HollyWritten By: Kerry Roberts
In the blissful days before COVID-19, I stumbled upon a free in-person Hunter’s Safety course offered in my town. I signed up without hesitation. Not only was it something I’d wanted to do for a long time, but I thought it would be a great way to network with other hunters. Not only were we new to the area, but I don’t have any hunting ladies in my life. An in-person course might be a great way to meet them. And then the world changed.
Pandemic Closures
On a Friday afternoon in Mid-March, I got a call from my son’s elementary school. They were closing for the remainder of the month. My hunter’s safety course, that was scheduled for the next day, was cancelled as well. While it was disheartening, I was glad to see the county taking precautions.
By Monday, everything was closed. Two weeks later, my husband was teleworking and my son’s school had shut down for the remainder of the school year. I became a first grade teacher overnight. (Teachers really need to be paid more!) Death tolls climbed higher every day, my son celebrated his 7th birthday in quarantine and our families had to cancel their plans to visit. I feel like we woke up in a dystopian parallel universe. There’s no going back to the world I knew; I can only adapt to the new one.
Pandemic Spread
The world felt dark and hopeless as the virus continued to spread. Friends and family were testing positive, and our rural Virginia county mourned it’s first COVID death. And then I received an email from the Hunter’s Safety website that gave me a much needed silver lining in the darkness–the online course was now half off. I took advantage of the opportunity without hesitation.
Meat was growing more scarce by the day at grocery stores. The venison my husband harvested last season wouldn’t last forever with our family of 6. But, if two of us could hunt, we had a better chance at harvesting more.
Self reliance has always been our goal as a family. Not in a doomsday prepper kind of way, but in a way that we don’t panic when there’s a power outage or a pandemic. I don’t want to rely on the store for things I could grow, hunt, or make myself. Being a military family for a decade meant never staying in one place long enough to make that happen fully. COVID-19 kicked our motivation towards that goal into high gear. Thankfully, we had just moved onto our 10 acres 3 months before the pandemic struck. It will be a lot easier for me to hunt now.
Hunter Safety Course
It took me a good month or so to work through the course. Having a puppy and 4 young children quarantined under one roof with homeschooling and chores didn’t give me much free time. But I got it done. I even incorporated the firearm safety videos into our homeschool curriculum.
The morning I completed the course, no one was more excited than my 7 year old, Raylan. It was the sweetest thing! We only had a week or two left of spring turkey season, and he wanted to take me hunting. He’s gone out with my husband long enough to know how it’s done, so he insisted on being the first to show me the ropes. And that’s exactly what he did. Stay tuned for my next article to see how it went!
In the meantime, check out the Hunter Education website to see if your state has an online course available: https://www.hunter-ed.com/#select-your-course
It is also worth noting that the Virginia DGIF website is a wealth of information. There are hunting mentors available, forums, workshops and education opportunities. Be sure and click around your state’s fish and game website to see what resources are available to you. You might be surprised…
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