the front line against poaching — and may get shorter, the directors said.

That's all on lawmakers.

Only they can increase prices. The fact that they haven't in so long is, as Wes Waldron of the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania said recently, “at best unconscionable.”

What's the holdup?

Naked self preservation.

Lawmakers didn't display any animus toward the commissions, unlike in times past. But they danced all around the fee issue.

They quizzed the agencies on whether they're cutting costs. They suggested other ways of raising revenue, like selling permits to allow people to use ATVs on game lands. One offered to propose giving each $1 million in general tax money — something that's unprecedented — to tide them over until something, meaning who knows what, changes.

That's all fine as far as it goes. The commissions should be pressured to be efficient and creative.

But none of those ideas will solve their problems or help sportsmen.

Several lawmakers said they understand that and have heard virtually every statewide sportsmen's group say they favor fee hikes.

But they also made clear they won't risk votes back home to do anything about it, not until the commissions can somehow prove an even wider groundswell of support.

Enough's enough.

No one likes paying more for anything. But the time's come.

Sportsmen who value fish and wildlife and the recreation they provide must tell lawmakers to properly our natural resource agencies.

If not, we'll all pay the price in other ways.

Bob Frye is the Tribune-Review outdoors editor. Reach him at 412-216-0193 or bfrye@tribweb.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

Best Mentors Need To Make Outdoors Fun For Kids

There are about 20 percent fewer young hunters and anglers
than there were a decade ago. Mentors might be the answer.
“It takes a commitment from every individual to step up and
take a kid hunting and fishing. There’s really not anything
more to it than that,” said Mike Christensen (not pictured),
president of Pass It On — Outdoor Mentors Inc., a
Kansas-based organization that teams sportsmen with kids

By Bob Frye 

 

The hemorrhaging, the bleeding, appears to have stopped.

That's the good news.

 

The bad? Or perhaps the daunting? A full recovery remains a yet-distant dream.

 

Years-long decline in the number of junior hunters and, presumably, junior anglers have finally stalled — at least in Pennsylvania.

 

The Pennsylvania Game Commission's sales of junior and junior combo hunting licenses fell every year from 2004 -10. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission doesn't have a junior license, but overall resident license sales trended downward for decades, hitting a 42-year-low in 2011.

 

In both cases, there's been a bit of a rebound, with sales stable ever since.

 

But that's stable at a lower level. There are about 20 percent fewer young hunters and anglers than there were even a decade ago.

 

If that's ever to change, the average sportsman is the only hope.

 

“It takes a commitment from every individual to step up and take a kid hunting and fishing. There's really not anything more to it than that,” said Mike Christensen, president of Pass It On — Outdoor Mentors Inc., a Kansas-based organization that teams sportsmen with kids.

 

“If we're going to ensure that our outdoor heritage continues, we've got to reach out and make it happen.”

 

There's more to being a good mentor than just sticking a kid in the tree stand or on the bank and having him wait for the chance to pull a trigger or set a hook, though, said Mark Walters of Necedah, Wisc. He's founder of the nonprofit, volunteer Kids And Mentors Outdoors, or KAMO.

 

For him, building relationships is critical, especially with a youngster who's not a family member.

 

“If you're dealing with a new kid, you can't just pick him up the night before the hunt, or even that day. Do something with him once or twice before. Go get an ice cream cone. Go to a restaurant and talk. Get him involved in planning the hunt or target shooting beforehand,” Walters said.

 

“If you talk to these kids, they lighten up. They have fun, and it's got to be fun. Otherwise they're gone, and you don't see them again.”

 

Hank Forester, who leads the Quality Deer Management Association's youth organization, the Rack Pack, likewise cautioned against going “too full bore.”

 

New hunters will get the chance to harvest game in time, he said. Until then, it's more important to teach them to love the entirety of the outdoors.

 

“The cultivation process is very important,” Forester said.

 

Forester suggested putting out trail cameras and later reviewing the photos as a way to build excitement and anticipation. Focusing on skills, spending time on the range, talking about shot placement, reviewing outdoor magazines and newspapers for stories and planning recipes for when game is in the bag are important.

