Reflections of Hunter Ed IST

[ghosthunter]

This past weekend Hunter Education Instructors from across the state attended In Service Training in Wenatchee.
Two days of seminars on various topics. I would like to here other instructors reveiw of the 2015 IST.

Here are my thoughts.

Headed over Friday around noon arrived around 3 pm. I did not attend the activities at the local shooting range due to the late hour I arrived. My son and I had dinner at the Hotel, signed in at IST and attend the social hour for a short time. Than hit the rack early.

Saturday started with Breakfast at 6 am and seminars and meetings begin at 8 am.

For the folks that where there I liked Dave Whipples comments. And Nate Pamplin (Assistant Director) is a ok speaker but I always seem to disagree with one or two of his comments each IST.

This year it was with the statement that a key priority of the department is Hunter Retendtion and Recuritment.
To retain hunters and recruit hunters you must have hunting access. Yet the department gives up WDFW lands that hunters have used for years for fisheries in the Skagit Valley. Dosen't make sense to me.

Pamplin said "The Department had a NO NET LOSS policey" Not true as far as Skagit Hunters can see because we already lost upland hunting grounds years ago at the Skagit Wildlife Area with a promise it would be repalced and that still has not happen.

Now more land has been given up by breeching dikes at the SWA. (This is coming up soon)

Pamplin's comment when I asked was, they have to give up public land before taking private. OK, but why take it from one of the areas that has the most hunting use?

I was encouraged by his comments on Grizzly Bears, saying the Department did not support the transplanting of bears from other states to the Cascades.

Next up was Joe Shorin from the Washington State Attorney Generals office.

Mr. Shorin addressed 594 and its effects on Hunter Education which at this time seem to be little to no effect.
He took the time to answer questions and I liked that he said he just did not know in some cases. Saying that the courts would have to rule on some items.
He seemed confindent that the legal actions taken to hinder 594 would not prevail in court. Only time will tell.

I really thought that instructors benefited from Mr. Shorin statements and that we could have spent a whole day talking to him and been better off for it. I wish they would have given alot more time for this topic and other legal topics that instructors run into.

Next was Captain Richard Mann from enforcement. Regarding recent Hunting Regulation changes and Common Violations.
As best I could tell he was the only officer I saw at IST.

Again I enjoyed Captain Mann's comments. And he seemed to take a common sense approach to enforcement. Instructors would have benefited a lot more if he was alloted more time than what he had to address questions.

Next up was Mike Cope -Game Division Manager. He talked about the 3 year package.
He spoke well but he spent alot of time giving information that really was of little value to us. Because I think most instructors already knew the information.
Never the less I think instructors benefit from interactions with WDFW Managers in general.

Later in the day we had to endure 2 hours with Dave Oakes, Dave Oakes Seminars.
WASTE OF TIME

His topic was How to be a Great Hunter Education Instructor.
I came out of the two hours asking What was the message?

I got nothing out of those two hours that I could take back to a Hunter Ed class. And as of yet I have not talked to anyone else who got anything from it either. Waste of money.

Here is where I will get in trouble.

Meet IAC and MHAG Members.  This could have been a off to the side table some where. Not a regular agenda item.
and
Youth Outdoors Unlimited wheelchair demo.
 Again this should have not been agenda item. There could have been a booth off to the side and the instructors who wanted to check it out could have.
Now I know someone is going to toast me for that because it is a excellent program. But I just dont think that watching a half hour slide show of challenged kids going on hunts benefited the guy teaching Hunter Ed.
A worthy cause for sure. But most just do not have the time to get involved in it.

Sunday

Well we ate breakfast looked at the days agenda and said Nah.

Friends of the NRA, How Can we help you.  Again that could have been a table off some where not a agenda item.

GO Hunt Tool-- Same thing they could have had a booth. Not agenda worthy.

Meat Preperation from field to Freezer.  ---Most instructors have been hunting all their life. Not a lot of value there.

How to Set Up a Pellet Gun Range. Fine for instructors who need that info. But again not agenda worthy.

Private Land Access- I talked to a instructor who went to that. He said he learned to read the signs on the fence and call the land owner.

Volunteer In and Outs...Maybe but not enticing enough to stay for just that.

America's Hunting Heritage & Importance of Hunter Education- Really, for 400 or 500 people who have already donated 1000s of hours to teach hunter ed. I think we know the importance.

So thats it. I left Sunday am after breakfast wishing there were more pertinent topics on Sunday but just could not see the value of staying for the Sunday offerings.  Instead elected to get a start on the 3 hour drive home.

I want to say that i know a lot of work and expense goes into having a State wide IST. And I always attend and think it is a good idea for instructors from across the state come together from time to time.
But because this is a expense items presented their should be topics that effect the instructor in the Hunter Ed Class.

