Kids get kick from first shots After taking a course, they hunt for pheasants

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Kids get kick from first shots After taking a course, they hunt for pheasants October 18, 2001BY ERIC SHARPFREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITERMETAMORA -- This is what 16 hours of classroom instruction were all about. The moment the dog goes on point, a loud cackle rings through the rainy afternoon and a rooster pheasant explodes out of the waist-high grasses under the German shorthair's nose. The bird quickly gains altitude and velocity, its long tail feathers shaking as 12-year-old Corey Keegan shoulders his .410 shotgun. The boy keeps the gun moving as he swings up and through the pheasant from behind, just as he was taught at the trap range a few hours before. He squeezes the trigger and sees the bird fold and drop into the grass. The big pointer is on it in seconds. Keegan, who lives in Redford, has a wide-eyed, ear-to-ear grin as guide Dyson Richie of Attica takes the bird from his dog, Arrow, and hands it to him. "Wow! That's big," Keegan says. "It's the first pheasant I ever got. It's the first anything I ever got. I didn't think I would get one. I want to keep going. I have two more bullets." His 12-year-old hunting partner, Cory Paliza, another first-timer from Dearborn Heights, offers a handshake of congratulations. Ten minutes earlier, Paliza had put his first pheasant in the game bag, thanks to Gary Williams of the Michigan State University extension service, Bass Pro Shops and Charlie Mann, owner of the Hunters Creek Club game preserve in Lapeer County. The boys were among a dozen young hunters who had completed a Department of Natural Resources hunter safety course at Belle Isle the previous week. Williams, from Detroit, used to be a social worker and drug abuse counselor, and he put on the marvelously successful Palmer Park kids fishing derby as a volunteer project each spring. After MSU hired him to be a full-time fishing program coordinator for southeast Michigan, he turned his volunteer energies to his second love and organized the hunter education class at Belle Isle. But unlike many courses, in which the youngsters never even shoot a gun, Williams takes it two steps further. Each year, he arranges for some of the kids to go on an upland game bird hunt and put the lessons they learned into practice. This year, Mann offered to host a group of 29 youngsters and adults at Hunters Creek, a private club between Metamora and Lapeer. In addition to more than 1,000 acres of prime wildlife habitat, Hunters Creek offers guides and trained gun dogs, so the youngsters get the experience of hunting behind skilled dogs and watching them point, flush and retrieve the birds. The group illustrates the diverse family orientation that has made hunting such an American tradition. There's a father-grandfather-grandsons combination, a grandfather with his two grandsons, a mother with her daughter and son, and several father-son teams. Norm Chalou of Harper Woods is there with grandsons Mark Chalou, 12, Matthew Pauli, 14, and son Dennis Chalou of Metamora. "I taught Dennis to hunt 20 years ago," Norm Chalou said. "The first year he was old enough for deer season, we thought he wouldn't be able to go because he had a broken leg in a cast from his ankle to his waist. "It snowed 14 inches on opening day, but he hobbled out there to his blind on crutches through snow up to his knees. A little later I heard his gun go off, but I didn't hear any whooping or halooing. So after a while I walked over there and I see him lying flat on his back in the blind. "I thought, 'Oh, my god! He's shot himself,' and I ran over to him. He sat up, and when I asked what the hell he was doing, he said, 'I was sleeping. You told me after I shot a deer that I should just relax and wait for a while before I start tracking it.' Sure enough, when we went down where he had shot, we found a really nice buck. So these kids have a pretty good role model to look up to." The group runs through a refresher course on gun safety and hunting etiquette, then gets a lesson from Dale Jarvis, Hunters Creek's renowned dog trainer, and his English setter, Rachel, on how to work with a hunting dog. Then it's off to the trap range where Pat Lieske of Davison, Hunters Creek's shotgun instructor, gives each new hunter an individual lesson on clay birds. Some of them never have fired a gun, but most manage to dust a target with a few minutes' instruction. The afternoon is given over to real hunting, and the on-again, off-again rain that soaks the hunters' clothes doesn't dampen their spirits. The hills and dales of Hunters Creek ring with shotgun blasts and the whoops of youngsters bagging their first game. "It was cool," said Patrick Wilson, 18, of Belleville. "This is my first time hunting birds. Heck, this is my first time hunting anything. "I got two pheasants, and I'm going to have one mounted. I'm wet, but I don't care. I loved every minute of it." Heather Hoffert of Warren is there with her mom, Anne, and brother, Andrew Bleser, 12, who completed his safety course the preceding weekend. Heather, 14, didn't want to shoot or hunt, still shaken by what happened to her when she took the course two years ago. During the hands-on training, she was so startled by the recoil of the shotgun when she fired that she dropped the gun. It spooked her so much she had refused to touch a gun since, but Lieske waits until all the other youngsters have left and leads her to the trap range. "You don't have to shoot if you don't want to, but I know that you can do it," Lieske says. "What was it that bothered you most? The kick?" The girl nods yes. "Tell you what," Lieske says. "If you'll try it, I'll hold the gun. And I guarantee that it won't hurt you. You'll hardly feel it." Hoffert is still reluctant, but she finally shoulders the 20-gauge and looks apprehensively down the barrel while Lieske keeps a tight grip on the gun's forearm. An orange clay pigeon flies out of the trap house. Lieske helps the youngster swing the gun and says, "Shoot." The 20-gauge roars, and the skeet drops into the grass unharmed. But Hoffert looks up in pleased surprise. "You didn't feel it, did you?" Lieske asks. They repeat the process twice more. Each time the skeet becomes a puff of black powder as Lieske teaches her the proper sight picture and how to swing a gun through the bird, just like following through with a tennis racket or golf club. "You want to try shooting one yourself?" Lieske asks. Hoffert hesitates for a second, then nods. She takes her stance, calls "Pull!" and another clay bird soars out of the trap house. The girl swings the gun at the target from behind, the shotgun barks, and a cloud of black dust hangs in the air where a clay pigeon used to be. Hoffert is beaming. "You see that?" Williams says. "That's what I wish we did more of. Because someone who knew what he was doing was able to take a little time to help her, Heather was able to overcome her fears." He shakes his head as he walks through the rain to his truck. "Some day," he says, "I hope every kid in Michigan who completes a hunter safety course gets this experience." If we get enough Gary Williamses, some day that might happen. http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoors/pheas18_20011018.htm