Sports - Some surprises at hunting courses

You see, a couple of weeks prior to our training session, our lead instructor received a call from a very known and reliable person within DEC that the Commissioner had expressed an interest in attending a real live Hunter Training course “to see and experience it for himself,” and since our course had such a good reputation, this person recommended to the commissioner that he attend our session.

Now, the first question that came to my mind was, if Mr. Grannis is indeed a hunter as he has claimed to be, how could he not have previously “experienced it for himself?”

You see, to have legal possession of a hunting license in the state of New York, you must first be in possession of a Hunter Safety Certificate issued by an approved and certified instructor upon the completion of the appropriate course. Since the Commissioner claims to be a life long resident of New York, it seems that we might have a chicken and egg situation on our hands.

It could be that he obtained such a certificate while residing in any one of the 48 other states that issues similar certificates, but I’d like to know when and where.

Our lead instructor suggested to the DEC contact that the Commissioner, in order to really get a feel for the process, first complete the home study booklet as all attendees are required to do. Great idea!

But, as it turns out, Mr. Grannis was a no show as he seems to have been to other functions relating to outdoor sports, in particular, those involving hunting and shooting sports. Surprise! Surprise!

What an opportunity missed. We had more than 100 students registered for our two-day course at which he could have dispelled so many objections to his appointment with a well orchestrated photo session.

Every newspaper in the state would or could have run this story. See you next year, Mr. Grannis.

Second surprise, which is really more of a disappointment. We schedule 50 students for each of the two courses we conduct each year. On Saturday, we schedule 50 for the gun portion and then another 50 for Sunday’s bow session.

This year we had 49 registered for gun and 64 for the bow course. We closed the registration for bow three weeks before the course and closed gun about 10 days prior to the date.

From the time we closed each respective course, we turned away dozens of people who wanted to register potentially denying them the opportunity to hunt this year.

Well, surprise! Surprise! For the gun course, 34 of the 49 showed up and for the bow course, only 36 of the 64. What a shame.

On top of all of the people we had to turn away because, we had hit or exceeded the limit of our registration, all of these unattended slots were wasted.

We, the instructors, don’t do this for money. In fact, we are prohibited from accepting any payment of any sort. We do this because we believe in and preach safety and ethics. We do not preach or teach “killing” as one reader recently accused me of doing.

Sportsmanship is another of our primary objectives. I’m sorry to say to each of you who wasted a slot in our courses, you didn’t show much in the way of sportsmanship by effectively denying someone else the opportunity to register and obtain the certificate necessary to purchase a hunting license.

Shame on you and shame on your parents for allowing you to waste this opportunity for yourself as well as for the person blocked because you were to lazy to get your butt out of bed and fulfill the commitment you made to complete this course.

Not a good start to being a sportsman…not a good start at all. Why should we have been surprised, it happens every year.

See you outdoors!