I want to be a better instructor ,I want to learn new ideas, I want to interact with staff because all those things make a better Hunter Ed program.
I think the Department has everything they need in house for instructors to be better. They just need to bring it to IST instead of fancy speakers like Oaks who have never set foot in a Hunter Ed class.

More legal advice time.
More time on policies.
More time discussing real life Hunter Ed class problems as a group.

[iusmc2002]

I got quite a bit from the last portion, Hunting Heritage etc.  As I'm new to the HE instructor game, it was encouraging to see many of the stats he put up.  I had no idea how much money the hunting industry and hunters themselves, add to federal, state and local economies.  In excess of 40 BILLION dollars a year!  Also, he talked about some of the complaints that present and former hunters have against the sport.  His research and presentation was very well put together and well delivered.  If the horrible chairs in that room had been different, I believe I would have retained even more; my back was killing me. 

I went to the Volunteers Ins and Outs portion, and again, being new and not a chief instructor, I had no idea of some of the paperwork involved, and where specific paperwork should go.
The portion about the Land Access was informative for me mainly because I had no idea about the Reservation hunt system.  I didn't know it existed, but I found several areas right near me (there were very few available when I looked)

I did notice a younger gentleman wearing a "Ghost Camp" sweatshirt, walking next to an old guy in a funny hat.  Was that you? 

[ghosthunter]

I got quite a bit from the last portion, Hunting Heritage etc.  As I'm new to the HE instructor game, it was encouraging to see many of the stats he put up.  I had no idea how much money the hunting industry and hunters themselves, add to federal, state and local economies.  In excess of 40 BILLION dollars a year!  Also, he talked about some of the complaints that present and former hunters have against the sport.  His research and presentation was very well put together and well delivered.  If the horrible chairs in that room had been different, I believe I would have retained even more; my back was killing me. 

I went to the Volunteers Ins and Outs portion, and again, being new and not a chief instructor, I had no idea of some of the paperwork involved, and where specific paperwork should go.
The portion about the Land Access was informative for me mainly because I had no idea about the Reservation hunt system.  I didn't know it existed, but I found several areas right near me (there were very few available when I looked)

I did notice a younger gentleman wearing a "Ghost Camp" sweatshirt, walking next to an old guy in a funny hat.  Was that you? 

The Ghost Camp shirt was my son.
Not sure about the funny hat thing. I was wearing a instructors cap. Plain Jane. We did have older members of the teaching team around us so maybe one of them.

But very glad you got something from it you found useful.

[pianoman9701]

I was unable to attend. Thanks for the update.

[ICEMAN]

Nice write up ghosthunter.

I appreciate yours and others instructor's dedicating your free time to this cause. Thank you.

My agency just finished a statewide conference, and I was involved in the planning and success of the conference. It is hard getting all of the conference tracks and timeslots filled with presenters and topics that everyone appreciates the same.

Again, thanks for dedicating yourself to hunter education!

[Carl]

Thanks for the write-up, Ghosthunter. And, also thanks for your follow-up, iusmc2002.  The second day sounds like it was beneficial to newer instructors. Be sure to pass on your ideas on different tracks to the organizer.

I appreciate the update on such things as this. 

Carl

[Rainier10]

I also attend the IST this weekend.  It was my first one as this is my first full year of teaching coming up.

I got out of work later than I wanted but was still able to make the gun range by 430, I didn't do any shooting but watched others and shot the breeze with many people there.  As a new instructor I was not sure what to expect.  Everyone I talked to was really friendly and informative. I was shocked to see so many people I knew.  I ran in to instructors that I had seen when my kids took the class, instructors from the two teams that I volunteer for and instructors from the program that I received my final certification at.

Dinner at the club was great and people just kept showing up and eating.  I finally left the range at about 7pm and headed for the convention center for pre registration and social hour.  Again everyone there was pleasant and I ran into familiar faces and made some new contacts.  Headed to the room at 10pm and shot the breeze with my roommate about the upcoming day until 11pm.

That made for an early start at breakfast the next morning and then right into talks by Dave Whipple, who I enjoyed and Nate Pamplin.  What I really liked about Nate was he was very direct and acknowledged that forums like this one existed and he wanted to go on the record that WDFW did not relocate wolves and has no plans to.  He has no concern with wolf recovery needing any help from WDFW.  He even said that he wished our game animals were having the type of success in reproducing that wolves were.

I was happy to hear that the WDFW doesn't think now is the time for grizzly bear recover but understands that they need to be at the table for the discussion as it is a federal thing.

I feel for the duck hunters that have lost ground in the Skagit do to levies being breeched to enhance salmon habitat and understand the given the choice of taking away private land to enhance the salmon habitat or WDFW it makes more sense to do it on WDFW land.  On WDFW land it is loss of duck hunting but a gain for salmon.  On private land there would have been a higher cost and it would not be fair to the landowner to loose his livelihood.

