Thursday, November 05, 2009
Deer day for kids a smashing success
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
The fan letters keep coming.
“My daughter, who is 9, spent the afternoon with me in a pop-up blind which gave us a chance to spend some quality time together, and she got to see five does and a small buck. She never did pull the trigger, but I think she’s hooked on hunting and will be going again with me this season.”
That was from Joe Gilliland, in praise of Virginia’s first youth deer hunting day. The event was a smashing success. It allowed kids 15 and younger to hunt deer under the supervision of an adult on Sept. 26, prior to the opening of the regular deer hunting seasons.
Nearly 1,000 deer (926) were reported killed according to e-mail and Internet checks, and that leaves a bunch more yet to be counted that were registered at big game checking stations across the state. In short, the day far exceeded expectations, and there is no way to fathom how many kids it impacted because its success isn’t entirely measured by the number of deer killed.
As for the kill, it could have been twice what it was if the weather been decent. It rained like crazy across much of the state.
“I was expecting a couple of hundred [kills] given the weather,” said Matt Knox, deer project coordinator for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. “It may have been the worst deer hunting day in history. We got 2 ½ inches of rain at my house" in Bedford County.
Even so, “there wasn’t enough rain in Virginia to wash the smiles off the youngsters who participated,” said Bob Duncan, executive director of the DGIF.
Kids weren’t the only ones who had fun. “The adult guides had a ball; it was a great outing for everyone,” said Denny Quaiff, executive director of the Virginia Deer Hunters Association. Quaiff was involved in a kids' hunt in Amelia County. The association has sponsored numerous localized youth-only hunts since its founding in 1985.
If one person can be credited with launching youth deer day in Virginia it would be Dennis Campbell. His passion for recruiting youngsters into outdoor sports dates back 20 years when he helped launch the first JAKES event in the country. JAKES is the youth program of the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Campbell, who claims to be retired, directs a new group called Hunters Helping Kids. During youth deer hunting day in Rockingham County, that organization introduced 12 kids to hunting who’d never deer hunted before. Ten of them scored with a deer.
“We hope we can instill in these youngsters a passion and desire for what we hold dear,” Campbell told board members of the DGIF, who praised the youth day during an October meeting in Richmond.
Sherry Crumley was the DGIF board members who jumped on Campbell’s idea and got the process officially started. For Crumley, who lives in Botetourt County, there was a big payback when her 12-year-old grandson, Corey Simpson, killed his first deer on the special day, a pie-bald buck with a nice rack.
The youngsters reported taking 373 antlered buck; 496 does and 57 button bucks.
Nine-year-old William Potter was in a blind with his grandfather, Freddie Boatwright, when two 4-point bucks came out of the woods. Boatwright told Potter to take a shot, but he held out, remembering the 10-pointer he’d seen during pre-season scouting. Within a few minutes, the 10-pointer, bearing a 25-inch outside spread, came striding out of the woods and Potter had a trophy for his wall.
While the great majority of the deer killed -- nearly 650 -- were taken with rifles, others fell to shotguns, muzzleloaders, bows, crossbows and even one was killed with a handgun.
The top 10 counties on youth day all were located in west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At first glance, you might wonder what happened in the east. No doubt the fact that dogs couldn’t be used on youth day had a bearing on the results in areas where hound hunting is a tradition.
Rockingham was the top county, with 46 kills reported electronically. No little influence there was the efforts of Hunters Helping Kids. Second was Grayson County, 39, followed by Smyth, 36; Bedford, 34; Wythe, 33; Dickenson, 32; Botetourt, 31; Shenandoah, 30; Augusta, 21 and Washington 21.
Getting youngsters involved in hunting is vital to the future of the sport. Without question, the youth day was a successful recruitment tool. But you don’t have to wait for a special day to take a kid hunting. Just do it.
