KAMO – October, 2021 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s remarks – Hello to all KAMO members and friends of KAMO,
This is Kids And Mentors Outdoors President Mark Walters with my monthly report. Two weeks ago I met with three of our BOD members and then spoke with three others about what we could or could not do about our annual “Joe” deer hunt which we hold the second weekend in December each year. Due to Covid 19 mandates that our volunteers would have to abide by we have concluded that it would cause too much division for what it is worth.
We forwarded the WDNR rules that we would have to follow to members of our BOD and the reaction was not positive and though it is a very difficult choice, The Joe will not be happening this December. This decision gives each chapter the option of creating their own hunt during the statewide antlerless hunt.
On a positive note, I wrote something in my column two months ago about KAMO and so far it has generated at least $1300.00 which I have sent for statewide operations and my guess is that individual chapters may have also received donations that I am not aware of.
Covid 19 has been difficult on just about every aspect of the world. Possibly we are seeing signs that it is dwindling. As I have for 1.5 years, I am asking that you please hang in there.

Mark

Website – Have you looked over your chapter’s web page recently? Every chapter should have a person who can add commentary and pictures to their chapter?s page.
We?ve had162 viewers to the site in the past 30 days, which is lighter than usual for this time of year. Most are first timers. WordFence has blocked 169 illegitimate admin login attempts just the past week, most from one computer in Bangladesh.

Electronic Forms – Two weeks ago, I (Mike) received a call from a parent interested in signing her child up in the Coulee Chapter (she heard we were doing routine archery outings and that was an interest of her son). While we were talking on the phone,she gave me her email address which I used to forward her the kid profile link. While we continued talking, she clicked on the link to open it, filled the form out on her computer, submitted it, and watched the information appear on Coulee?s spreadsheet in real time as we were still on the phone..
It doesn’t get any more efficient than that. I have forwarded this link to a few chapters already. I hope they take the next step and get the directions for using it, which are very basic. There is a mentor link and spreadsheet as well.
We used the electronic form with existing families.The rest were word of mouth. No advertising, no big event, to get a nice group of kids signed back up, a process I thought would take a few years

Inter-chapter outings – There is good potential for our chapters to share activities we do during the year. The Meadow Valley chapter has an ice fishing event coming up in February that will be open to other chapters. It will be in the Oakdale area and is mentioned in Meadow Valley?s report.

Chapter Reports

Baraboo – The Baraboo River chapter met on October 18 expecting to be discussing many of the details regarding the Joe hunt, but instead I had to inform everyone that this year’s hunt has been called off. The decision to postpone this year’s hunt was not an easy one but rather than having any issues with mentors or parents it was best to call off the hunt. Our mentors are still continuing to spend time with kids both deer and duck hunting and other activities. We will continue to look for ways to stay involved with kids while being aware of people’s health concerns.
Tradition Forward.

Rick

Coulee – Our members plan to meet via Zoom on November 8th. One mentor – Fritz, has taken novice duck hunters out on Holmen?s days off of school. Canvasbacks just started arriving in the area recently and gadwall,which makes ideal shooting over decoys, have been scarce.
Mentor Scott continues to take small groups to La Crosse Archery on Friday evenings. Kati set up a pumpkin carving atNorskedalen,but no one showed up for the event.We will have to work on establishing interest in our non hook and bullet activities with our newer families who may not completely understand how things work.

Mike

Dodge County Conservation – The DCC KAMO is having it?s next event Nov.6th. We also are planning on having a float in our Holiday Parade. A sledding day is being planned for January and it was tabled at our meeting about having a raffle soon. Doing more research before we decide. A couple one on one mentored hunts took place with both hunters getting their deer. One during the youth hunt and one with the bow.

Meadow Valley – We had 10 members present at our October meeting. We reviewed the October youth hunt conducted at Aaron and Janine Bigalkes . We had 5 youth participate with 2 deer harvested.
We discussed ways to recruit mentors and kids into our local chapter. Tom is going to pursue establishing a chapter gmail account so that we can utilize the recruiting tool the Coulee Chapter has developed.
The group discussed our scholarship process and decided we need to review the wording on the application before we branch out to additional schools. Bob will contact the guidance counselor in New Lisbon to review wording.

Future activities include:

December youth hunt at Aaron/Janines
February 19th fishing on a cranberry pond (Jeff Neitzel to coordinate with landowner)

Northwoods – Hello from NE Chapter!
Well the first flakes hit the ground yesterday. We had a safe and productive trap and pheasant hunt on October 9th with about a dozen kids showing up. Kids were able to shoot clays all morning as well as shoot a rooster pheasant off of a pointing dog, trainer and mentor. Only 3 birds got away even in the windy conditions. Our next meeting will be in early December to discuss the ice fishing event and potentially another tube run day at the local ski hill. Good luck to all outdoors people this month and stay safe!!!

Johnny Johnson from Florence, Wisconsin

Yellow River – The chapter would like to meet to discuss a deer hunt and an event over the local school?s Christmas break.