KAMO – October, 2023 Newsletter – 4 pages
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s Remarks – Hello to all KAMO members and friends,
This is KAMO President Mark Walters with my monthly report. I stayed at a deer camp in early October with two young hunters and another mentor near Burnett for the youth deer hunt and we had a great time. I have been mentoring these kids for deer and turkey – “Carsyn/13
and Conner/11 and they have become like family to me. We did not harvest any deer but we are all looking forward to our next experience together which will be The Joe.
I am asking that each and everyone of you focus on what has to be done to prepare for The Joe as well as getting your background checks submitted. I am willing to collect dues at The Joe for our lodging. I may not be the best person for the job as I am in the woods a lot that weekend but I will do my best if no one has taken that position.
I have helped start a club in Necedah and it is called Necedah Outdoor Adventure Club.The process began in December and it is really taking off. I would like to tell you why. One, we build infrastructure in Necedah for outdoor experiences. This summer we built a beach in town and it is really popular. We are creating an ice skating rink with hockey goals and also just got the go ahead on lighting.
Tomorrow night we are having the 5th fire at my house with atv, trailer rides, lots of food, basketball games and we are giving away a Beaver Dam tip up as well as a pair of ice skates and you have to be present to win. We have had two beach parties with music and a fishing picnic as well as a food plot class given by KAMO’s Aaron Bigalke.
I believe the following is one of the reasons for our success, I write a blog once every two weeks on Necedah’s fb page. I give an update and lots of people read it. Every KAMO chapter could do all or some of what I just mentioned, it works, simply cannot argue it, the campfires, infrastructure and fb are getting it done.
Next spring it is a disk golf course, do not hope word of mouth is gonna work, do the fb thing, make it upbeat and have a fire or two.
As always, thanks for all that you do for KAMO!
Mark

Mac Kenzie hunt update – Please submit to Kevin any novice hunter and waiver forms for kids your chapter plans to bring to the December hunt. We are nearing mentee capacity for the event. Have you reported your chapter?s three hour prerequisite LTH training to Kevin?
We are still looking for:
Mentors for two novice hunters
A for sure medical person to be present during the MacKenzie Hunt. Currently, we ?may? have a mentor that could fill this role. Have you put any feelers out in your area for such a person or are you assuming someone else will take care of it? If a person commits to this role, they can hang out in the lodge, work on a laptop, read, or whatever, during their time there. The person will be provided food, lodging, transportation if needed, and could be compensated. If you have any leads, please contact Mike or Kevin. This medical person is a requirement that was discussed as a need at the September meeting and 5 weeks before the hunt we still aren?t 100% on this.. Here?s the criteria:

Medical Person Criteria – MacKenzie Hunt

Wisconsin licensed physician
Wisconsin licensed physicians assistant
Wisconsin licensed registered nurse
Wisconsin licensed practical nurse
National Athletic Trainers Association certified trainer
Emergency Medical Technician or paramedic
Emergency Medical Responder
American Red Cross Emergency Response Course certificate holder
American Red Cross Responding to Emergencies or equivalent certification

Planning ahead –
State Convention – It is that time of year when the date needs to be set for a state convention and a facility needs to be reserved.
Ice Fishing Event – The Meadow Valley has set the date for their magnum ice fishing day as January 27th on Lake Tomah. If you can make it to this event, it was really fun last year.
Hunters Education – The Coulee Chapters hunters education group has set up the Omni Center for March 16th and August 24th internet field day classes for KAMOKIDS/ general public and we have a request from the Providence Academy to run an IFD on a Saturday in January at the La Crosse Rifle Club. The academy is forming a new trap league.
Planning these classes in advance is necessary – the facilities reservations fill quickly, the DNR requires 6 weeks notice on classes to be posted on GoWild, and there is an undersupply of these IFDs generally and it gives people looking for a class more time to find one.

Raffle Information – If your chapter had a raffle from 11/8/22 to 11/7/2023, Natasha needs from you the following information: Raffle drawing date, gross receipts, expenses, net profit. If you had more than one raffle, please provide this information separately for each one. If your chapter did not have a raffle, please let Natasha know that as well. If you need Natasha?s contact info, it is in the directory or I (Mike) can forward it to you.

