Young People & Guns…Burlington High School shows us what it’s really all about
More than 30 years ago, many of us attending New Berlin West High School would often gather in the parking lot during a fall lunch hour, pop the trunks and compare shotguns. Between fall and winter sports, we were going shooting or hunting after school. No one turned an eye in our direction. The oldest of four Ellis brothers and a 1968 graduate of West, Steve was shot down and wounded as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam in 70. The Chinese-made SKS captured in Cambodia that came home with him soon ended up on our high school bus, complete with bayonet (not fixed) and destined for a presentation to a social studies class. No one on the bus or in the halls gave it more than a yawn. Steve, by the way, would follow an American family tradition by being the catalyst in introducing his three “little brothers” to hunting, a bond that continues today, eventually along with a gaggle of our own sons, nephews and friends.
Times have changed. Imagine pulling a shotgun from a trunk and unzipping the case today at any Wisconsin High School or waiting at the bus stop with an SKS. Now we all know that the firearms haven’t changed. My first Glenfield 30-30 and savage double-barrel were each purchased over the counter at a Penny’s warehouse at 18 years old with money earned as a mason laborer. Walk in, walk out. Thou shall not kill and a family nucleus instilling other rights from wrongs was the formula too often now lost.
But if you’re not a hunter or shooter, too often the visual we’re hammered with by the largest print and electronic media….we’ll call them Tass….when the discussion turns to guns, in particular young people and guns, is not good. If like many of us you have been able to watch our young people grow up hunting or learning how to respectfully use guns in hunter’s safety or learn-to-hunt programs, we know the overwhelming firearms picture is overwhelmingly good. It has been very gratifying to spotlight many Wisconsin high schools since we launched this website in mid-January involved in the shooting sports. Today, as the epitome of young men and women safely, respectfully, and skillfully using firearms in competition, we bring you the Burlington High School Shooting Team.
For the last seven years, according to a release sent to OWO, the Burlington High School Shooting Team has worked to become one of the top High School clay target programs in the United States. Over those years the team visited the podium at the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) Nationals on three occasions including a runner-up in their first year of competition, a third place High School and second place Intermediate Entry award in 2009. Last year they shocked everyone when the small town team not only won the High School Division but the overall SCTP National Championship. Read on this website under “Firearms” what happens when the team traveled to Sparta, Illinois at the end of July in quest of another national title. These kids, and their coaches and parents, are worth your time. Maybe your high school needs a team too, and young people with guns in their hands instead of video games at the end of their nose. And just maybe, one of our Wisconsin shooters will become the next Kim Rhode.
Rhode is being called the "greatest U.S. Olympian ever" by some after she made history on Sunday by capturing the gold medal in women's skeet shooting. Some may argue the point, but in Kim's camp are millions of recreational shooters and members of America's firearms and ammunition industry who could not be more proud of the 33-year-old Californian. Kim stands alone as the only American to win individual medals in five straight Olympic Games. Read the whole story and much more under “Firearms”.
Trap shooting will be just one part of four Learn-to-Hunt pheasant programs sponsored by the Friends of Poynette Game Farm (FPGF) in cooperation with the Columbia County Chapter of Pheasants Forever. The programs promote pheasant hunting as a family activity with a main focus on the camaraderie of the hunt. The programs include classroom instruction on pheasant biology and management, firearm safety, hunting rules and regulations, hunting equipment, and bird dogs, dog training demonstrations, trap shooting, tours of the Poynette Game Farm, mentored pheasant hunt, and pheasant cleaning and food preparation. Read it all under “Upland Game”. Applications are due by August 24. Also under “Upland Game” read information on upcoming events from Pheasants Forever and The Ruffed Grouse Society.
Link with “Outdoor News” often. Every day now, “On Wisconsin Outdoors” receives and posts information from the DNR including warden reports and a variety of organizations directly involved in hunting and fishing Wisconsin. In the last two day we posted the weekly DNR news, commentary by the Hunters Rights Coalition on the Dr. Kroll Report and upcoming Wolf hunt, National Shooting Sports Foundation bulletins, and sobering information from Wisconsin wardens that of 16 boating deaths to date in 2012, five occurred in small paddle-type boats. Take your lifejackets and floatation devices.
