KAMO – November, 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 part of The Newsletter. As I write this we are only 8 days away from The Joe and our members Kevin, Bob, Mike, Rick and others have done an excellent job of preparing for this huge weekend event.
I ask that anyone that will be mentoring does plenty of communication with parents and young hunters as far as proper clothing, and the fact that the kids stay on site until everyone leaves on
Sunday. We started this hunt back in 2009 and it is KAMO’s signature event.
I will not be able to attend the Meadow Valley Chapters ice fishing fisheree in late January and if anyone else is having one, please let me know as I would like to attend it if the date works.
My friends as this year comes to a close I would like to thank each and everyone of you for all that you do for KAMO. Looking back at the last 12 months, this has been our most active year in several years and possibly ever. That is only because each and everyone of you
contributes and together we accomplish our goal of getting kids into the outdoors.
I will see many of you on the 8th and I am looking forward to it!

Mark
P.S. Merry Christmas and Healthy New Year

Mac Kenzie hunt update – See you there. Don?t forget those earplugs! We have two KAMOKIDS turned adult who want to give back and are coming in as volunteers. We will also be visited by a special guest or two. I (Mike) will have my laptop along and have copies of the directory and other documents in hopes that someone from each attending chapter will look them.

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. Has anyone looked into this?

Ice Fishing Event – The Meadow Valley chapter 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.
Lots of positive feedback from families. In order to use the Winnebago Park shelter, someone will have to go to the city building before it closes on Friday to pick up the key and after the event, return the key in the dropbox at the front of the building. If someone is going to be in the Tomah area on the Friday before the Saturday event, please get a hold of me. It would be a plus to have a heated place with bathrooms, tables, and electric outlets. I got the key Friday and opened the shelter doors Saturday morning last year, but will be running a hunters education class in La Crosse that Saturday.

Lake-link KAMO Blog – The KAMO blog under ?Forums?, ?Outdoor reports?, ?General Outdoor discussion? has been viewed since it began at the average rate of about 1800 times per week. With that volume of readership and free of cost to use, it is a great place to tell your chapter?s stories. The latest pictures on the blog are from Fritz/ Weston?s duck hunting adventures mentioned in the Coulee report.

Chapter Reports –

Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter held our monthly meeting on Monday November 13th. Our group had almost 150 hours of getting Kids Outdoors in the past month. Activities included duck hunting, fishing & preparation for the upcoming Joe Hunt. Rick Miotke was the sponsor for Leo Wagner?s (my son) Eagle Project in the summer of 2022 and the ceremony was held October 28th. Our Chapter also helped with fundraising and donations of supplies to make boot brush stations that help reduce the spread of invasive species. KAMO received recognition at the ceremony from Assembly Representative Dave Considine and the Sauk County Board of Supervisors.
The annual Joe Hunt is December 8?10th and we believe 25 kids (our limit) are signed up already. We will be setting up a ?Hunters Attic? of clothing/gear for kids/mentors to look through and take if desired. Please bring along any outdoor item that you no longer fit into or use. There will be a required DNR presentation on Friday evening and on Saturday evening the kids will enjoy a few games of Buddy Bingo. Please bring along any prizes that you wish to donate. Hunting will conclude on Sunday morning before everyone helps with final clean-up and checkout.
Our Chapter?s next meeting will be held on Saturday December 9th during the Joe Hunt. We will hold our January 2024 meeting at Upham Woods on Monday January 8th at 7pm.

Greg

Coulee – Three of Coulee?s mentors attended a meeting on the evening of November 14th and discussed preparations for the MacKenzie hunt and possible winter activities. The DMAP landowner we work with invited our kids back to hunt on his property in Monroe County during the December 7th – 10th antlerless season. One mentor (Fritz) took a kid (Weston) duck hunting on Lake Onalaska on a day off of school. He bagged a limit of mallards. That kid is part of a group of older KAMOKIDS who hang out frequently and teach other how to be better fisherman, hunters, and users of duck and game calls, usually on or near Lake Onalaska. A few of those kids have received their hunter education training through KAMO sponsored classes the past few years.
Coulee has two kids and three mentors coming to the Joe Hunt. One of the kids has been out on the youth hunt in October twice and at the 2022 Joe. Still looking for his first deer.

Dodge County Conservation – DCC KAMO.It was a productive month for our chapter. We had a Learn to Pheasant hunt and had 8 kids participate . It was so much fun watching them try to succeed in getting their first pheasant. I believe they all were successful . I (Jim Braker) took my mentee to deer camp this year to try and break him in and get him ready for the JOE hunt coming up. Our Chapter is taking 8 kids and mentors for this year’s hunt.
At our last meeting, we discussed volunteering for the Second Harvest food Bank Distribution to let them know that DCC KAMO and its kids are ready to help. We will be holding a KAMO social gathering coming up in January to let people know who we are and what we do. We are hoping to get some more mentors signed up and also get some new ideas to be more active in getting kids to come to our events.
I hope everyone had a great Deer Season and Thanksgiving. One of our Mentors did participate in a Pass It On Event and took a youth Deer hunter out on the 2nd weekend of the 9 day gun season. They were not successful but were able to make the best of the hunt. Quinn From Pass it on was very helpful every step of the way. As always, get a kid outside and see what happens. Follow us on Facebook at Dodge County Conservation KAMO and on the website.

Respectfully
Jim Braker Pres.

Meadow Valley – .We had 10 members present at the November meeting with one visitor.
Aaron mentored Chase during the youth hunt. Chase harvested 2 does! The club has decided to once again take the fishing club to the Fishing Expo in Madison in February. We have agreed to donate $100 to the club for the purchase of team sweatshirts.
Aaron presented an idea for purchasing bows for our local youth to use similar to what the Wisconsin Bow Hunters do. The idea would be to have the kids lease the equipment for a year and then return the equipment less the arrows for the next person to use. After much discussion, all thought this was a great idea however, the question on insurance and liability for the club was raised (being investigated with our insurance agency). Since these will be new bows, they will have a factory warranty. We will investigate further what happens after the factory warranty has expired.The club approved a motion to allocate $1500 to purchase 3 bows complete with all accessories.
Our 2nd annual fisheree will be held on Saturday January 27th. Bob will order 40 fish poles and the bait from Ace Hardware in Tomah. Jim will work on getting his brother’s tent. James will take care of running the “tip -up line” during the day. Aaron and Janine will take care of the lunch (sub sandwiches). Mike Brown is going to reserve the pavilion at the park for us. The event will run from 8:00 – 2:00. All Kamo Members from all clubs are invited.
Bob and Mark will be the only mentors from the club at the Joe Hunt. Jim will be at the event but will not be mentoring.Bob will be conducting a 3 hour hunter safety day prior to the event.

Northwoods – Well, the weather is perfect for making great ice up here. Our mentors will be holding a meeting December 11th with a pizza party at the 101 bar in Florence, please join us! We have ended up with 3 ice shacks now for our winter derby which will be on February 17th. A generous donor gave us a huge box of ice fishing gear including rods, tip ups and tip downs, these will be tuned up and given away at our next outing also. Great things ahead from the Northwoods!! Stay safe and have fun with some kids this winter,

Johnny Johnson from Florence Wisconsin