By Gary Nski As I watch the last sunset of the last day of the last of Wisconsin’s deer gun seasons for 2019, I was remembering, joyfully, my future daughter-in-law Jess’s phone call three years ago. “Hey, Gary, I just got a call from my uncle. My grandfather left me all of his deer rifles, shotguns and a .22-caliber Winchester. Would you please teach me how to use them and how to hunt with them?” The words hadn’t even left her lips before I exclaimed, “Let’s do this!” and I thought this is a perfect match for what the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s +ONE^SM Movement initiative is all about. My father mentored me, and if I could mentor Jess and my daughter, Elizabeth, by introducing them to the sports I love, a life’s mission would be achieved. [caption id="attachment_3303" align="aligncenter" width="650"] My Grandpa’s Remington Model 740.[/caption] Before we could move forward, I advised Jess she first needed to get a Wisconsin Hunter’s Safety Certificate. While she was working on completing that, I started scouring topo maps of northwestern Wisconsin to zero in on deer habitat like my dad and I had done five decades ago. My late father, Henry, started teaching me at the age of five about what would become my life’s passions of hunting and fishing. On fall Sunday afternoons in the 1960s, we’d cruise the fire lanes of Wisconsin’s rural Clark county in the emerald-green, 1952 two-door Pontiac he’d purchased with savings from his combat duty pay in the Korean War. He also used those savings to purchase a Mossberg semi-auto .22-caliber rifle, a Winchester model 94 .32 Win. Spec. rifle and a Winchester Model 12 12-gauge shotgun. We’d explore those back country roads, fire lanes and forests, foraging for edible oak stump mushrooms, hunting for ruffed grouse, gray squirrels and fox squirrels and scouting for whitetail deer sign before the upcoming Wisconsin deer seasons while listening to veteran football announcer Ray Scott call the Vince Lombardi-era Green Bay Packer games on the old Pontiac’s radio. [caption id="attachment_3304" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Jess, the Grouse and my best dog, “The Dude.”[/caption] I cherish those memories with Dad, and I wanted to pay forward the gift of the outdoors he gave me to Jess and Elizabeth. Jess passed her required hunter’s safety course, and in early fall of 2017, I ventured north to the twin ports of Duluth Minnesota and Superior Wisconsin and the public hunting lands of Douglas County to meet up with her and Elizabeth. That trip had a dual purpose. I wanted to spend time inventorying the inherited guns, but I also needed to teach the girls safe firearms handling and how to sight in a rifle before we took to the woods to scout for whitetail sign. I was fortunate to grow up in a small Wisconsin farming community with an active hunting and angling tradition fostered by our local scout troops and a sportsmen’s club. Once a month, we’d gather at a local tavern for a wild game feed. On some nights, we’d have a reel-to-reel movie about hunting moose or grizzlies in Alaska or fishing for huge northern pike and lake trout in Canada. The club raised funds through a variety of raffles, bratwurst feeds and donations from organizations like the NRA and local and state government agencies to build a state-of-the-art shooting range. That rifle range is where many, including myself, learn how to safely and accurately shoot our guns at an early age. Jess and I started sighting in our rifles at the 25-yard line at the George Constance Sr. Memorial Range and completed our sight-in at the 100-yard lanes, satisfied with our accuracy. That’s when Elizabeth asked to shoot one of my rifles. I was surprised. When Elizabeth was growing up on our farm, she’d embraced the outdoors at a very early age, chasing frogs, riding and showing our horses, fishing and occasionally hanging out in a deer blind with me and now and then field-dressing a deer. But she’d never asked to shoot or actually hunt, and I’d never pushed either on her. But it turns out that Elizabeth, now 28, had learned how to shoot with friends. [caption id="attachment_3305" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Our Campfire Buck Camp.[/caption] I asked her which of my two .30-06s she wanted to try. She chose the Browning A-bolt. We loaded her choice and I stood back with the spotting scope to watch the distant target. I had to rub my eyes after she squeezed off her first round: At 100 yards, she’d hit the one-inch bull’s-eye. And there was more, for her next three shots produced a three-inch group. She ejected the last round, laid the A-Bolt down, chamber open, on the bench and looked up at me with a Cheshire cat smile. “Dad, it’s all about the breathing,” to which I replied, “Okay, you two Annie Oakleys, there’s a bit of a different breathing pattern shooting at paper target verses shooting at one with hair. Let’s see what happens when deer season opens in a couple weeks.” *** Wisconsin’s deer hunting traditions, management and future are currently at a major crossroads, just as they are in many areas of the country. In 2019, Wisconsin deer hunting license purchases were down over 15,000. Deer in 50 of our 72 counties have tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), that after a nearly 20-year attempt to control the disease. There’s even bickering amongst us about the firearms we choose to hunt deer with. All of these things, and a lack of seasoned hunters ushering in a new generation to our traditions, threaten the future of hunting. Still, I remain optimistic because of the time I’ve spent with Jess and Elizabeth over the past three hunting seasons. Together we’ve put venison in the freezer each year, including the first season after I taught them to sight in their rifles and took them scouting. Best of all, I’ve learned as much mentoring them as they hopefully have learned from me. [caption id="attachment_3301" align="aligncenter" width="650"] One of our venison dinner.[/caption] The importance of safe gun handling both in and out of the field. The skill of not just hiking but slowing way down to track, hunt and, if lucky, harvest. That your heart rate will indeed greatly differ between a paper target versus one with hair or feathers; Jess learned that after she failed to take her safety off when a deer was standing just 30 yards away. The importance of taking care of your game once killed with proper field-dressing in the woods and processing the meat once back at camp. And, finally, taking these lessons of the guns and of the hunt and becoming mentors themselves. That’s how NSSF’s +ONE Movement is intended to work. That’s how we keep hunting alive.

