Crossbow hunting and hunter education

As I get older, time seems to pass faster than ever, and things seem to slip by with little notice. I meant to mention the public meeting with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Sport Fisheries, and Commercial Fisheries Division Cook Inlet managers scheduled for tomorrow, Monday, Nov. 27, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Fire Station 61 in Wasilla. This is the annual “end of season” meeting where Fish and Game explains what happened this past season with salmon fishing in Cook Inlet and why management of the respective fisheries occurred the way it did.

Another time sensitive item that managed to escape me was mentioning Thanksgiving. Here’s hoping you all had an enjoyable day relaxing, eating turkey, and watching football games if you wanted to. Many folks are boycotting the NFL games because of the players’ tendency to “take a knee” during the national anthem. All this attention has given the players exactly what they wanted — a soap box.

That is unfortunate!

Let’s talk Hunter Education (HE) for a while. If you hunt with a crossbow, after July 1, 2018, you will be required to have an Alaska crossbow HE certification card when you are hunting, like the current bowhunter HE requirements. This crossbow certification is a new requirement passed by the Board of Game last year.

Wait a minute, you’re thinking. There is no crossbow HE class available. How can I get certified? Good question.

The ADF&G HE folks, working with their online HE course provider, Kalkomey Enterprises, Inc., have developed an online crossbow HE course which will be available to the public beginning in early 2018. A student would need to register and take the course online, pass the written test, and sign up for a crossbow field day where some review of material and a proficiency shooting test will occur. Students who successfully complete both the online course and the field day class will be certified, issued a card, and can legally hunt with their crossbow after July 1. Students need to provide their own equipment for this course.

The ADF&G HE folks don’t necessarily anticipate a huge demand for this course yet. Crossbow hunting in Alaska can only be done during the general season for any big game animal. There are currently no special crossbow hunts or areas and you may not use a crossbow during a bow-and-arrow only hunt or area. Those conditions put a crossbow hunter in direct competition with rifle hunters. Alaska defines bow-and-arrow and crossbow equipment as two separate categories, which are not interchangeable.

However, crossbow hunting is very popular in the Lower 48 and some states require certification to buy a license. This course should fulfill any Outside certification requirements. Alaska does have a Methods and Means exemption form where an individual can be allowed to use a crossbow during a bow-and-arrow hunt, but the applicant must show a disability verified by a medical doctor to be granted such an exemption. After July 1, the methods and means exemption folks will also be required to have a crossbow HE certification card to continue hunting.

The fish and game HE folks solicited current instructors who were interested in being certified as crossbow instructors to begin building a core of instructors. Combined student certification and instructor training classes were held around the state and currently 50 instructors, statewide, are certified crossbow HE instructors.

I attended the class held for Valley instructors last week and I am now a certified student and instructor for teaching crossbow HE. There were only six of us who were certified as instructors and the current plans are to hold only two classes for the upcoming year, spring and fall, to meet the anticipated low demand. If more folks sign up for the course, more classes will be scheduled, and more instructors recruited and trained.

I was recently appointed to the Hunter Education Advisory Committee in a two-year position and look forward to the challenge of working with the other four members and the HE folks to improve the program to better serve Alaska’s hunting public.

I started teaching basic hunter education in 1992 and through the years became certified to teach bowhunting, muzzleloading, and now crossbow classes. I have seen a lot of change in the program through time to better serve the public. Most of that change was good and some is missed and lamented but changed based on public demand, like to the old two-week “traditional” courses. Change is one of life’s few certainties!