“youth hunter”

The grounds of the 33,000-acre NRA Whittington Center exploded during the last week in July when more than 250 youths and their adult coaches and parents traveled from all parts of the country to participate in the 2015 International Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC), held in Raton, N.M.

Not just an after-school activity, YHEC is a hunter’s training camp.

In 1985, we launched a program to facilitate friendly competition among youths 18 and younger that would advance hunting skills including wildlife identification, orienteering and rifle, shotgun and archery marksmanship. Today, thousands of hunter education volunteers and parents still conduct this program at the state and local level to produce safer, more skillful and more ardent American hunters.

The Dallas Safari Club's biannual Youth S.A.F.E.T.Y. Extravaganza and NRA's Youth Hunter Education Challenge teach safety first as they bring new shooters and hunters into the fold.

The 2017 National Rifle Association Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) National Championship is scheduled for July 23-28, 2017, at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico.

Despite that Pennsylvania’s mentored hunting-license program was designed to create opportunities for newcomers to hunting, a new proposal simply creates more barriers.

Acknowledging youth hunter recruitment efforts may not necessarily pay dividends, many states now focus additional effort on the 27- to 40-year-old adults, people who have the time, money and resources to hunt and take their kids hunting.