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By Michael Pendley State departments of natural resources and fish and game agencies are worried. Their chief function is to manage and protect their state’s wildlife populations. To do that, most rely at least partly on income from license sales and allocated federal tax dollars derived directly from the sale of hunting and fishing gear. The problem: The people they regularly interact with are already enjoying some aspect of the outdoors. To truly expand hunter numbers, these agencies must reach out to the potential hunters.

Wisconsin Turns to Adults for New Hunters

Wisconsin is one of those states actively seeking new hunters. Since 1990, it has lost over 100,000 licensed deer hunters, one-seventh of its deer-hunting population. Emily Lehl is the Wisconsin DNR’s R3 Coordinator. R3 stands for “recruitment, retain, and reactivate” and is a national initiative followed by many state agencies. “In 1996, our department implemented the ‘Learn to Hunt Program.’ Back then, our first inclination was to target young people for introduction to hunting. We set up ‘Learn to Hunt’ as a way to get kids from non-hunting families involved in hunting. We were able to get special seasons and relaxed limits implemented,” said Lehl. After several years of “Learn to Hunt,” the DNR discovered a few things. One, most of the kids involved in the program were from hunting families—not really the target audience the agency needed to attract new hunters. Second, the participating kids who were from non-hunting families had no support network to continue hunting. With that knowledge, starting in 2011, Wisconsin DNR officials shifted its R3 efforts from kids to young adults. “We noticed an increase in interest from young adults who were looking at hunting as a means to procure organic protein for themselves and their families,” said Lehl. Since most of these young adults had neither hunting experience nor a network of hunters to turn to for advice, the department implemented a series of “Hunt for Food” classes designed to provide information, mentorship and hands-on experience the new hunters would need to continue participating in this American pastime. The classes meet once a week for four weeks. The first class is held in a classroom setting where participants get to know one another and get a basic overview of hunting methods, general safety and equipment needs. The second week is spent in the field covering actual hunting situations and methods. Week three moves to the shooting range to introduce the new hunters to either firearms or crossbows. All of this training culminates in the actual hunt weekend. Participants are paired with volunteer mentors and then put their training to use. After the hunt, everyone reconvenes for a hands-on butchering class to process game from any successful hunts, and the final part of the class has participants and their families attending a wild-game dinner. Not only does the meal introduce properly prepared wild game, it gives the attendees a chance to socialize and form bonds that should help form a lasting support group for future hunts. The program has been so successful that the Wisconsin DNR is now encouraging hunting and conservation clubs across the state to adopt the framework and hold classes of their own. “We traditionally see these clubs focusing on youth, but with the success we are seeing from the ‘Hunt for Food’-style programs, we are encouraging these clubs to shift that focus to young adults,” said Lehl.

