MORRIS, MINN. — Nine mallards circled in the blue sky, locked wings, then banked crisply into a north wind, well out of shotgun range.
Jared Otterstatter, 12, standing in cattails and cradling a 20-gauge, watched in awe.
"It's cool when they do that," he said softly.
Jared, a first-time waterfowl hunter from Redwood Falls, Minn., was among an estimated 20,000 Minnesota youths 15 and younger who slipped into duck blinds early Saturday on Minnesota's 15th annual Youth Waterfowl Day. Jared and 45 other kids signed up for a special mentored hunt at which they and their dads or moms were paired with veteran duck hunters. The idea is to encourage kids who come from non-duck hunting families to try the sport. And with duck hunter numbers falling, it's more important than ever to recruit new duck hunters and conservationists, said Win Mitchell of Castle Rock, Minn., a longtime Ducks Unlimited activist who coordinated this year's hunt and came up with the idea.
"The object is to instill our passion for waterfowl hunting," Mitchell said. Without good numbers of duck hunters, there will be fewer dollars for conservation and less political pull to help ducks and other wildlife, he said.
Saturday, Mitchell and I acted as mentors for Jared and Tate Romnes, 13, of Owatonna. Also along were Jared's dad, Mike, and Tate's dad, Ron. The boys and dads hunt other species but have done little or no duck hunting.
The idea of the mentored hunt is not only to teach the kids how to duck hunt but to also teach the parents, so both can do it on their own. It's modeled after successful mentored youth turkey and pheasant hunts.
The four learned a duck hunting lesson immediately: Hunting public lands has its drawbacks. When we arrived at 5:20 a.m. in the dark at a federal Waterfowl Production Area, a group of goose hunters already was there, setting out decoys. With few options, we went to a less desirable side of the slough. Most of the ducks and geese we saw flew and landed north, where we had wanted to hunt.
