Toddlers go hunting, great press
General Topic
Huffington post. It’s amazing the bs that comes out of there. Drives me crazy that yahoo picks up that BS.
Is it true? If it is, it is not BS.
I imagine the bs call is for the toddlers carrying guns imagery. Nothing wrong with allowing parents to decide when their child is ready to hunt.
No age minimum in Texas. Never has been.
It’s a BS headline that’s put to create shock and awe from one of the worst publications out there. If you can’t see that I’m sorry...smh
I can see it, but it should be absolutely no surprise to the hunting community that this was coming.
I honestly do not understand why some folks are in such a freakin’ hurry to get their kids out there killing something. They get to be little kids for less than a dozen years; let them have that time to be exactly what they are.
Strikes me as Little League Father Syndrome taken to a whole new level.
If you love it and are willing to share it with them, they’ll love it, too. All they want is some 1:1 time with an adult who loves them.
"They get to be little kids for less than a dozen years; let them have that time to be exactly what they are."
I honestly don't ever remember when I first shot a gun or a bow for that matter. I wore out a bb gun by the time I was 7 or 8 years old shooting frogs and grasshoppers and paper. Ordered my first .22 rifle from Sears Roebuck by mail when I was 7 (right about the time mail ordering firearms was outlawed). By the age of 8, I was tromping all over the place squirrel hunting by myself. Deer hunting alone came later mainly because there weren't very many deer around then, but I borrowed a rifle to deer hunt with by 11 or 12. Those were my little kid years and none of us around thought anything odd about it at all.
We need more laws because parents aren't capable of making these kinds of decisions on their own. Thank God we have gov't to tell us what to do.
What a sad commentary on the state of affairs in today’s world when a man posting on a hunting forum thinks hunting is somehow not “letting a kid be a kid”.
Take your kid hunting so don’t have hunt for kid! There’s so many life lessons to be learned! A parent is the best judge as long as they have good judgment... But there’s so much than pulling the trigger! Tonight my kids were more excited for grilled heart and tongue tacos than horns.... I know I raised them right.
Kids should be able to act like kids. They should explore, hunt, and fish whenever they are ready.
I'm glad to still be a kid.
Awesome Dirtman!!!
Here in NM if you pass hunter's safety you can hunt. Daughter passed and started hunting at 9 and it was the BEST thing we ever did!
Agree 100% with GF. Used to have to break up fist fights at little league games between the dads. Same syndrome. My wife sold a hunting license where she works to a mother who was bragging on her 5 year old who had shot a deer last year. Total BS.
Unfortunately it is not about what we as hunters think. The non hunting voter holds our future. It is easy to predict what they will think about toddlers hunting, and it will not be good.....
There are no “toddlers” hunting. Sheesh.
I agree, but unfortunately that toddler door is already opened by the liberal fake news. It could however have been avoided, we as hunters were not smart enough to let sleeping dogs rest.
I don't know why the kid has to be pulling the trigger to be a part of the hunt?
If the kids aren't getting into hunting, it's not because they cant get a license, it's because nobody is taking them.
Unfortunately kids always make good news fodder, especially with weapons.
Anyone reading Huffington post is already so far gone it doesn't matter.
Unfortunately it was on Yahoo news, front page. Yahoo is not much better.
I seen a video that had a kid in a blind that could barely talk with his dad aiming a crossbow for him shooting a deer.all the kid did was pull the trigger.then he barely got the kid to say I love bow hunting.way fake.
They do the same with gun vises, parental ego.
I saw a video the other day of a friends 4 year old who got his first "bow kill" with a crossbow. The kid could barely form sentences. It's getting out of hand.
I agree it can get out of hand and cringe at some of the things I see (vise rests, kids obviously being pushed for Dad’s ego, etc).
One of my pet peeves is Dads putting in their kids and wives for sheep tags - most of the time it’s obvious the guys are just vicariously hunting through their families. The actual shooter often has no real passion for it.
That all said, not everything requires a law. You can’t legislate everything.
What are some of you guys talking about - this is pretty much the entire south. No age limits as long as you are with an adult. My kids have hunted with me since babies and all took their first deer before 10.
WI is just catching up with the rest of the hunting world.
The point is, the liberal media is just catching on to the idea of young hunters. Their distortion will not be good for hunting, or existing laws and lack of laws.
The liberal media is a sinking ship few put any stock in these days. I see no issue with parents having the final say of when their child is ready and I seriously doubt many will be toting rifles as toddlers!
Unfortunately liberals have a good record in the popular vote, they are always going to be a factor in the hunter beloved, "ballot box game management".
The dead only vote in presidential elections.
Ten infants less than a year of age obtained gun hunting licenses in Wisconsin. These are toddlers in diapers! How stupid are we getting as hunters?
The state Department of Natural Resources sold 10 hunting licenses to infants after Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill that eliminated the state's minimum hunting age.
Walker signed a Republican bill on Nov. 13 doing away with the 10-year-old minimum age to participate in a mentored hunt.