Kansas Takes a Multi-Pronged Approach

Another agency seeking to stem the decrease in their state’s hunter numbers is the Kansas Department of Wildlife Parks and Tourism (KDWPT). From 2011 to 2016, hunter numbers in the state dropped 16 percent. Tanna Fanshier, R3 Coordinator for the Department, is working to reverse that trend. One of five states awarded a monetary grant from the Association of State Fish and Wildlife Agencies for programs to expand hunter numbers, the KDWPT is attacking the problem on multiple fronts. In addition to re-engaging hunters who have stopped participating in the tradition, Fanshier says the KDWPT is reaching out to non-traditional hunting audiences, including women, college students and Millennials. “Our Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) classes are proving to be extremely popular,” said Fanshier. The classes are held at multiple locations throughout the year with experienced volunteers covering a variety of topics, including basic hunting, species-specific hunting, camping, firearm or archery gear training, bird and wildlife ID and fishing, in hands-on training. “One of the things I’m really excited about is that we have recently scheduled our first BOW class with an all-female instructor group,” Tanna said. “We think having women as instructors for the class will remove some of the apprehension participants might have when signing up for the class.” Like the Wisconsin DNR, the KDWPT is also seeing great return on investment from programs centered on young adults and their desire to learn to hunt as a means of procuring organic protein. “We have seen great success in tapping into the locavore movement among young, sometimes urban populations. We are using both fish and game dishes as a way to introduce a non-traditional segment of the population to hunting and fishing,” said Fanshier. Unfortunately, one of the biggest hurdles for new hunters is finding a spot to hunt. With approximately 98 percent of the land in Kansas being privately owned, this is particularly true for new hunters in the state. To combat this issue, KDWPT began a Walk-In Hunting Access (WIHA) pilot program in 1995. The program paid private landowners to open their land to walk-in hunters. By 2004, WIHA had grown to over a million acres; during the 2018-’19 season, WIHA provided over 1.2 million acres of ground to hunters pursuing a wide variety of game species. To ease liability concerns, Kansas state law has provided landowners who lease their land to the state for recreational purposes immunity from damages or injuries that result from ordinary negligence.

Kentucky Gets Creative with Firearms Seasons and Mentored Hunts

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife (KDFWR) is also on a constant search for ways to stop falling hunter numbers. Brent McCarty, R3 Manager for the department, says the state of Kentucky has long been at the forefront of new-hunter recruitment. “Our department has a large R3 staff for agency size, an indication of just how important it is to us,” says McCarty. “We were the first to introduce the ‘Field to Fork’ program that has been adopted by so many other agencies and organizations. And we are still the most active with more than 40 ‘Field to Fork’ programs last year, alone.” Brent said. “One of the biggest impediments to new hunters in the state is access to a place to hunt. We have a lot of experienced hunters who would like to mentor new hunters, and landowners who offer their farms to host hunts. Trouble is, the most effective tool for new hunters is a firearm, and both the mentors and the landowners tend to be either hunting themselves or hosting friends and family hunting their property during the relatively short firearms season. To combat this, we’ve recently gotten legislation passed that allows us to host firearm mentor hunts on private land outside the regular season. This gives us the opportunity to pair up experienced mentors with new hunters in the NSSF +ONE^SM Movement-style on farms that don’t have other active hunters on them at the time,” said McCarty. KDFWR is also in the process of switching the required Hunter Safety Certification from an either partial or complete in-person class to a completely online course. “Not only is this going to make it easier for new hunters, it will free up the four regional hunter ed coordinators and nearly 400 volunteers we have across the state to move away from hunter ed and more toward R3 initiatives,” said McCarty. While efforts like these from various state game agencies might not entirely reverse the decline in hunter numbers, they can turn the tide. Introducing a new, non-traditional demographic to hunting is helping to spread the word to a much wider audience, good news for the long-range well-being of the tradition we love. Curious about what your state’s natural resources agency has to offer you, from public hunting lands to game seasons and apprentice hunting license programs? NSSF’s Where to Hunt is your one-stop resource for state-by-state information, and it’s just one of the resources for both new and experienced hunters at LetsGoHunting.org. Give it a visit and see all it has to offer—and then head to the field for a great day of hunting.   You may also be interested in: https://www.letsgohunting.org/articles/fish-wildlife-agencies-use-mentored-dove-hunts-to-introduce-people-to-hunting/

