I am all for in person class and field day but what I would really love to see is legit funding go to FWP so they can hire paid positions for hunter education/safety, to run classes, seminars, safety training, etc., all year long and quit relying on volunteers. Everyone that complains about there being no classes needs to remember that classes only happen if there are volunteers to teach them. I feel like if the state could better fund hunters education/safety, where positions could be hired, the whole system could be improved overall with education/training opportunities offered all year long, without relying on volunteers.
Reason I am saying this, is I sat though in person hunter education with my 11 year old son back in October. It was a two day weekend course, 3.5 hours on a Friday evening and 7 hours on Saturday. I had no issue with the two volunteers and there was lots of hands on work on firearm safety, with the training firearms. What I could not believe was after the test on Saturday, my son who is 11, had the highest score at 99%. Half the class did not even pass, including a couple of adults. I could not believe it and it was eye opening. What it made me realize is that lots of folks don't give a crap and didn't study and possibly need more folks in their lives who do give a crap to kick them in the butt and get them to take it serious. If those folks just don't have the mentors in their lives to pass along knowledge, safety, ethics, etc, maybe if there were more opportunities out there for education, hopefully some of these folks who cant pass the test now would attend other learning opprtunites and get better educated, so when they are in the field, they are safe, responsible and operate with a high level of ethics. Ever since attending that class and seeing how many of the attendees could not pass the test, has me thinking long and hard about finding a way to carve out time in my life to figure out how to be a volunteer to teach.
