Course offers wingshooting instruction, field walks
PRATT -- In preparation for the 2009 spring turkey season, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks' (KDWP) Hunter Education section will offer a one-day hunter education class. On Saturday, March 21, students will gather at the Pratt Gun Club, North Highway 61 in Pratt, about one-half mile north of Pratt Community College. The course will begin promptly at 8 a.m. and run until 3 p.m., with time for a lunch break.

The course is designed to get kids -- and anyone who has not taken the course or needs a refresher -- out of the classroom and onto the range for hands-on training. About two hours of the day will be in the classroom.

All students must complete an internet course before they can attend the one-day training. Several days before the class, students log on the International Hunter Education Association's (IHEA) home study website, http://homestudy.ihea.com. Here, they are taken through several pages of information regarding hunter education, including introduction to hunter education, hunting safety, hunter responsibility, outdoor safety, wildlife conservation, and hunting opportunities. An online test accompanies each segment, and each test must be taken over until the student gets every question correct. After each section is completed correctly, the test is printed out. Students must bring their completed tests to the course on Saturday. The whole process takes a few hours, from the comfort of home.

The next step is to show up at the shooting range. First, students take a 15-minute, 25-question quiz to make sure that they have gone through the IHEA website material. To continue with the course, students must correctly answer 22 of 25 questions, an easy task for anyone who has gone through the online material. Following the short quiz, students will be given about an hour and one-half review on material from the website, hunter ethics, laws, game identification, and safe firearms handling.

The rest of the day, the students rotate through several hands-on outside learning stations, including identification and loading and unloading a variety of firearms, safe gun handling, a trail walk complete with staged hunting scenarios, and live shotgun fire on the range. Each student receives basic wingshooting instruction.

After the stations have been completed, students return to the clubhouse to take the final test and receive their certificates.

The class is limited to 30 students, so participants should register early. To register, phone 620-672-5911 and ask for Hunter Education.
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