 

Once on the stand, let the child set the pace, he added. Some will be serious; others will want to play games and talk.

 

“The worst thing you can do is take a kid out and say, ‘Sit down and shut up. We're watching for deer,' ” Forester said. “You kind of have to tone it to each youth. Some of the best hunts I ever had were where there was way too much giggling going on for any deer in the world to ever stick its head in a shooting lane.

 

“But we had a lot of fun. And the kids always came back.”

 

The same approach holds true with fishing, said Mandy Smith, the Fish and Boat Commission's southwest region education specialist.

 

Many veteran anglers develop an affinity for one kind of fish or another, and they often want to catch the biggest ones. Kids aren't like that. They're content with catching any fish, period, she said.

 

But the whole experience has to resonate, she said. Keeping kids engaged and enjoying themselves can mean making sure they're dressed for the weather, providing snacks, letting them decide when they've had enough and — above all — being patient, she said.

 

“Patience is huge, as is providing them with a lot of positive praise, even if you're praising them for their own patience,” Smith said. “They're used to instant gratification.”

 

That's true, yet it's surprising how quickly many youngsters come to appreciate the outdoors, Christensen said.

A good mentor is often the key. People hunt, fish, camp, canoe, hike and spend time outdoors because they enjoy it, Walters said. Mentors need to share that without letting their passion become stressful.

 

“We're not trying to save the world. We're just trying to provide outdoor experiences to kids who might not be able to have them otherwise,” Walters said.

 

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

PA Mentored Youth Hunting Program Might Be Working

By Bob Frye

HARRISBURG — It's the logical question.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission offers a mentored youth hunting program, which lets kids younger than 12 try hunting without first having to get a license. Created in 2005, it's intended to get kids interested in the outdoors before the demands of youth sports and other activities take them away.

Is it working to create hunters?

The answer is: perhaps. Coren Jagnow, of the commission's research and education division, looked at the buying histories of the nearly 99,000 junior hunters — kids ages 12-16 — who had a junior license or junior combo license going into deer season last fall.

One of the things she looked at was whether children who had a mentored permit at least once bought more licenses between the ages of 12 and 16 than those who didn't.

“The answer is absolutely yes, they do,” Jagnow told commissioners at their Monday work group meeting.

The older a junior hunter was, and the more consistent he or she was in buying a license each year, the more likely they were to have come from a mentored background, she added.

She offered one caution with that, though. That results suggest “correlation, but not necessarily causation,” she said.

In other words, it's unclear whether mentored youth hunting alone turned young hunters into sportsmen or if they more likely joined the ranks because they came from a background where their adult mentors made a point of introducing them to hunting, she said.

Commissioner Tim Layton of Windber said the result is the same.

“We're developing hunters to the long-term,” he said.

They are more avid than the average youngster, at least.

Jagnow looked at what kind of licenses the 99,000 junior hunters bought: regular junior licenses, which gave them the right to hunt, or junior combo licenses, which carried extra privileges, allowing to take part in archery, muzzleloader and furtaking seasons.

She discovered that while youngsters with a mentored background accounted for only 45 percent of the overall junior hunter pool, they represented more than half of combo licenses sales.

That benefits juniors by providing extra opportunities, and the commission financially, she said. A regular junior hunting license sells for $6.70, a combo license for $9.70.

Program additions

More mentored hunting is likely on the way.

When they hold their quarterly meeting in June, Game Commissioners will consider adding mourning doves and cottontail rabbits to the list of species that mentored youth can hunt. If preliminary approval is given, final approval could come in September. Hunting would start in the fall of 2016.

To hunt doves, mentored youth would have to buy a migratory bird license for $3.70. Commissioners considered waiving that, but said they want to collect information on the number of youngsters hunting and how many birds they're taking, just as they do with adults.

The mentored rabbit hunt, meanwhile, will come with some restrictions.

The intent is not to have kids “jumping on brush piles” or even to have adult mentors posting a child in one spot and walking around to flush rabbits to them, said commissioner Dave Putnam of Centre County. Adults and mentored youth will have to remain stationary and target rabbits run by them by dogs or by other people.

