Outdoors John
J. Wise 11/19/1999
Pheasant
hunters forever
It's still too early to tell if the special hunt had its desired effect, recruiting a new generation of upland game hunters in the Beehive State. But with the success he enjoyed under sunny skies Saturday there's little doubt the 15-year-old enjoyed the hunt and will probably try it again. Messmer is the son of Terry and Linda Messmer, but was guided on Saturday's hunt by Ben West, a graduate student in USU's College of Natural Resources.
Saturday's hunt was the third in as many years the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has hosted in as many years and plans are to keep the opportunities open, according to division upland game biologist George Wilson. There's been five such hunts at other state-managed areas in those three years and Wilson wants to see similar hunting opportunities take place in all of Utah's 29 counties.
He suggested one be held in Cache County at the Bud Phelps Wildlife Management Area west of Logan, and that is possibly be based out of the Cache Valley Hunter Education Center. That all sounds workable Wilson said, but another key ingredient has to be added to the mix, that of volunteers.
In addition to state wildlife officials, Saturday's youth pheasant hunt also included volunteers from a local Pheasants Forever chapter. Those volunteers stocked the birds and offered help to youngsters in field dressing birds. Volunteers also lent their skill, and there trained bird dogs to some young hunters who lacked both.
Wilson said there's probably plenty of that kind of help available in Cache County, but the big question is, would those adult pheasant hunters be willing to take a day off from hunting to help out a bunch of young guns?
Although most of the youngsters taking part in Saturday's hunt were from areas outside Cache Valley, College Ward resident Ernest Dean brought his two grandsons, Shawn Shenk, 14, and David Bland, 12, out for a day of hunting.
Shawn worked up a pretty big smile after hunting for a few hours. He and his cousin David took a bird apiece. And he liked the conditions compared to past hunts he's been on.
"In the past it was always cold, muddy and wet," he said.
There is little the state can do about the weather, but it can do something else for youngsters who want to get a taste of pheasant and pheasant hunting. In addition to offering safe gun handling and shooting advice, the youth hunt also offers reduced competition for birds. Fathers and other guardians were not allowed to carry a shotgun or get any trigger time. That allowed, Wilson said, for fathers and others to focus there attention on the kids, not on their own itchy trigger fingers.
This year's hunt was much like the past two. Youngsters had to have a small game hunting license and certify they had completed Utah Hunter Education class like those offered at the Cache Valley Hunter Education Center each month. A new requirement this year was to have each youngster write an essay beginning with: "Why I want to continue the upland game hunting tradition."
Wilson said he and other division officials plan to pick some of the best essays and publish them in a future edition of the division's magazine "Utah Wildlife."
There could have been a few wild pheasants taken during the hunt, but the majority came from a private pheasant hunting area in Box Elder County.