Deer Seasons Commence

[RednekF350]

Although some of the more deer-infested Deer Management Zones (DMZ) opened a few weeks ago, yesterday marked the Statewide opening of the fall archery seasons in all zones.
The first firearm deer hunting will be November 21 for Youth Day and then everything else kicks in the following week. Depending on DMZ, firearm deer seasons will run until February 13, 2021.

https://www.njfishandwildlife.com/pdf/regsets.pdf

My wife is taking her live-fire test today to obtain her Hunter Safety Certificate so I wouldn't start worrying about staying safe in the woods until after today.

 

[RednekF350]

She did it !
A very abbreviated live-fire test. Nothing like I went through in 1968 or my kids went through in the 1990's. I don't know if the backlog from COVID shutdowns are forcing them to speed things up or not.

There were no fence crossings, gun handling in the field or differentiating between a proper target before pulling the trigger. The goal today was to fire two shells into a berm without wounding someone around you and you received your certificate !
Seriously, the instructors were very attentive to each candidate and insured that safety procedures were followed. A 10+/- year old was there with his parents and the instructor had spent more than twenty minutes with him and was still talking to him when we left. It was pretty clear the kid had little or no experience handling a gun. It really looked like he needed more time around guns before attending the class.

My wife made me proud. Now 60, she has been hunting with me for two years under a mentor license and has really showed an interest in handguns too. No time like the present for that !

My wife and the Safety Instructor. She had all the right answers and smashed her target twice.

 

[Teegate]

Jessica and I took a road yesterday that goes right into a residents driveway. It is a public road but I still stopped to ask him if I was legal. He was just setting up in his yard by the road with his bow and arrows. He seemed a little annoyed that I was going down the road but was nice enough to tell us we were legal and that there was a parking area along the road further down where we could park and walk. After you post above Scott I suspect he had a special spot down the road where he was going to go. Hopefully, I did not ruin his day.

 

[Zach McGarvey]

I don't hunt but I have the hunter education certificate to use the Millville WMA gun range. It seems like it's mostly 10 to 14 year old kids in those classes. The instructors don't care if you can hit anything, they are looking to see you handle the firearm safely. I think there is a separate endorsement for rifle and bow. What the rifle certification is good for, I have no idea, since there is effectively no rifle hunting in the state (Weird exceptions exist, like you can shoot a groundhog on private land only with a centerfire rifle of up to .25cal).

Did she have to watch those painfully outdated training videos? Those are probably the same ones your kids had to watch in the nineties. Where did she take the test?

Unfortunately in states that allow hunters to shoot deer with a rifle, there are plenty of friendly fire casualties from people who don't understand just how far and fast that little bullet can travel. I feel like, as with most things in this state, they had to "dumb it down" for our population or we would have plenty of that going around. Even a shotgun slug or #00 can probably go 100-200 yards and still be deadly.

She did it !
A very abbreviated live-fire test. Nothing like I went through in 1968 or my kids went through in the 1990's. I don't know if the backlog from COVID shutdowns are forcing them to speed things up or not.

There were no fence crossings, gun handling in the field or differentiating between a proper target before pulling the trigger. The goal today was to fire two shells into a berm without wounding someone around you and you received your certificate !
Seriously, the instructors were very attentive to each candidate and insured that safety procedures were followed. A 10+/- year old was there with his parents and the instructor had spent more than twenty minutes with him and was still talking to him when we left. It was pretty clear the kid had little or no experience handling a gun. It really looked like he needed more time around guns before attending the class.

My wife made me proud. Now 60, she has been hunting with me for two years under a mentor license and has really showed an interest in handguns too. No time like the present for that !

My wife and the Safety Instructor. She had all the right answers and smashed her target twice.

 

[RednekF350]

The rifle certification has been around over 30 years and allows a permit holder to use muzzleloading rifles for deer and coyote, centerfire and rim fire rifles for groundhog and coyote and the use of .22 for dispatching trapped animals. The current hunter safety class for firearms affords you the ability to obtain your firearm hunting license and a rifle permit. I am surprised that they are doing that because safe loading and firing of a muzzleloader was an important part of the formerly separate rifle permit classes.

The training videos are all new. My kids had slide shows and a hard copy workbook along with real instructors in a real classroom with interaction with instructors and other students.

Archery still requires demonstrating proficiency in placing arrows in a 6” circle at twenty yards, as it did when I took my archery class 50 years ago.