By Mark Demko Seventeen-year-old Elisbeth Tejada-Moya walks into the classroom, shaking the water off her coat. She’s just taken a 15-minute bus ride from her school, followed by a 15-minute walk in the rain, to get to an afterschool program where she learns about foxes, firearms safety and forestry, all in the same afternoon. While many kids might opt to skip a voluntary program like this on a day when the weather is so bad, one after another the students file into the room eager to learn their next lesson. The reason? They’re part of Camp Compass Academy, one of the most innovative outdoor mentoring programs in the nation. “When I come here, I feel safe. It’s like home,” Tejada-Moya says. “I started coming to this program last year, and as soon as I did, everybody was so fun and so nice. For people to do that when you come in, you feel loved. So, I said, ‘Why not continue coming and learn?’”

A Challenging Start

Growing up in a housing project in Allentown, the third-largest city in Pennsylvania, John Annoni needed an escape from troubles at home and in the projects. He found it in an adjacent woodlot, where he would marvel at the birds and squirrels while dreaming of far-off destinations he’d read about in magazines like Boys’ Life. “I allowed Mother Nature—the squirrels, the starlings and the rat—to consume me by me chasing them,” Annoni says. “What I found was that when I was doing that, there was an absence of worry.  Mother Nature, her critters and that pursuit saved me. “One day I saw a ringnecked pheasant in a dump. It was the most beautiful bird I’d ever seen. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I went back weekend after weekend after weekend to see if I could find it again. That’s where the passion first came from.” From those humble beginnings, Annoni developed a rich fascination with the outdoors, learning to fish and hunt and ultimately deciding to pay it all back while serving as a teacher in the Allentown School District. He started Camp Compass in 1994. But rather than setting up shop at a local rod-and-gun club, he opted to stay in inner city Allentown and make a difference in the lives of the students who might need it most. “I was sitting in the classroom, working with the kids, the same kids I’m working with now, thinking that the books aren’t cutting it,” he says. “I was coaching basketball, and I just really wanted to do something I thought could change lives. “In the city, there are enough [afterschool] programs, but there was nothing here that was based on what helped me as a kid. I looked around and started working with kids, using an outdoor curriculum.” Today, Camp Compass is widely recognized as one of the most unique outdoors education models in the country. The nonprofit organization is geared towards introducing inner-city youth to hunting and the shooting sports. While Annoni is reluctant to put a figure on how many individuals he’s impacted, he says thousands of students have been exposed to the outdoors via Camp Compass, while well over 200 have gone through every level of the program.

