Busting clays is a great way to develop new hunters. Here’s your lesson plan
LAST SEPTEMBER, I had the pleasure of watching my friend Rachel, a localfood advocate and former vegan, fold the first dove she’d ever shot at. I was doing my part to bring a new hunter into the field, as we all should. License sales declined by 2 million from 2011 to 2016 as more baby boomers hung up their guns. We’ll dwindle away unless we recruit new participants. The good news is that wild meat is local, healthy, and a thing right now. Plenty of adults like Rachel will kill to try it. Find one, a friend or coworker, and help them become a hunter.
Hunting lessons begin with shooting lessons, and a skeet field or sporting clays course makes a perfect classroom. The right portable trap can work too (see sidebar). Keep lessons light all around: light in tone, light on recoil (gas guns and lowrecoil loads), and light in workload. Fifty shots per session are enough. Here are the four key lessons you need to teach and how to teach them.
LESSON NO. 1: MOUNT UP
This story is from the June - July 2018 edition of Field & Stream.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June - July 2018 edition of Field & Stream.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
LIVING THE DREAM
After the author arrives in Maine’s fabled North Woods with a moose tag in his pocket, an adventure he’s been wanting to take his entire hunting life, reality sets in, and he learns a valuable lesson: Be careful what you wish for
Get the Drift
How to make an accurate windage call under pressure
First Sit
An icebreaker outing in a pristine spot produces the rut hunt of a lifetime
A Local Haunt
The author finds a sense of place in an overlooked creek, close to home
A Hop and a Pump
Jump-shooting rabbits with classic upland guns is about as good a time as you can have in the outdoors
Welcome TO camp
Is there any place better than a good hunting camp? It has everything: great food, games and pranks, and of course, hunting. Shoot, we don’t even mind going to camp for grueling work days in the summer. Here, our contributors share their favorite stories, traditions, and lessons learned from camps they’ve shared. So come on in and join us. The door’s open.
THE DEERSLAYERS
Before you even claim a bunk, you need to eyeball the hardware your buddies have brought. In the process, you’ll see that the guns at deer camp are changing. What was walnut and blued steel may now be Kevlar and carbon fiber. The 10 rifles featured here aren’t your father’s deer guns. They’re today’s new camp classics
THE JOURNEY TO PIKE'S PEAK
Last summer, the author and three friends ventured off the grid to a remote fish camp in Canada. They hoped for great fishing, but what they experienced was truly something else
Stage Directions
When early-season whitetails vanish from open feeding areas, follow this woods-edge ambush plan
Rookie Season
A pup’s first year, from preseason training to fall’s big show
