Child’s Play

Published 7:25 pm Saturday, October 15, 2016

Take a kid hunting. It is an easy thing to say, but sometimes a hard thing to do. Their schedule, your schedule, the pre-rut, rut – there a thousand excuses why it does not happen.

And that is a shame.

Texas’ youth-only duck seasons are Oct. 22-23 in the High Plains Mallard Management Unit and continue the following weekend in the South Zone and Nov. 5-6 in the North Zone. The youth deer season falls Oct. 29-30, the weekend before the regular season opener.

There are not any statistics on how many young hunters get a chance to go on any of the weekends, but it probably would be easy to say not enough.

I have always been a big proponent of not starting young hunters with either deer or ducks. I believedove hunts are the best introduction to hunting. It doesn’t require a kid to just sit silently for hours and they are going to get to shoot. That is what is important for beginners, the number of time a gun goes bang.

Squirrel hunting probably is the best way to teach hunting skills, but that is a lost sport.

To be honest, however, it does not matter what type of hunting it is, or when, as long as you take them.

The youth seasons are ideal for a couple of reasons. The weather is normally going to be much nicer than it will be later in the regular season for either type of hunting. That is important since the investment is pretty steep for gear as warm as adults wear and hard to substantiate for a growing child.

More importantly is that the youth-only seasons are just that. Adults are allowed to be on site to mentor, but the hunting is all about the kids. It is a great time to teach whether it is about techniques or conservation such as the importance of taking antlerless deer.

It does not have to end there. Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks or any weekend is another good time to take them.

There are a bunch of questions about youth and hunting, and for most of them there are no set answers.

For example, how old should a kid be before taking them hunting? That is actually a two-pronged question, how old should they be before taking them hunting and how old should they be before allowing them to hunt.

Unfortunately the answer is who knows? It is a parent’s call, but to be certain the age to take them hunting is a lot younger than the age they can hunt. At any point a youngster shows interest and can sit for any amount of time is a good indicator of when they can tag along.

Just carry enough stuff to keep them comfortable, entertained and quiet. Hearing protection is a must and a pillow isa good idea so they can take a nap and you can hunt longer.

A friend said when he was little his father gave him a stick to point out the deer blind to pretend shooting birds, pigs and whatever else came into range. As they get on the cusp of actually hunting, upgrading to a BB gun to plink cans or rocks during slow times not only serves as entertainment, but also as a learning tool.

As for how old does a youth need to be to hunt, that is up to the youth and again the parents. Texas has no age minimum. There are some places where the bottom line is 12 years old.

The main questions that have to be answered are is the youth old enough to handle the gun and ammunition required to down a deer or duck, are they mature enough to safely handle it and follow instructions to the T and most importantly are they mentally prepared to kill something. The first two, if parents are honest to themselves, are not hard to answer. And they better be honest because the child’s safety, their safety and everyone else’s around depends on it.

To a certain degree the answer to are they are capable of handling a gun and instruction could and should be answered during practice at the range long before the hunt. The fact a youth can handle a .22, although it is great for practicing, does not mean they can handle something like a .7-08 caliber.

The third question is harder to answer, and you may not know the answer until after they pull the trigger the first time on an animal.

While it is impossible to say anything nice about wild pigs, they do provide an alternative target for young hunters to practice with before stepping up to deer or other species. The same can be said for hunting dove before hunting ducks.

Even though there are challenges in setting up a youth hunt there is one big reason for doing it. As excited as they may get over their first kill, it will not equal that of the parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle that takes them.

Have a comment or opinion on this story? Contact outdoor writer Steve Knight by email at outdoor@tylerpaper.com. Follow Steve Knight on Facebook at Texas AllOut doors and on Twitter @txalloutdoors.