Growing Kids Through the Outdoors

Through Camp Compass Academy, students are introduced to firearms safety, hunting and shooting over an extended period of time, something that’s especially important since most come from families that have little to no exposure to the outdoors pursuits. Visit the classroom and you’ll see individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds, both male and female, soaking up everything Annoni and the other academy instructors have to share. [caption id="attachment_3247" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Students at Camp Compass Academy spend two years learning in the classroom as they earn the opportunity to go afield.[/caption] The curriculum is broken into five levels called “The 5Es”—Exposure, Exploration, Extension, Effective Application and Example Mentoring—and students work their way through the stages over a period of years. Annoni says the most important level is Extension, where the kids participate in the academy weekly. “Growing kids into [hunters] in a place that’s nontraditional (like downtown Allentown) is not only high-risk, it’s high reward,” he says. “It has to be very strategic, and that’s what we’ve built here. We are as diverse as it comes and that is the beauty of us.” [caption id="attachment_3249" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Image Courtesy of Amanda Snyder.[/caption] When students enter Camp Compass, they must first prove their dedication to learning and their classmates before they head afield. In fact, an individual has to complete two years before he’s even able to go on a hunt. The reason: Annoni’s goal is not to just take them hunting, but to help make them hunters. That’s why the most dedicated students end up heading afield on multiple occasions, sometimes traveling to destinations as far away as North Carolina, Texas and North Dakota to pursue big and small game. Petersen’s Bowhunting Editor Christian Berg says Annoni has been successful with his students because he’s authentic. “He came out of the Allentown projects and faced many of the same struggles as today’s teens,” says Berg, who’s known Annoni for two decades. “The outdoors was instrumental in shaping his life and helping him achieve personal success. Now, as an educator and passionate outdoorsman, he is pouring his life back into the lives of others. “There are many, many great things about the Camp Compass program, but, at its essence, I believe one of the big reasons it succeeds is because John sees himself in his students and his students see themselves in him.” Talk to the students and it’s easy to see the passion they have for the program and their mentor. Sixteen-year-old Hector Buxo, who comes from a family that doesn’t hunt, says his parents were surprised when he told them he wanted to join Camp Compass. Now, five years in, he has pursued whitetail deer, Canada goose, pheasant, turkey and more. “I liked how different this was from the other programs there were,” Buxo says. “It was something totally new. I really liked how we all work together, and we all talk together.” Shane Reznick, 14, who has been in Camp Compass for two years, agrees the comradery between students is what makes the program work. “It’s a community of people as well as hunters,” he says. “We learn a lot about the environment, protecting the environment and making sure you respect the animals.”

Beyond the Classroom

As a result of Camp Compass and his work introducing others to the outdoors, Annoni has been featured on outdoor television shows and national news like CNN and NBC Nightly News. In 2008, Outdoor Life named him one of the 25 most influential people in hunting and fishing, and two years ago he was one of the first non-faculty members selected as a co-principal investigator for a Cornell Lab of Ornithology National Science Foundation study. Not surprisingly, he receives high praise from others in the industry. “John has quietly gone about his mission of reaching inner-city youth for decades,” says Mossy Oak’s Ronnie “Cuz” Strickland. “He does it with little money, little support from the hunting industry, little exposure—but big passion. He reaches kids we cannot because he was one of them. His story is amazing, and he makes me humble.” After a quarter-century leading Camp Compass, Annoni is as committed as ever to his students, but he is also looking for other ways he can help grow hunting and shooting sports. As a person of color, one area he feels he can lend his expertise is in broadening diversity and inclusion efforts. He also wants to share the Camp Compass philosophy with others from coast to coast, as well as start teaching adults who want to learn about mentoring in the hunting and the shooting sports. While acknowledging it would be hard to start other Camp Compass-type programs due to the time required, he says he’s proud of the work he, his assistants and Camp Compass supporters have done over the past quarter-century. “I did not think I would be doing this program this many years later because of the stamina that it takes,” he says. “I knew that somewhere along the journey, whether it was five or eight years in, that we were going to impact kids and families who would not have been impacted otherwise. “Is it practical to say Camp Compass will be celebrating a 50-year anniversary? No, that’s not practical. But, while I’m still breathing and able to help, the Camp Compass philosophy can be shared across the country and what people do with it is their choice.”

***

John Anonni and Camp Compass clearly demonstrate that mentoring is key to growing hunting and the shooting sports. NSSF’s +ONE^SM Movement, which encourages all active hunters and target shooters to extend an invitation to someone new and show them how safe and enjoyable these pastimes are, works to achieve the same goal, but on a nationwide basis. Annoni says the National Shooting Sports Foundation is a keystone when it comes to recruiting and retention in the hunting and shooting sports. “Its +ONE Movement is a critical initiative. It is really needed and it is able to move the needle with the long arms it has. NSSF is positioned like no one else to impact the future of hunting. “While my focus has been primarily youth, lately adults have been reaching out to me about hunting,” Anonni added. “The +ONE Movement has the ability to be a spectrum of support for people of all ages.” For more information and to learn how you can help introduce someone to hunting and the shooting sports, visit LetsGoHunting.org and LetsGoShooting.org. You may also be interested in: https://www.letsgohunting.org/articles/the-ultimate-hunting-plus-one-goal-building-lifelong-hunters/