Hunters Education

In Arizona in order to hunt big game under the age of 14 you have to complete a Hunters Education Course.  The course focuses on safe gun handling and ethical shooting.  The course itself can be completed online or in person.  The hunter education course is important to Jake and he spent a lot of time studying the course, gun safety and hunting.  Jake completed the online course earlier in the year and today was his field day.

The days started out early in the morning with Jake making sure he had his equipment ready and his mom needed to get a picture of him.

Once there Jake filled out paperwork and we waited for the class to start.  The class started at about 7:00AM and the instructors went over general gun handling safety, range safety and basic hunting safety.  Once that was done the participants got to go to the range and fire from the kneeling, sitting and prone positions.  At the range the instructors fired various firearms at items to show the damage that firearms can and will do if they are used irresponsibly.  Then the participants were able to do the live fire.

Jake shooting in the kneeling position:

 Sitting position, Jake started well then let his feet slip out to far for good accuracy.  We talked about the position and doing it the same 100% of the time.

Prone position:

Once the live fire was complete the class split into two groups.  The first group went on a simulated hunt/blood trail search.  The second group cleaned half of the rifles shot during the day.  Jake was on the simulated hunt.  This presented the participants with Shoot/No Shoot situations and they identified hazards or other things that might be encountered on a hunt.

Jake identifying the make and caliber of a shotgun.

Jake talking to a 'land owner' on the simulated hunt.

Once the simulated hunt was complete for this group they went in and cleaned their share of the guns.

Jake assembling the cleaning rod. 

Once the simulated hunts and the rifles were cleaned the class reassembled and completed a written test.  The test had 50 questions and covered safe gun handling, safety and ethical hunting.  Once the test was  completed and graded the participants received a certificate, their education card and a patch.

I'm proud of what my boy did today and I look forward to hunting with him in the future.  In fact we're going to be putting in for deer tags in the next few days....