KAMO June, 2024 Newsletter – 4 pages
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s message – Hello to all KAMO members and friends of KAMO.
This is KAMO President Mark Walters with my monthly report. Our state wide raffle is currently underway and for myself selling the tickets is easy and I feel that we should do this every year. I plan on buying several for myself and hope no one is upset if I win.
I would like to write something that I witness from my birdseye view as president of this very powerful organization. Sometimes, and this is understandable, I hear folks say they are upset because they feel that KAMO does not achieve a lot. The sum of all of our chapters in a
year?s time, the individual and group experiences are huge.
When I came up with the idea for this type of an outdoor organization back in 2006, I had 2 choices. One would be a single, powerful club in the Juneau County area where I live. The other, which I chose, would be 3 chapters to start, in 3 separate parts of Wisconsin with future expansion. The reason that I chose multiple chapters is because each chapter has its own energy and I figured just one would burn out if it tried to accomplish too much.
Here are some examples of why Kids And Mentors Outdoors works.Last weekend, Baraboo River teamed up with Dodge County for a very successful camping trip, you can read their reports. Meadow Valley is currently running bear baits with a young hunter who will be guided on a Learn to Hunt in August. Northwoods annual Kids Hooked on Fishing is just days away.
I spoke with Mike Brown earlier in the week and Coulee is having some high water issues on the Mississippi but are still active and so our “annual?, what we achieve story goes on and on! With that I want to say happy belated 4th of July and as always, thank you for what you do for our kids.

Statewide Raffle – Some chapters have been aggressively moving their raffle tickets.
When a chapter?s tickets are completely sold, a chapter should send one check to Jim Rydmark. The filled out tickets should be sent all at once to Baraboo for the drawing.
If you need an address for sending tickets/ checks, please contact me (Mike).
Bob B. will be contacting chapters mid way through to check for progress.

Background checks – Keep in mind that the 5 year background checks are still ongoing. When the invitation to complete a form arrives in a mentor?s email box, the form needs to be completed quickly. If you haven?t received an invitation, yours is probably already good to go.

Joe Hunt or other Learn to Hunt/ Fish activity – Don?t wait until November to run background checks for the Learn to Hunt. Need the form? Let me send you one electronically. Remember, this is a different background check than ours and is a requirement for a LTH mentor.

Chapter Reports –
Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter held our monthly meeting on June 10th at the River’s Edge. Our club reported a total of 45 hours of getting Kids Outdoors in the past month. Several reports of recent good fishing for panfish. We handed out Raffle Tickets for the Statewide Fundraiser to members that hadn?t received them already. Reminder that the drawing will be held Monday September 9th 2024. Our group has already received the dress Polo KAMO shirts and plan to take a group picture at our September meeting. Our club did get 2 donated items (inflatable boat and bingo machine) to Gavin Brothers auctioneers for their Sporting Goods auction. Funds will be put into our account to be used for future activities (Thanks Jon). The majority of our meeting was spent planning for the upcoming annual campout June 28th?30th at Juneau County Park on Castle Rock Lake. The Dodge County Conservation Chapter will again be joining us and we have a record number of kids signed up. Lots of fun activities in the works including: boating, swimming, Dutch oven cooking, making homemade ice cream, yard games and possibly having a pizza oven available for kids to create their own flatbreads. We are all hopeful for good weather. Our next meeting will be Monday July 8th at Upham Woods Outdoor Center with Rick Miotke leading the meeting. (I will be helping at the Sauk County Fair).

Greg

Coulee – Our 3P event was held on French Island on Tuesday, June 18th. Bicycling, canoeing/ kayaking, picnic. Eight kids from a local Boys and Girls plus one mentor?s daughter participated. The event was held on French Island under high water and wind conditions. The wind got heavy enough that the canoe portion of the event was aborted and the kids swam with life jackets on instead. Later, we had sloppy Joes, beans, chips, fun pops, and ice cream cones at a cafeteria hall at a local church.
Mike took a kid fishing twice near Goose Island. Fishing was slow, but the water was clear unlike most of the river system. Our July events are river oriented and will be subject to water levels.
There has been an encouraging uptick in the amount of adults involved in offering hunter ed classes in our region. Some of these are newer instructors. School districts are increasingly offering classes run by staff members. The hunter education equipment trailer we now have in the area has been active. If there wasn?t a KAMO in the area, much of this activity would not be happening at all – some of our mentors decided to become certified as instructors to support our group and the general public. Our instructor group has been a leader in training new instructors and offering internet field days. It wasn?t too long ago that it was hard to even find a class in this entire region of western Wisconsin. Every time we have a class, people come from 2 or 3 or counties out to get in it. Having a KAMO in an area is a benefit to the entire community, even if some kids don?t directly come to our activities.

Mike

Dodge County Conservation – DCC KAMO Keeps on rolling along. We helped the Beaver Dam Lake Association with a free fishing day. There were 92 kids that showed up despite the rain and had a great time learning everything about fishing. We also attended Family Fest at our Local Field house . It was an opportunity to introduce KAMO and what we do. We will be part of the Co- Chapter campout and will be bringing 23 kids from our chapter for a weekend of fun and games. Our Chapter is having a Brat fry in Watertown on Saturday the 29th at Glens Market from 10-2 so if anyone reading this is in the Area stop by, We have a lot going on , Stay tuned . Get a kid outside and see what happens.

Jim B Pres.

Meadow Valley – Kamo Meadow Valley Chapter June 2024 meeting
Discussed mentor recruiting/KAMO night out event:
o All in all, a good event. Difficult to reach out to the community to recruit new mentors and mentees. Plan on doing another event this fall. Discussed the State Raffle and distributed the tickets. Bow loaner program, we have one individual and Aaron will get him fitted with the bow and associated equipment.Learn to hunt bear, we have one tag and one mentee. The mentee will help with baiting and the season will start in August.
Thanks Jim

From Bob:
We had 9 members present at our June meeting.Our campfire held in May was deemed a success with the potential of 3 new mentors joining our club. We have tentatively set Sept 11th for our next campfire outing.
We have 2 of the 3 bows allocated to students for the fall archery hunt. Aaron will follow up with the students and get them set up for them to shoot. Our LTH bear hunt mentors have been approved. Aaron, James, Bob, Dan,
Mark and Kevin will be eligible to mentor Jameson. Our season dates will be August 17th to October 8th. We met with Jameson and his Dad and discussed expectations, cost, commitment etc for the hunt.The meeting went very well. Because of his lifelong involvement in KAMO, the chapter approved a $500 donation to Dominic Quarne for his college tuition. Dominic applied for a scholarship but his field of Study (aerospace and electrical engineering) did not meet the scholarship requirements.
Raffle tickets were issued

Northwoods – Hello from the Northwoods!!!
Well the summer is flowing downstream like everything else with the rains! We sold most of our tickets already and will sell the rest at the Tavern On Central (TOC) street dance July 6th. Our chapter will be a main benefactor for the donations this year! KAMO will be serving food plates, doing 50/50 raffles and a dunk tank, fun stuff… We met unofficially on the 25th and put together 20 new Zebco 202 combos to give away at our Hooked On Fishing event on July 13th. The rods were donated by 9 Lakes Marine here in Spread Eagle. We are hoping to beat last year’s attendee number of 37 kids. I’m guessing with the dance the week before and good weather it should happen. I have also heard Camp Shady will have pheasants available for our fall shoot/hunt. All good things if the rains stay away, Keep doing good things!

JJ from Florence, Wi.