Group mailing – Please have someone in your chapter look through the email addresses in the group mailing for this newsletter and see if there are any people previously with your chapter no longer in KAMO that should be taken off the group mailing contacts. I (Mike) try to keep up on this, but another set of eyes would help.

Chapter Reports –

Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter of Kids and Mentors Outdoors held our meeting on October 9th at Rivers Edge. Our group had 159 hours in the past month of getting Kids Outdoors. Activities included duck hunting, fishing, canoeing and the youth deer hunt. We discussed background checks and are actively working on getting our Mentors updated. We are also working to update our pictures on the website and possibly getting some listed on the Community Facebook page. Our Chapter supported 2 Scouts during their Eagle Projects in 2022 and the Eagle Ceremony will be Saturday October 28th from 2?4pm at Ochsner Park in Baraboo. All are welcome to come.

Kevin Seymour updated the group about the upcoming Joe Hunt (December 8th?10th) & encouraged everyone to get their forms in as soon as possible. We will be doing a ?Hunter?s Attic? during the weekend, where anybody can bring in outdoor clothing and gear and we will have an area set up for kids to look through. If you have something that no longer fits or has been sitting unused please bring it along to get it reused by somebody else. We have already collected some gear from donations that will be included. We will also be playing Bingo again on Saturday evening and are looking for additional outdoor type prizes. A big Thank You to the Meadow Valley Chapter for again providing the stocking hats for kids at the Joe Hunt.

Our next meeting will be Monday November 13th at Rivers Edge.

Coulee – Three kids hunted the youth gun deer season. One of the three (Emma) got her first deer on Sunday morning. Randy, Jeremy, and the landowner were the mentors. Mark wrote about Emma?s success in his column.
We partnered with the Big Brothers/ Big Sisters to have an event at the Hidden Trails Corn Maze near West Salem on October 28th..The corn maze people decided to close their facility early this year because of the weather, so the event was canceled.

Dodge County Conservation – Dodge County Conservation KAMO was a little busy this month. We had a couple of mentors participate in the youth Deer hunt, Both successful . We had a Brat Fry at Glens Market in Watertown and were pleased with the turn out and all the information we handed out . We Held the LTH ( Learn to Hunt) class for the Joe hunt participants – 11 hunters and 7 Mentors showed up , Class was held and guns were sighted in . A special Thanks to Randy Fiarri and Pumpkin Center Sportsman’s club for the use of the Facility. Looking forward to the Next Couple of months . Lots of novice hunters will be seeing a lot of the outdoors. Get a kid outside and see what happens.

Jim B

Meadow Valley – We had 7 members present and 1 visitor. We spent a lot of time during
the meeting recapping our LTH Bear efforts and things we could do differently for next year in efforts to improve for next year. Many thanks goes out to James Newlun and his Scenic Bluff Outfitters. His efforts along with some of the folks he knows was outstanding. Both kids had opportunities to harvest a bear with one actually being harvested. Aaron and Chase were together on the youth deer hunt. Chase harvested 2 does and was one happy hunter.
Aaron has been in conversation with Mathews Bow Company to see if they would cut us a deal on some youth archery equipment. Our thought is that we would be able to provide archery equipment to beginning hunters to get them started in the sport without incurring the expense. Wisconsin
Bow Hunters does something similar. The group thought this was a great idea and Aaron is going to pursue further.
The Ice fishing day will be January 27th at Lake Tomah. The wheels are now in motion to get the needed items etc for the outing. AllKAMO mentors and kids from neighboring chapters are invited.
The Fishing Expo is Feb 25th and we again plan to team up with the New Lisbon Fishing Club for the day and attend the event.

Northwoods – Hello from the Northwoods!
We had one of our best turn outs ever for the trap shooting pheasant event. We made the front page of the Florence Mining news October 18th if anyone is interested to see the photos. I will also add a link to the end of this letter to check out drone footage of our event. We have procured 2 new ice shacks for our winter event and received a donation of 25-30 older tip ups to give away. I have permission from our local sport shop to put a donation tote there for folks to drop off unused ice fishing gear. Ya just never know what folks have and don’t use. Good luck to everyone this deer season and stay safe out there.

Johnny Johnson