Winter is coming, and hunter education

Winter’s coming! We’ve had a couple of hard frosts over the past week here in Big Lake, with overnight temperatures in the twenties and rising into the low forties during the day. I’m still working on getting everything buttoned up for the cold season, but I’m closer now than I have been for the past couple of years.

I volunteered to help instruct a Hunter Education Muzzle Loading class over this past weekend. The certification course was held at the AHH facilities north of Palmer. For those who don’t recognize that name, it’s the old Elks Camp. The AHH folks have done a lot of work upgrading the facility and its buildings, and the work goes on.

I met the on-site resident, James, and we had a pleasant conversation about future development of that facility to better serve our military and disabled veterans. He also told me how the Alaska State Troopers and active military use the facility and grounds for live training, which I think is great.

I was the first to arrive for the class, and following James’ instructions, opened the locked gate to allow others to follow. The AHH folks had the basement of the main building already set up for our class, and James even had a pot of coffee ready for our students! That is always much appreciated.

We had twelve students pre-registered for the class and, as usual, not everybody showed up. However, we did have ten folks arrive, so the turnout was surprisingly good. In previous classes, we’ve had as few as two or three folks take the class. The drive from my house over to the AHH facility was “interesting” because of the fog. There were places where I had to slow down considerably because visibility was almost nonexistent. After the sun came up, the fog did clear off, but the humidity was high enough to make things chilly during the proficiency shooting.

I did something a little different from my usual routine of stuff I bring for this muzzleloading class. For the past several classes I’ve been involved with, everybody has showed up bringing their hunting muzzleloader, which has usually been some version of an in-line style firearm. Some of the folks at these classes seemed to be a little unsure of what we meant when we talked about using “side-lock” guns, which typically don’t have a mechanical safety.

I brought a full-stock, flintlock, Hawken style rifle and a half-stock, percussion, Hawken style rifle to “show and tell.” These are both custom built firearms I’ve been lucky enough to procure over the years. I also brought a modern, factory built but long discontinued rifle with an underhammer action as opposed to the two sidelocks I just mentioned. In the course comments the students wrote after the class, a couple of folks said they enjoyed seeing the “different” kinds of rifles than what they were used to.

I didn’t bring any gear to shoot those rifles because the intent was only to illustrate different action types, not shoot. As it turned out a few of the students did bring percussion side-lock rifles while the rest had the inline action rifles commonly seen in the hunting fields.

As is typical for these muzzleloading classes, the “students” were all adults. In my experience, it’s rare to see a ”kid” (under twenty) take this course. Everybody was familiar with the course material, and most had at least a few years of muzzleloading hunting experience under their belts.

Most everyone easily passed the shooting proficiency part of the course, which requires four out of five shots in a certain size circle, depending on the range. Most passed with their first four shots; however, two folks did need to reshoot because they were having trouble with some aspect of their shooting style.

I like to tell “stories” during these classes to illustrate some aspect of what we are talking about at the time. And to be honest, I can sometimes get carried away with the number of stories I tell. I have been trying to curtail the number of stories because not all the students appreciate what I’m trying to do. For the first time I can remember, a couple of folks commented in their evaluation that they wished I would have told more stories than I did. That was a true first!

I enjoy teaching these Hunter Education classes, but most especially, the Muzzle Loading class. My next favorite class is crossbow. See you soon!