The DNR released data Tuesday that shows the agency had sold 1,814 mentored hunt licenses to children age nine or younger through Sunday. The vast majority — 1,011 licenses — went to nine-year-olds. Fifty-two licenses went to children under age 5, with 10 going to a child under a year old.
A four-year-old was the youngest licensee to register a kill. Harvest data doesn't show who actually killed the deer, however.
Until this month, a state resident had to be 12 years old to buy a hunting license or hunt with a gun. Children as young as 10 could participate in the mentored hunt program. The new law lets anyone of any age participate in a mentored hunt and the mentor and student are allowed to carry their own weapons.
Hunters killed slightly fewer deer during Wisconsin's nine-day gun season this year than last, according to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources data released Tuesday.
The season began Nov. 18 and ran through Sunday. According to the DNR's preliminary totals, hunters killed 195,738 deer. That's less than the 197,262 killed last year and the 198,049 killed the year before, but more than the 192,111 killed in 2014.
Overall license sales dipped slightly this year. The agency sold 588,387 licenses authorizing hunting with a firearm during the nine-day season, down 1.7 percent from 2016.
Hundreds of young hunters purchased licenses after Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Nov. 13 eliminating the 10-year-old minimum age to participate in a mentored hunt.
Again, harvest data doesn't show who actually pulled the trigger; an older hunter could have killed the deer and registered the animal under the child's license.
Opponents of eliminating the minimum hunting age warned putting guns in the hands of young children would put them and other hunters in danger, but it appears that wasn't an issue. No one was killed during the season, although seven hunters were wounded.
Five of them, all at least 24 years old, shot themselves. A 53-year-old hunter was shot during a drive in Ozaukee County but the age of the shooter was still unknown on Tuesday. Another hunter was shot in Waukesha County but both the hunter and the shooter's ages were unknown. The DNR was still investigating both incidents.
Crap like this always gets rammed through in WI. It's all about money or political gain.
Michigan changed our hunting age laws a few years ago and this year I bought my two oldest mentored licenses for the first time. They have been shooting guns and bows and going on stand with me for the past couple years, but I felt this year they were ready to give it a go on their own. I bought them a crossbow and a single shot rifle. Had them shoot them to become proficient and we hunted several times together before they were able to pull the trigger on a deer. It just so happened that last weekend after more than 15 hunts, both were able to shoot their first deer at the ages of 8 and 6. One shot was 50 yards in the lungs and the other 65 yards in the heart. Both deer died within 75 yards. Both kids helped in the tracking process. Both kids helped every step of the way.
It was one of the coolest experiences I've had while hunting. To see my kids get excited as deer came in, to learn when and why we didn't have a clean shot, to then execute perfect shots on wild animals and finally watch them enjoy the tenderloins of the animals they provided. It was truly priceless!
To those that say we should let kids be kids, isn't getting excited, learning and performing part of being a kid ?
When done right, I think the mentored hunts are a extremely good tool to introduce kids to a sport that we all love. Where they go with it from there is going to differ from kid to kid.
10 infants out of 550,000 licenses sold. Don’t you think that quite possibly they were bought as a hunting camp joke? I’m mean you can get a tag for 5.00.
I’m also quite sure the 4 year old that harvested a deer has been or will be investigated to see if he/she is even capable as it’s unlawful to fill youth tags under the mentored hunt.
Missouri your worse than CNN for baited tag lines trying to stir up irrational responses. Let the people respond without trying to stear them.
Technology is great I can bicker about deer hunting while deer hunting.
The tag line was partially derived from the linked article which was found by me on the very front page of Yahoo Headline News. My posts are thought provoking, that is indeed my intent. I am a life long hunter who has the unique ability to speak from the perspective of the non hunting voter. It is this non hunting voter who is and will continue to determine the rules of hunting. Ballot box game management it is called, another stupid idea asked for and supported by many in the hunting community........ which will eventually seal our fate.
On my own land the government has NO business telling me when my child is ready to hunt, throw a ball, ride a bike, etc. My daughter would go bow hunting with me when she was 8. No weapon in her hands, but just to sit in the tree and look for game. It was a few years later when I taught her how to shoot a .22. I'd sit at the bench with her and hand her one bullet at a time. She loved it.
My attitude is that if you can not handle your weapon safely by yourself during the duration of the hunt you have no business pulling the trigger and killing an animal. You see kids shoot a deer with a gun in the vice and then the old man grabs the gun and carries it the whole time they are approaching the downed animal. Thats not hunting...
I had to wait until I was 14 by state law. It taught me patience and the first few deer I shot were dead right there. My dad wasn't hovering over me because I was mature and prepared. He was there to help me haul it out and clean it. Young kids these days are simply too young to understand what they are doing and it seems their act of killing a deer is an extension of their father's ego
It appears that no deer were registered under these tags and that they may have been purchased by the parents as keepsakes for their kids.
It is nice to see there are hand wringers on Bowsite too. Worried about how someone wants to raise their children. If some of you aren't liberals you should be. Sorry these youth hunter's are cutting into your coveted tag allocations.
Why would a person want to take a 5 year old hunting? The same reason you would take a 5 year old fishing, or take them to play at the park or play catch with them in the yard. It's fun and kids like to have fun.
