News

Youth aren’t the only new Vermont hunters

By Keith Whitcomb Jr.
Staff Writer
Vermont didn’t see a big increase in the number of youth weekend deer hunters this season, but the new novice hunter program saw far more people involved than wildlife officials expected.

Mark Scott, director of wildlife for the Fish & Wildlife Department, said that the state this year issued 5,722 youth weekend permits, five fewer than last year. Meanwhile, it issued 1,028 resident novice permits and 57 nonresident permits. This is the first year the novice hunter program has existed and the department was only expecting 200 to 300 permits being issued.

“It really blew us away,” said Scott. “We didn’t realize how many people wanted to try hunting for the first time.”

This year brought with it many changes to the state’s deer-hunting rules. Among them, moving the youth hunting weekend up by three weeks. Traditionally, it’s been the weekend before the regular rifle season. There are a number of requirements for youth to participate, but generally it lets any hunter under the age of 16 go out with a licensed adult to hunt a deer of either sex before the regular rifle season. The novice hunter program falls on the same weekend and is similar to the youth hunt, but it’s for people older than 16 who’ve never had a hunting license before, and they only get to hunt as a novice once whether they take a deer or not.

The aim of both programs is to generate more interest in hunting. The state also has a program that pairs inexperienced or novice hunters with mentors. This is how Brett Ladeau, of Hartland, a volunteer hunter safety course instructor, met Martin Irizarry, of Townsend, and Jean LoCicero, of Huntington.

Ladeau said he, LoCicero and Irizarry went out during the novice weekend. Irizarry, who’s 43, was after deer and had never hunted before. LoCicero, 58, is a self-taught deer hunter; however, she was after turkey — the fall turkey hunting season also beginning on that weekend.

“I thought it went really well, as far as an unsuccessful hunt can go,” said Ladeau. “We had a good time, we took some time to look at sign and learn from there, and we got to know each other pretty well over the weekend.”

When he took his hunter safety course in the 1980s, Ladeau said it was mostly other children in the classes. When he became a volunteer hunter safety course teacher about eight years ago, he figured it would be mostly kids attending, but in fact it was a mix of young and old, male and female.

“I think what’s happening now, there’s a demographic that either wasn’t raised in a hunting family, or was and kind of lapsed, but now there’s an interest as adults,” he said. “What I’ve learned is people who are getting into it as adults have put way more thought into it than what I ever did because I kind of grew up in it, and it was just something I was supposed to do, I guess. They think long and hard about it before they get into it.”

LoCicero said Friday that when she was young, she was against hunting. She spent a great deal of time in the woods following animal trails and did not understand why anyone would want to shoot one. She’s lived in Huntington for 31 years now, and during that time she’s met some hunters and had conversations with people about industrial meat farming, which she’s not a fan of.

“What’s the difference? I’m paying someone else to kill an animal that lived in a barn versus just going and killing it myself, so why not just go do it myself?” she said.

She has a grandson due in March and wants to teach him about hunting and the outdoors.

“I know they’re trying to get younger people, but I can say that for new hunters, people who haven’t hunted before, people in my age group would be a good target because we’re at a point where we often have more time, we have more money, we don’t have kids to take care of and people in my age group a lot of times develop new hobbies,” she said.

She’s grateful to Ladeau for taking the time to mentor people, as that’s time he can’t spend hunting himself. Her goal is to someday mentor a new hunter and pass the skills on.

“You can learn from books and online, but when you’re with somebody all day long, and you’re chatting you can observe what they’re doing without them even trying to teach you something,” she said.

Irizarry said Friday that even though he wasn’t able to shoot a deer during the novice weekend, he enjoyed the experience and is already scouting on his own to hunt during the regular season.

He was born in Puerto Rico, where he said no one hunts, and grew up in Texas, where he thinks he first became interested, hearing stories from his father’s friends. He joined the military later in life, where he developed love of firearms. He’s been in Vermont three years and decided to get his hunting license.

“Once I got the license, I was like, what do I do now?” he said. “You have a lot of questions, and you can look it up online but it’s not the same thing.”

Irizarry found out about the mentor program and novice hunting weekend and was paired with Ladeau.

“It was crazy. We got up early in the morning, it was dark. I guess he’d picked out a spot, but somebody was already there,” he said. “We found another spot, and we were there for a while, and the sun started coming up and the deer came out. The adrenaline started kicking in, but (the deer) didn’t give me a clear shot, he kept on showing me his butt.”

Irizarry didn’t get a clear shot all weekend, but he and LoCicero said they learned a great deal about deer and turkey hunting from him while they were out.

“It’s not just the hunting, it’s the whole experience — being with other people out in nature, seeing the sun come up, the animals, the quietness of the woods, it was an experience to go hunting even though I didn’t get anything,” he said.

This year also features an early muzzleloader season, which began Thursday and ends Sunday. Only antlerless deer can be taken by people with a muzzleloader and antlerless deer permit in certain parts of the state.

keith.whitcomb @rutlandherald.com

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