The  594 discussion with the Attorney Generals office was very informative and I do believe they should have allotted more time for him to speak.  Although I believe with more time there would have been more"I am not ready to comment on that yet" statements.  I think he did a great job of commenting on what he could and gave instructors a good assurance that there were options to get through the class with all of the overlaps in coverage.  Between the gun range exception, instruction exception and the employee of the WDFW I think we are all covered for most situations.

Captain Mann from enforcement was great and I think his coverage of the most common real world violations was great to highlight.  I think the tagging of the animal properly and shooting from the roadway were great items to cover and he handled them well.

Mike Cope(replacement for Dave Ware) was nice to hear from.  He is new to the job but not to the department.  I felt that he has a good grasp of where we are at and the challenges in front of him.  He appeared to be ready to get to work and work with the commission.  I actually got to sit with him at lunch and discuss the baiting issue and other items put before the game commission.  Super nice guy and I really believe he has an unbiased approach and wants to do what is best for the majority.

Dave Oakes was a paid speaker that talked about types of people and what it took to be a good instructor and a good team. I think the most important thing I took away was when building a team you need to have all types of members. You can't have a team of alpha dogs or a team of followers.  You need a good mix of leaders, followers, listeners, compassionate members and hard nosed members.  Students are going to be a mixed group that learn in different ways and you need to have a good mix of teachers to relate to all the students in the class.

I have to agree with the youth outdoors unlimited, it could have been a booth in the lobby or done on Sunday as an optional class.  That time could have been used to give the other members of the WDFW or the AG more time on Saturday to talk.

Dinner on Saturday night was very interesting to see the demographic of the group as they received their awards for years of service as instructors.  5, 10,15, 20, 25, 30 and 40 year pins were given out.  That is a lot of years of volunteer service and I applaud those that have donated that much time.  Couple of things I noticed.  Out of the group, most were men, probably 90% or more. Most were over 50 and most were Caucasian.  That actually came up in the talk on Sunday and I will get to that later.

I know quite a few skipped out on Sunday but I stayed and am glad I did. Sunday was a good day where you could choose what speaker you wanted to sit in on after the field to freezer presentation that we all saw.  I think I am pretty fast at cleaning an animal and deboning.  The video they showed was very informative and I picked up a trick or too to improve my processing.  The speaker gave his opinion about meat care and I agreed with most of what he said and will be trying some of it out to see how it works.

After that class it was time to choose which topics you wanted to sit in on.  I choose the Go Hunt  and Private property access classes.  Both very informative and getting better.  One of our team members went to the Volunteer ins and outs and realized with the I594 change that getting volunteer paperwork filled out and recorded was essential to cover anyone that was volunteering as a WDFW employee for the day.  I don't know anyone that did the pellet range class but in light of I594 it seems like it would be a good option for those that don't have a gun range at their disposal.

The last topic was America's hunting heritage and I think this was one of the better talks.  It showed how much hunters help towards conservation and paying for it.  Great facts to give to new students and their parents to get the word out to non-hunters that hunting is a good thing for their pocket books.  Somebody has to pay for the wildlife viewing areas and to ensure there is wildlife to view.

The other thing was the makeup of hunters, recruiting new hunters and keeping hunters.  Back to the dinner the night before, most instructors were 50+ year old white men.  People do things others like them do.  You want women hunters you need women teachers showing them the way.  You want Asian, Hispanic, African American or mixed race hunters you need people of the same race showing them the way.  It got me to thinking about many of the new hunting shows highlighting kids hunting.  The sponsors have it figured out, want to get them hooked early, show kids on TV hunting.  I think it is great the instructors we have and the time they put in but I think we need to have a broader range of people, young to old and black to white.  In the end if it puts more people in the field enjoying our sport it is better for all of us.

Just my  as a new guy but I really enjoyed the IST to its fullest.

[ndcasla]

I was there also, and I have to agree with ghosthunter on most of his views. I liked Dave's presentation, I am not a big fan of Nat Pamplin's views on wolves. I was waiting for him to say the Dept. was ready to bring in the Griz's.
The AG, Mr. Shorin made a good presentation stating that the AGs Office doesn't know what to do with I594, and is waiting for the shoe to drop.
I didn't get a lot from Mr. Copes presentation, maybe I was doing the Stevie Wonder head bob.
Mr. Oaks, again, I think he gave the same speech the last time he was before us. I remember the compass thing
and the waving of the money in the air, and the stories about his wife.
On Sunday I went to the meat prep thing, learned how he did it, similar to what I have been doing for a long time, nothing new.
Also went to the pellet rifle thing with Chuck, just to get some ideas.
After looking at the rest of Sunday's agenda I went home early.
I don't mean this post to be a downer,I am glad that the new guys got some good stuff out of it,. And I will attend as many IST's as I can and I encourage every Instructor to do the same. They are good learning tools for us. I just wasn't impressed with this one.
At least I was able to stop at Three Forks in Cle Elum and get some powder I needed on the way over.
This was my third IST, I liked the one in 2008 best, 2012 had some good stuff too. this one not so much.

