KAMO – October, 2022 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

Joe Hunt Updates/ Considerations –

Event will run from Friday, December 9th until buildings are cleaned and inspected on Sunday, December 11th. That is a hint – the rooms are cleaned by people. People that have stayed there, ate there, socialized there should plan on helping with that clean up before leaving.

Staying in the dorm? – Do yourself a favor – bring earplugs.
During the week of November 7th – Your chapter must submit a list of the kids and mentors from your area who will be staying at the MacKenzie Center. Submit this list to Rick. The DNR requires an overnight lodging form submitted in advance.
There will be a fee for each person staying. Someone from your chapter should probably bring the chapters? checkbook in case some dorm fees or other expenses come up. Generally, the state KAMO pays for the event, but the individual chapters pay for the kids they bring and the adults pay their own way (or the chapter might cover that as well). We?re not sure what the rate is – $15.00 or $20.00 per night is our estimate. We?re checking on that.

Criteria for participants – LTH eligibility Is at the discretion of host organization – we no longer have to look at license purchasing/ past deer hunting history of individual. The person has to be any age 10 or above.
Must attend a 3 hour class with a hunter education instructor present. Firearm safety, range practice – ideally with the firearm to be used on hunt, deer range/ habitat/ hunting techniques.
Must attend the remaining hour of 4 hour pre hunt requirement at MacKenzie on Friday evening.
Participants don?t need a license, but do need a DNR Customer ID#. Customer ID line – 888-936-7463.
Understanding that any meat from a deer is taken to processing, shared later.

Criteria for Mentors
Mentor makes sure LTH participants have waiver and profile forms filled out and ready to bring upon arrival to MacKenzie.appropriate clothing,orange.
Mentors participating in the Joe will need to have a current DNR background check to participate. If you’re not sure about your background check or have new people involved in mentoring, contact Mike soon. Use the 4100-217 Rev (07/21) version.This is urgent time wise if you haven’t done this yet.
Mentors need to fill out a profile form specific to the hunt and get it to Rick in early November. If you even think you might come, please do this.
Mentors must be adults and have a current hunting license for any game species, not necessarily deer. For example,your duck hunting license would be valid.
There Is solid interest in this hunt, considerably more than we anticipated. There are a number of adults (mostly KAMO parents) who are coming with their kids and would like to learn and hunt if we have adequate mentors/ resources.. This would be a great year to come to this event even if you don?t have a kid in mind to mentor. Every mentor should try this hunt at least once – it is our Cadillac activity of the year.
Bring a blind and seats unless you have an arrangement made.
Mentors do not hunt. They stay within arms reach of their mentee. Some landowners do not want us leaving the blinds to look around or search for/ clean/ drag a deer for safety/ potential for crossing into neighboring properties reasons..
Arrive at MacKenzie Friday with enough daylight left so you can check in, learn your assigned property, be taken to a spot and set up a blind somewhere. If you are going to hunt on Friday, Rick and Bob need to know that in advance of that day..

Other
There is free food and drink throughout our stay.
We are in need of someone with a CPR/ FirstAid certification to be there and we need to figure this out soon. Please contact Rick about this if you know of someone. This person will also have to be listed on the overnight lodging form which has to be turned in two weeks from today.

Lakelink site – Most KAMO mentors are probably aware of the Lake-link.com site – one of the most comprehensive outdoor sites of all time. But did you know that KAMO has a presence on the site? Go to lake-link.com, forums, general outdoor discussion, Kids and Mentors Outdoors and there we are. Since that thread was put on the Lake-link site back in 2017, it has been viewed over 380,000 times. That?s over 6,000 times per month.
Any chapter can post to our Lakelink KAMO thread by one of your members having a free, basic Lake-link.commembership. So, next time you have that chapter picture and narrative you can submit it to Mike who can be grumpy, will get around to it when he feels like it, and might even ask for a Snickers bar for putting it on your chapter?s page OR you can put your picture and story where they really get seen.