The commission developed those guidelines in cooperation with beagle clubs, said commission deputy director Rich Palmer.

“I think this will be a positive thing,” Palmer said.

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Frye: PA Mentored Youth Proposal A Hot-Button Issue

By Bob Frye 

Consider the hornet's nest officially — and violently — stirred.

Pennsylvania Game Commissioners are scheduled to meet next Sunday through Tuesday. They will give preliminary approval to seasons and bag limits for the 2015-16 hunting and trapping seasons.

That, alone, would make the meeting controversial. There's always someone unhappy with deer seasons.

But it's something else on the agenda that's really got people worked up.

Commissioners will consider a change to the mentored youth hunting program, which allows children, regardless of age, to hunt squirrels, groundhogs, coyotes, turkeys and deer with an adult mentor.

The proposal before the board would maintain the rules for those age 9 and older, but prohibit kids age 8 and younger from hunting turkeys and deer.

The intent, according to the agenda, is to address “concern over the appropriateness of young children's abilities to utilize high-powered firearms to harvest big game, as well as allegations of adults utilizing the harvest tags of mentored youth unlawfully.”

That's where things get murky.

According to commission figures, mentored youths took 2.5 percent of the total deer killed in 2012-13, with only four-tenths of 1 percent killed by kids ages 6 to 8. None younger harvested a deer.

Anecdotal evidence suggests some of those deer likely were killed not by a child, but by an adult.

“What we're running into mostly is the kid not even being there and the adult being in possession of that tag,” said Tom Fazi, spokesman in the commission's southwest region office.

But no one can say precisely how often that's occurring.

Fazi could not quantify how many such violations are being encountered, nor could Michael Reeder, a spokesman in the commission's law enforcement headquarters.

Given that lack of evidence — and all the good mentored hunting has achieved — there's no way the commission should be looking to change it, said Rob Sexton, spokesman for the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance.

Pennsylvania was the first state in the nation to adopt “Families Afield” legislation doing away with a minimum hunting age in 2006.

Thirty-four states have since followed suit, putting 1.2 million new people in the woods,

While it's almost assuredly true some adults are illegally taking advantage of the program, there's nothing to suggest it's happening often enough to make a change that would impact nearly one-third of the 34,000 mentored youth in Pennsylvania, he added.

“In our world we arrest the violators and treat everyone else with respect,” he said. “We don't treat the law-abiding with the same meat clever we use on those who break the law.”

The Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, National Rifle Association, National Wild Turkey Federation and National Shooting Sports Foundation are in agreement.

Sexton said he hopes commissioners will remove the proposal from their agenda before next week's meeting.

Game commissioner Ron Weaner of Adams County said board members have become well aware of how passionately people feel about this issue. The reaction has been unexpectedly loud, he said. But he wants to hear from more next week.

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Pa. Game Commission Wants To Reel In More Students

By Bob Frye

The good news?

The Pennsylvania Game Commission put nearly 41,000 students through its hunter-trapper education classes this year. That's the most in more than a decade and ranked second only to Texas in certifying new hunters last year.

The bad news?

History says not all of those students will ever hunt. Typically only about two-thirds of hunter-ed graduates go on to buy hunting licenses.

The trend is similar with mentored youth hunters, those who get to try the sport before age 12 under the guidance of an adult. Only about 50 percent of them become license-buying junior hunters.

“We're losing quite a few of them,” said Joe Neville, director of the commission's bureau of information and education.

Why that is and what can be done to address it will be the focus of some new research. The commission has contracted Penn State to build a “data mining machine” that will take the gobs of information collected through the automated licensing system and other sources and figure out what's going on, Neville said.

The cost of the contract is $200,000. It's being paid for with grant money.

Those within the agency are excited about the returns the project may offer, though.

“We're hoping they can help us answer some questions,” Neville said.

The commission knows some things already.

There's a “significant positive relationship” between the number of students who take a hunter safety course and the number of junior license buyers, said Coren Jagnow, human dimensions research specialist for the commission. More kids in class mean more hunters.

