The Hunter Education planning meeting

The ADF&G Hunter Education (HE) program supervision folks held their annual Hunter Education instructor dinner and planning meeting involving the Mat-Su area for the 2026 season this past Thursday evening. The event was held at the Grouse Ridge Shooting Park off Tex-Al Drive north of Wasilla. The turnout of instructors was light compared to a few previous year’s meetings but still numbered around 30 folks.

The meeting had its usual information updates from the staff to the instructors and introduced the newest staff member who took over for another staff member who retired last spring. Recognitions for the high number of classes taught and students certified by some of the more active instructors were announced and a discussion of some of the changes occurring in the program took place.

The most notable change is how HE classes have begun to find their way into area schools’ curriculums at both the middle and high school levels. Department staff have been trying to get HE programs into the schools for years to teach safe firearms handling and ethical practices while hunting. You can probably guess some of the political objections raised by school district staff to this practice over time.

One of the problems with getting this program into the classrooms involved having interested and willing teachers in sufficient numbers to handle the course instruction for the number of students expected to take the courses. Three of the teachers recently certified to teach were in attendance and spoke about how things were going. My sense is that the kids really wanted the programs and when offered, were eagerly signing up to take the classes. I suspect parents were glad to learn this information was being taught in a safe and supervised environment by instructors properly trained to teach the material.

A list of classes covering the four HE disciplines and planned dates of instruction was available for instructors to sign up and teach. These classes were similar to the number of classes offered, subject matter, and dates from the 2025 schedule. Last year, I missed the muzzleloading class I had signed up to help instruct because of a delayed surgery appointment date I had. A muzzleloading class came up later in the year that I was able to help with, so I didn’t miss any time. As additional classes develop during the year, they are added to the schedule and instructor recruitment to instruct those classes then happens.

While I’m certified to teach all four disciplines of the HE program (basic, bow and arrow, crossbow, and muzzleloading) I prefer to concentrate my efforts on the muzzleloading and crossbow programs. These two courses tend to be almost exclusively “adult oriented,” and I find I relate better to adults than kids, who commonly are involved with the basic course material.

Besides getting caught up on what’s happening in the HE program, I enjoy seeing several of the other instructors I have taught classes with over the years but might not have seen in a while. I hadn’t seen one instructor I have taught bow and arrow classes with over the years since last year’s dinner/meeting. Vicki has quite the personality and has been involved in the HE program for a couple of years longer than I have, and I’ve been teaching ever since I was first certified as an instructor in the basic curriculum in 1991.

Another instructor whom I have taught muzzleloading courses with for several years was there as well. I hadn’t seen Tony in a couple of years because of scheduling conflicts, so I enjoyed catching up with him. I learned he’ll be going to Africa next summer with his wife on a cape buffalo hunt, along with other plains game species.

Tony was my backup hunter when I drew my Delta Junction bison permit back in 2007. We talked about that and Tony encouraged me to apply for the Farewell Burn hunt. He has the gear and connections to make that a feasible option if I draw a permit. Tony also showed me a couple of pictures of two Michigan whitetailed bucks a mutual friend and former HE instructor had harvested during this current 2025 season.

I signed up to teach two classes for this coming season, one muzzleloading and one crossbow. There only tends to be a few each of these two classes each year. The high interest classes are the basic and bow and arrow courses. A lot of the newer instructors are only certified to teach these two disciplines, so I don’t compete to teach them.