dimanche 6 juillet 2014

Youth hunt

I am somewhat new here so I am not sure if this topic is allowed or already exist but I could not find it so I thought I would start a thread. I was curious what my fellow hunters think about the new rules we have had over the past few years regarding the youth and mentoring hunts?



I was able to take my 15 year old daughter hunting for the 1st time 2 years ago and she had not yet taken hunter safety and was not even sure if she would enjoy hunting so she wanted a way to try it out to see if she would like it before spending time and money on hunters safety only to find out she would not like hunting. The mentoring hunt gave us that chance even though it required myself to spend a lot of time teaching her the do's and don'ts of hunting and gun safety.



On the 2nd and final day of the hunt she was able to harvest a nice 7 point buck and it was a memory I will never forget and neither will she. She was screaming yes, yes, yes so loud my trail cam 50 yards away was able to pick up the audio because the deer had tripped the 240 second video mode just before she shot it.. I was more excited and filled with adrenaline than any hunt I have ever been on and I have harvested a lot of deer in my 25+ years of hunting. I was also able to capture the hunt from my camcorder so we have both angles of the shot.



Now that she was able to hunt on that program two years ago she has the bug and wants to hunt again. She could not hunt last year due to a scheduling issue but she wants to this year. This year she cant use the mentor tag because she will be 17 in Oct and I think if you turn 17 anytime during the year even if it is after the youth hunt that you must get certified and buy a regular licence? Anyway she has the bug and is getting ready for hunter safety so she can hunt. MI now had one more hunter to add back to our decreasing ranks.



I read MI has the lowest hunter recruitment in the nation and for every 100 hunters we loose we only gain 26 back into the ranks. The national average is 69% so MI being at 26% is pretty worrisome and we need to work together to change that and get others interested somehow.



What are your opinions on all this?



I also read through a link on another site which was the DNR page that MI was considering allowing the youth to use bait this year and they were going to let them start using bait weeks prior to the season starting so as to increase their odds. Has anyone heard if that proposal passed? It was also on the same proposal that Bow hunters would be allowed to bait weeks prior to bow season instead of only being allowed to bait starting opening day but I have not heard if either baiting regulation proposal passed or not. Does anyone know the status on those measures and if they passed for this upcoming hunting seasons?



Thanks ahead of time for your input and sorry for a long post




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