In years past, though, the commission offered classes around the schedules of its instructors, said Keith Snyder, chief of the commission's hunter education and outreach division. That often meant classes were held months outside of the hunting seasons.

In 2011 — as a result of web analytics, a system for measuring when people were on the commission web site looking for hunter-ed classes and where they were from — it switched to offering more classes in the fall in areas of high demand, such as southwestern Pennsylvania.

That “strategic scheduling” is partly behind the increase in students being seen now, Snyder said.

“Everything we had before in terms of demand for our classes was anecdotal. We really had no idea what people wanted or where they were located. It was really eye-opening,” Snyder said.

But what can be done to get more of those students to buy licenses is a question that remains. The hope is that the data mining machine will provide answers, Snyder said.

“This will allow us to isolate the disconnect that exists with hunter education graduates who never become junior hunters and mentored youth who never become junior hunters,” Snyder said.

“What are the barriers out there? What can we do to help them take that next step? What do they look like? Where are they from?”

It might be that some answers are gender related. Twenty percent of mentored youths are female, as are 24 percent of hunter education graduates, said Samantha Pedder, hunting outreach coordinator for the commission. Yet only 17 percent of junior hunters are girls, and only 7 percent of adults.

Some early look at adult license-buying trends — which the data mining machine also may be able to further explain — indicates the most die-hard hunters also tend to be fishermen, Snyder said. If it turns out they also tend to frequent places like state parks and forests, that might impact future strategies, Snyder said.

“As strange as it may sound, to create more hunters, we may have to help create more all-around outdoorsmen,” he said.

To that end, the commission — a longtime supporter of the National Archery in the Schools program — is working with teachers to get an “explore bowhunting” curriculum introduced into physical education classes, promoting it as a lifelong recreational activity. It's also getting involved in the state's GetOutdoors Initiative. State parks, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and partners like Venture Outdoors have long used it to introduce people to fishing, hiking, snowshoeing and more. The game commission wants to promote its youth field days and junior pheasant hunts.

Will any of that help?

“We are just beginning to learn the science of hunter recruitment, retention and reactivation,” Snyder said. “And we have a lot to learn.”

Debate Rises Over When To Get Kids Involved In Hunting

Bob Frye, Pittsburgh Tribune Review

The debate about whether Pennsylvania should do an about-face is under way.

The state — to great fanfare nationally — was the first in the nation to adopt Families Afield legislation, which removed the minimum age at which a child could go hunting.

The idea was to make it possible to recruit kids into hunting before they get swallowed up by other activities, such as baseball and soccer.

But now at least one Pennsylvania Game Commissioner wants the state to back away from that.

Commissioner Ron Weaner of Adams County believes the commission should establish some minimum age to satisfy sportsmen concerned about safety and the possibility some adults are shooting game and claiming it was their children.

“I keep hearing comments from people who see in the paper pictures of 3- and 4-year-old kids shooting deer. It‘s like, who are we kidding here?” Weaner said.

What the minimum age should be, he did not exactly specify. But he said he thought it should be no younger than 8.

“And if a kid is something younger, like 5, and he or she was a mentored hunter this year, if my proposal passed they would just have to wait,” he added.

If the Game Commission were to go that direction, it would do so counter to the national trend.

Since Pennsylvania removed its minimum hunting age and went to a mentoring program, 33 states have followed suit.

None has backtracked the way Weaner is proposing, said Evan Heusinkveld, director of government affairs for the U.S. Sportsmen‘s Alliance, one of the national organizations that first pushed for the Families Afield program here.

In fact, most states are expanding their programs and removing additional barriers to make it possible for more people to try hunting earlier, he said.

The result has been at least 782,000 people introduced to hunting, about 50 percent of whom subsequently bought hunting licenses when they became of age, statistics show.

“Families Afield has proven not only to be an effective recruitment tool for new hunters, but also a fabulous means of retaining people in the sport,” Heusinkveld.

Fears that putting firearms in the hands of younger hunters would be dangerous have proven unfounded, he added. Research shows that mentored youth hunters are about four times as safe as adult hunters, he said.

“It‘s very comparable to young people driving a car,” Heusinkveld said.