"Young kids these days are simply too young to understand what they are doing and it seems their act of killing a deer is an extension of their father's ego"
Thornton,
I am curious what there is to understand? It is killing an animal not nuclear fission. Kill an animal, clean it and eat it. I don't see ego in a mentor teaching a kid to hunt, I see humbleness. I see ego in the one who thinks this endeavor is too righteous or complex for a child to understand.
A young child does not not understand ballistics, death, the suffering of an animal, or really anything for that matter. You can teach a kid to hunt just fine without handing them a crossbow or high powered rifle. The age restrictions were put into place by people older and wiser than you or I and it's a shame they are being taken down. It's kind of like insisting a small kid be able to drive a car legally because they now make a "youth model" car.
I grew up roaming the woods with first a BB gun, then a pellet gun, then a .22.
By age 6 I understood ballistics, animal suffering, and death more than I daresay 75% of the adults in America today. You pick up on those things pretty quickly when you shoot an animal, it suffers (or not, as the case may be), it dies, you clean it, take it home, your Momma or Grandma cooks it, and y’all eat it.
Whether I could articulate that knowledge or not, it was a part of me. Knowing something is not defined by being able to articulate/explain it in book terms.
The state is not the parent of my child. I am. And I will decide when my child is ready. If I'm responsible enough to provide for, care for, educate and raise my child then I'm responsible enough to determine when they are ready for the things that life offers them.
My daughter had driver's ed when she was 16. She came home one day and said that the instructor said she was ready. I told her that she was NOT ready until she passed MY test.
I was handed a BB gun by my Grandpa that looked identical to his Winchester 94'. I promptly went out and dispatched a rain gauge which got me into big trouble. After that, I shot an untold amount of birds that simply did not deserve to die. None of us, including you Woods Walker had the sense God gave a goose at that age. (That's part of the reason they made it mandatory for us all to go to school :))
We are wired that way Thornton. It is the very same instinct that is in a predatory animal like a cat. How many things do they kill that don't deserve to die? If I give my kid a BB gun and they want to shoot every starling or sparrow they see, I don't care. I value wildlife as much as the next guy, it's just not something spiritual to me and I see them as animals put her for our benefit.
It's your choice how you want your kid to be introduced into hunting as it is mine.
My daughter who is now 12 started turkey hunting with her bow at 7. She has only shot at one turkey and that was last year. She has also shot at 1 deer a few years ago and is yet to have connected on anything with her bow. She got mad at me a few years ago when I wouldn't let her take a shot that I didn't think she could make. At that point I told her that I would no longer stop her from shooting and shot selection was up to her. The very next encounter she had, she passed on her own.
I never said we did Thornton, OR that a child should be given a weapon as soon as they can hold it and turned loose. Of course they need to be supervised and guided, just like they need to be with all other aspects of life. But that's NOT the government's job......IT'S THE PARENTS. The government cannot even manage itself, and it's going to tell ME how to raise MY child??? Not as long as I can breathe.
As a Wisconsin resident, I was actually shocked that the number of licenses sold to infants or toddlers was so low. I would've expected that number to be much higher. There are some interesting thoughts running through this thread. I do very little gun hunting in the state anymore, for many reasons, but bowhunt as much as I can. I shoot my bow all year long and my daughter sees that (she's 8) and has become quite interested in learning about archery...not hunting. She understands that I hunt and that we eat the animals I kill - I have never hidden that fact from her. She also understands that is not the only reason I hunt or her grandfather hunts or her uncle hunts. She understands there is a tremendous amount of respect and safety and practice and principle that goes into it for us because I have taught her this. I can't begrudge someone who teaches their children to responsibly hunt and to respect what they are hunting. But in the same token, there will always be those that see the loophole and run out and buy permits for their "toddlers" simply as a way to take more deer.
As I recall, Pat's son shot a hog at Shiloh Ranch at age 7. I killed my first deer right after my 9th birthday. Kids can handle it. This is much ado about nothing, from the liberal hand wringers that want to prohibit gun ownership and hunting, one kid at a time.
Yes, there are a few parents who will abuse it, and get a tag for a one year old so they can get another deer. That's the price of a free society. We can't solve every problem, and by trying to do so, we'll eliminate all of our freedoms.
Our laws in Montana have changed and they don't have to wait until 12 anymore as an apprentice. My youngest of 3 sons turns 12 this coming summer and they all started at 12. I wanted them to be able to carry their own rifle, make long hikes, help pack out the meat and have them really looking forward to going with anticipation. My youngest wanted to hunt this past fall and I could have bought him a license but elected to have him wait. We hunt mostly public land and aren't sitting in box blinds or benching the rifles on rests.
I don't knock other people for how they raise their kids, but I had reservations about letting them kill stuff and take an animals life younger than 12. Here's my middle son and my youngest with middle's first buck......and yes, even at 12 they're goofy little kids as you can see. I did let them help pack out my elk this year.....my 105 pound 14 year old packed an elk hind quarter 3/4 mile but he's a wrestler and in pretty good shape.