Also posted is information that Wisconsin wardens seized $13 million worth of Marijuana from a remote growing location in Marinette County. The rumor is not true that several Marinette County trout fishermen seen downwind on a stream when the crop was torched looked awfully happy, despite empty creels. In fact, I just made the latter part of that up. But read the real facts on the bust and much more from Wisconsin every week under “Outdoor News”.
Speaking of humor, hook up with our “Humor” section. You guys have enjoyed nationally-famous cartoonist Bruce Cochran so much in the print version of “On Wisconsin Outdoors” available at 700 Wisconsin locations that we made a deal with him to send us online cartoons too. Four cartoons each month are coming and we’ll build the OWO funnies around him. We’re working to expand every section of this website until we’re rolling in the outdoors like wild hogs in the slop. We’re just about ready to launch our Archery & Bowhunting section. You’ll meet Danny Flood very soon who will direct those website topics including feature articles, 3D/Targets, Tournament Results, Bowhunting, Q&A/Tips, Wisconsin Club Directory and Archery Supplies. Watch for word from Dan, who, speaking plainly, is also a fabulously talented archer.
Speaking of new “stuff”, click on the video on our homepage. We just posted a YouTube piece from “Pier of d Nort” of St. Germain. It’s a one-of-a-kind pier company with a patented one-of-a-kind product. They’re so good, that after I googled “pier” because mine was broken and underwater I pursued only one replacement; creative genius and owner Carl Surges and his best-out-there design. Now Pier of D Nort will be our major advertiser and I have the best pier on the Manitowish Chain. Like all of our advertisers, we don’t tell you what to buy. We do ask you to look if you need the product. It will speak clearly for itself.
If you travel to OnWisconsinOutdoors.Com to get away from the office or work vicariously because you can’t get to the field in person that day, make sure you keep weekly tabs on columnists Darrell Pendergrass and John Luthens. We’ll be adding many more. This week, we’ve posted their stories under “Inland Fishing” and “Trips Elsewhere”. Luthens and his son travel with “The Griz” to the northern unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest and Long Lake. They trade one lost rod in deep water for some very nice bluegills. Looking back down the dusty trails already traveled, most of us along the way have made that same trade. Pendergrass take us down memory lane himself, to a time when he was the boy visiting grandpa and a babbling trout stream with a deep hole holding browns. Just know that you’ll feel better in the office after Darrell takes you away with him. I did.
In “Dick’s Trips”, I walk back a little myself to 2004 with Lori and a great white water/fishing trip in Price County under the steady hand of guide Dave Kelly. The owner of Flambeau Sports Outfitters led us down the south fork of the Flambeau River in kayaks, where we received lessons in history and fishing. Your own trip won’t be restricted to the Flambeau and depending on personal preference; a river trip can last from two hours to a week. Expect isolation and wilderness, great whitewater for canoe, kayak or sport boat, and good fishing for smallmouth, musky, walleye and channel cats. Make sure to tap into the contact information beginning the story for all the travel information you’ll ever need from both Flambeau Sports Outfitters and Price County Tourism. I talked to both again yesterday (August 1). They look forward to helping you with your own trips.
Wisconsin Guides just keep it coming with fishing reports, photos, tips and tactics. Look under “Inland Fishing” and “Fishing Reports” for ongoing angling banter from all over Wisconsin. Don’t forget to connect with “Great Lakes Fishing” for day-by-day Kewaunee/Door County Salmon tournament results over the last week submitted by pro outdoor writer Kevin Naze.
Bear hunters; check out a funny episode of Mike Foss’s weekly “Diary of a Wisconsin Bear Guide”. Mike baits a station nick-named “The Big Red Hill” complete with 150 yards of steep red clay. Mike has trouble going up with the ATV. The panicked bear already up on the bait has trouble coming down. Actually, he has no trouble at all. He’s coming down whether he likes it or not. Read it under “Bear Hunting”.
There’s much more out there, posted and waiting for you on this big bad monster of ours. Send your own photos and stories and news and allow us to shine the spotlight right on you. Until next Thursday, thanks for connecting with On Wisconsin Outdoors.
Dick Ellis