“If you put a 16-year-old in a car, and their parent is sitting right there next to them, they‘re going to be less reckless than someone out by themselves.”

As for how big or small the issue of adults shooting game and claiming it was taken by a child might be, no one knows for sure, said Rich Palmer, chief law enforcement officer for the Game Commission.

“I can‘t put a gauge on it for you,” he said.

Commission president Ralph Martone of New Castle suspects “the good still outweighs the bad” in that situation. But hunters younger than 12 are required to get a mentor tag, he noted.

The commission should pull those tags — to see just how many young children are going into the woods and whether they are involved with any problems — before contemplating any changes, he said.

“Why address something that might be a very small number? It may already be self-regulated. I‘d rather put the decision on when a child is ready on the parents,” he said.

Commission executive director Carl Roe said the agency would provide commissioners with all the data it has.

In the meantime, Heusinkveld said the groups who pushed for mentored hunting in Pennsylvania initially would oppose any attempts to scale it back now.

“Arbitrary age minimums are a thing of the past, and we‘d like to see things stay that way,” he said.

Here‘s a look at the comparative safety of hunting and other sports, according to information provided by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and U.S. Sportsmen‘s Alliance:

Injuries per Sport 100 participants

Tackle football 18.8

Ice hockey 15.9

Boxing 12.7

Soccer 9.3

Cheerleading 9.0

Basketball 7.6

Baseball 5.8

Tennis 2.5

Horseback riding 1.8

Hunting 1.3

PA Game Commission Board Seeks To Expand Mentored Youth Program For 2013-14

FRANKLIN, Venango County – The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today gave preliminary approval to a regulatory change to expand antlerless deer hunting opportunities under the Mentored Youth Hunting Program (MYHP) for the 2013-14 license year. 

“Sporting organizations and other interested groups have continued to express an interest in having the Game Commission expand the MYHP opportunities,” said Ralph A. Martone, Board President. “These groups support this proposed change in regulations to permit the transfer of no more than one Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) permit to a mentored youth hunter per license year. 

“This change, along with the recent addition of fall turkey hunting to the MYHP, creates a wide range of opportunities for young hunters.”

Martone noted that this action will not significantly affect the DMAP antlerless deer harvest and is consistent with the goal of providing additional mentored youth hunting opportunities. Also, it will work in the same manner as the recent change in regulations to allow adult mentors to transfer one Wildlife Management Unit-specific antlerless deer license to a mentored youth.

If the change is given final approval at a subsequent Board meeting, beginning in the 2013-14 license year, adult mentors would be authorized to transfer one DMAP harvest permit issued to them to an eligible mentored youth.  The DMAP harvest permit must be valid for the property on which the pair is hunting, and in the possession of the adult mentor at all times while hunting antlerless deer.  Adult mentors may transfer the DMAP harvest permit to mentored youths only after the youth harvests an antlerless deer.  A mentored youth may receive by transfer no more than one DMAP harvest permit each license year. 

As is the case with antlerless deer licenses, a mentored youth is ineligible to make direct application for a DMAP harvest permit.

“Since 2006, Pennsylvania’s hunters have been taking advantage of a remarkable opportunity to introduce those under the age of 12 to hunting through the Mentored Youth Hunting Program, and we have seen a steady increase in the number of MYHP permits issued,” said Carl G. Roe, Game Commission executive director. “Hunting is deeply woven into the cultural fabric that defines Pennsylvania, and it is important that we recruit new hunters to carry on this tradition.”

Roe noted that the logic behind the MYHP is simple and clear: create expanded youth hunting opportunities without compromising safety afield. In 2009, the first year a permit was required to participate in the MYHP, the agency issued 28,542 permits.  In 2010, the agency issued 30,790; and, in 2011, the number of permits issued increased to 33,514.

For more information on the program, visit the Game Commission’s website (www.pgc.state.pa.us) and put your cursor over the “Hunt/Trap” button in the menu bar at the top of the page, click on “Hunting” and then click on “Mentored Youth Hunting Program FAQs” in the “Related Links” section.  Information also is included on page 15 of the 2012-13 Pennsylvania Hunting and Trapping Digest.