KAMO Handbook – Did you know that there is a handbook for members of KAMO chapter members to read? It is an idea manual. The reader of this handbook is supposed to think – ?That?s a good idea, I never even thought of that?, ?Someone wrote this in a day?, you?ve got to be kidding!? or ?I have an idea for what should be in here?.
This manual contains information about setting up activities, getting people, fundraising ideas, things to do with mentees, FAQs, and much more.
If you are interested in looking this thing over, I (Mike) can send it to you electronically. If you are that person who would like to do something for our group from your home,this is perfect – read through the manual and offer suggestions.

Chapter Reports
Baraboo – The Baraboo River chapter had it’s meeting on October 17 at Rivers Edge Resort. Our main focus was on the Joe Hunt as this takes a considerable amount of planning when dealing with multiple chapters. Right now the biggest concern is getting the MENTOR forms returned as the list of this year’s mentors must be submitted to the DNR. I plan on sending that in on November 19, so please have those forms back to me by then because if your name is not on my list, you can’t mentor at the hunt.
Please let your chapter Joe Hunt contact person know if you will be coming early enough to hunt on that Friday afternoon. Bob Brodeur and I will have to figure out property assignments when we know how many are coming and when they are arriving. Each mentor is responsible for their own hunting setup : blinds, chairs, heaters and such. Each mentor must have a valid non expired hunting license on them when mentoring the youth. Again thanks in advance for your cooperation in trying to make this run as smoothly as possible.
Rick

Coulee – Our group met via Zoom on the evening of October 4th. We came up with some outing ideas for the next couple months including an activity for the kids time off school during Christmas break.
Randy took two kids hunting the Youth Gun Deer Hunt on a Monroe County DMAP (Jacob). On the first afternoon, one young man bagged his first deer and on the following afternoon, the second youth bagged his first deer,a six point buck.. Tim took a family to Jackson County to stay in a cabin during his hunt with their son on private property. They stayed in the cabin and he slept in his truck.
If you are from another chapter and are reading this and wondering about going to the MacKenzie hunt to see what it is like,there are several potential hunters from our chapter (6 or 7) interested in the Joe hunt at a time when the number of mentors going is maybe 4.

Dodge County Conservation – DCC KAMO had a decent month of October. 2 youth hunters were able to bag there 1st deer. We have 2 kids right now for the JOE and maybe more. We also are in talks with the Red Cross to hold an adult and youth first-aid course in February . We are talking with other organizations to see what kind of interest there might be for there members as well. Going to finalize some dates for a spring Hunters Safety course as well. Keep your eyes on our Facebook page and our Chapter tab on the website for some exciting news.
Lake Wisconsin – Planning for Joe Nunt.

Meadow Valley – We had 10 members present at the October meeting with one visitor.
Individual mentoring for the month consisted of Janine, Aaron and Mark taking kids on the youth deer hunt. Mark’s kid was successful in harvesting a deer.
We have potentially 4 kids recruited for the Joe hunt. Bob, Jim, Craig, Bill and Jeff are available for mentoring. Bob will follow-up with the kids to be sure all paperwork is in order.
Julie updated us on the Fishing club. They currently have 30 members in the club from 9-12th grade. They participated in the Homecoming parade with a float trying to recruit new members.
Dec 3rd is the date for the 3 hour mandatory hunter safety training for those kids participating in the Joe Hunt who have not successfully completed hunter safety. The training starts at 9:00 am and will be held at the New Lisbon Sports Club. The address is W7611 Ceylon Road
Mauston Wi
We have tentatively planned a January 21st ice fishing outing at Lake Tomah. Details to be discussed during the next meeting.

Northwoods – The Northwoods Chapter had our Pheasant hunt on the 15th, we had 9 shooters legal with hunter safety to shoot birds over pointing dogs , 3 dogs and owners donated, the kids shot clays with a certified instructor Tony Erickson 4H shooting program in Dickinson Mi and Florence County. We had 5 kids with gun experience that were 10-12 years old that shot clays with Tony Instructing because they didn’t have hunter safety. We are doing well on aluminum can donations and want to purchase a large tent ice shack for our ice fishing outing, Our next meeting is in December to plan next years adventures and a couple pizzas from our sponsor at Leffs bar and get ice fishing gear together, Enjoy the rest of the fall!!! Johnny Johnson from Florence Wi….

Yellow River – We have no planned activities at this time as we continue to work on mentor recruitment.