[timberfaller]

  Nice to see you "Newbies" questioning Olympia!

After 25+ years, numerous IST's and trudging through all the mis-ques of the powers that be,  this wasn't to bad of a IST.  2017 will be a interesting year,  I'll watch and see how many Instructors they loose THIS time around.

FYI,  WE used to have a Chapter on "Hunting Heritage" I still have a manual with it in, Chapter One!!   It got taken out the year PC took over plus they also changed the "Ten Commandment of Gun Safety" title,  way to Religious for them after that!    I still call them that in class,  You stand on principle not Olympia PC!

Let me introduce myself,  I was the one who LOST in the trap shoot off OH but it was fun!!

As for the Oaks Seminar, they do that when ever there is some non acceptable "changes" coming down the pike!!

For those who didn't get the speaking DOWN to by Nate when he was introduced to us as the "wolf man" YOU can thank you luck for that!!  at Yakima .

Take their "grizzly bear" stand with a grain of salt,  they acted the same way during the Hound/bait hunting fiasco!!  Remember, they are still a "bureaucracy" of the State. 

Hang it there,  LEARN the manual and teach with "passion" for hunting and the shooting sports  and YOU'LL become a great Instructor.   YOUR only concern is instructing the STUDENTS on the sport!   

It took the department years to get caught up to date on some thing pertaining to the shooting sports.  We struggled for years with bad pictures and drawing and chapters with NO updated material covering the NEW products to shooting.  ie,  different length shot shells, new first aid info, etc etc.

There has be great improvements as you can see in the latest manual.

It is a good time to meet other instructors,  I usually find a couple of new friends each time.

Hope to see you all next time!!

[safehunter]

  I tried to look at the big picture of all and combine all parts into pass or fail.
 Timber, wish I could have watched the shoot off at the club. I was too busy inside helping with food prep, when I saw the size of carne coming in thought it was time to put the knife to work. Seemed that everyone was good with the food. We were expecting way less people from the reservation numbers, but ended up getting food to everyone.
 I'm glad Nate did not speak much about the the wolves, way to hot of a subject. I remember a regional IST at Tacoma where an unnamed WDFW Bio answered this question. " why do we need wolves now, after not having them for 70 years". Answer "well their cool to listen to at night". My assumption was he was unprepared.
 Oakes is a great speaker, but a lot of old material for some of us. Even though some can't remember 3 years back .
 Thought attorney Shorin might, possible, maybe, I think, could have been thrown under the bus a bit. I don't know how he could speak honestly on 594 if his office is named in the legal battle coming up.
 Mann was good to listen to as well as being another fellow instructor with a lot of enforcement experience. I wouldn't mind seeing him in an Olympia job.
 It was nice to have Bill's opinion on taking care of meat, other then cool, clean and dry. He definitely knows how to keep a crowd awake.
 I did have mixed feelings on Youth Outdoors Unlimited to begin with, but then realized that they were volunteers as all of us are. For myself it was great to hear what they were all about and even spoke with them later about volunteering some time and places for the disabled youth's hunts.
 I was keeping track of times on all the speakers for Saturday. Dave started 25 minutes early with opening remarks, but still managed to keep all the speakers on track with their own time frames. This is a pretty remarkable task considering not only the questions after a speaker was done, but also the ones that kept being asked during the speaking.
 The rooms were better than Yakima, breakfast could have had healthier options with juice. Over all I would give it a high passing grade
 All of us may have differing opinions on subjects, which is a good thing. That's why we all do a better job when we are a team.
  My

[Rainier10]

   Thought attorney Shorin might, possible, maybe, I think, could have been thrown under the bus a bit.

That is some funny stuff right there.  He was in a bad spot.  I would have liked to see him have more time but I think in the situation he said all that he could and really couldn't do questions and answers without the "might, possibly, maybe" stuff.

Juice at breakfast was the other comment that I didn't make in my reply.

I am putting together a response to Steven Dazey's email asking for comments on the IST and what they should do the same or different at the next one.

[outdooraddict]

not to jack the thread, did any of you instructors draw an incentive permit.

[willapawapiti]

Not selected for hunter-ed incentives tags for me, did draw a multi-elk from our pool earlier though!  I attended the IST also, similar feelings to above, except I felt the Youth Outdoors Unlimited presentation was very worthy of presentation at the IST.  I felt Hunter Ed did a great job keeping things flowing, great venue, food etc.  As with most conferences, not all content will connect with you.  As my former pastor says "Chew it up, spit out the bones".  Wise words in my opinion.  I will definitely continue to attend the IST's, I learned plenty.