Never Too Young for Safety Lessons : Hunting: DFG program provides many youngsters with first experience under controlled conditions.

Hunter, stepping carefully through brush with shotgun ready, follows dog into field.

Dog comes to point. Pulse pounding, hunter turns in direction indicated. Pheasant flushed and takes flight. Hunter raises stock to shoulder, flicks off safety, takes careful aim . . .

It’s a familiar fall tableau, especially for the dog. Jake, an 11-year-old English pointer, has flushed more pheasants than the hunter probably will ever see. But it’s all new for Sara Autry of Chino, who is only two years older than Jake.

She was one of 109 people 17 and younger who got dressed up in bright orange vests provided by the California Department of Fish and Game last weekend to celebrate graduation from the state’s hunter-safety program with a free pheasant shoot at Raahauge’s hunting ranch in Norco.

There was a similar program at Blythe the same day, and others are scheduled from San Jacinto to Lone Pine through December, including another at Raahauge’s Dec. 2. The purpose is to give young hunters their first field experience under controlled conditions.

A DFG press release called them “young adults,” but that was stretching it in some cases. Zachary Morse of Norco was only 9, and others appeared to be even younger. All carried guns--some as long as the youngsters were tall. All had live ammunition. All were licensed hunters. All got home safely. Most got their birds.

There was no cause for alarm, said Capt. Rick Wheeler, the warden who is coordinator of hunter education for the 10 Southern California counties in DFG Region 5.

“We put this under the most controlled situation that we possibly can,” Wheeler said.

Two hunters, a guide and a dog were assigned to designated fields, far enough apart that harmful shots couldn’t reach an adjacent area. Only one hunter at a time was allowed to load, and then only one shell. The DFG provided two birds per hunter, Raahauge’s donated 300 more for its two hunts and guides planted them in the field immediately before each pair of hunters went out, giving them maximum opportunity for success.

“It also allows us to look at them in the field,” Wheeler said. “Maybe a number of them are doing something wrong. But we haven’t had any accidents. The junior hunters as a group are very mature.”

In some ways, they may have a better grasp of what hunting in Southern California will be like in the 21st Century. Shrinking habitat and challenged morality are rapidly changing the face of the sport.

“Most of the adults are used to, on a Saturday morning, grabbing a dog and going out to a field near the house and hunting,” Wheeler said. “Those days are over. (With) the mass of population in Southern California, the habitat is not what it used to be.”

Raahauge’s leases 3,400 acres of flood-control land along the Santa Ana River, 2,500 for pheasant hunting.

“We’re probably the largest pheasant-hunting club in the United States,” proprietor Mike Raahauge said. “We shoot about 46,000 birds a year.”

If that is to be Southern California’s pheasant hunting of the future, the next generation of hunters doesn’t seem to mind.

“This is all they know, so they’re showing the same enthusiasm,” Wheeler said. “They have a very good grasp of what’s going on (with the) environment and conservation. Then you have some (older) hunters so set in their ways that they don’t understand times have changed. Especially in Southern California, as crowded as it is, if you don’t compromise, you lose your position. That’s one of the neat things about bringing on new hunters.”

According to the DFG, hunter numbers have dropped from 700,000 to 400,000 in the last seven years. Wheeler thinks part of the reason is fewer new hunters.

“We have a high incidence of divorce in Southern California and, normally, the mother takes control of the children,” Wheeler said. “For the most part, females have not been exposed to hunting, so their children can’t be exposed to hunting, so we’re losing a group of potential hunters that won’t have the opportunity.”

At some stage, potential young hunters also may have to face the peer pressure of anti-hunting attitudes that are gaining political strength--a difficult experience at an impressionable age.

Some already have. One parent said that when his son wrote a report on what he did on vacation--hunt--his teacher ridiculed him in front of the class.

Wheeler said: “I talk to them about it. It might affect them, and if the child in his mind perceives that it is wrong, I’m not going to try to change his mind. I will tell him that, given a certain set of circumstances and the environment we have, that hunting is a necessary tool in conservation. If he wishes to believe that, more power to him.”

Anti-hunters may accuse the DFG of brainwashing kids.

“I would expect them not to call that brainwashing, because I don’t call what they do brainwashing,” Wheeler said. “When we reach the point that people are not allowed to have their opinion, we’d better back off and take another look at the situation.”

Jim Morse, Zachary’s father, said: “We’ve talked about it but not a whole lot. I haven’t wanted to give him any of the negative aspects of it. Generally, the people that are anti-hunting aren’t aware of the whole situation . . . that hunters have supported wildlife over many years through their contributions and the (conservation) work they do.”

Morse said his son has been tagging along for a number of years.

“It’s fun just to be out together,” he said. “It helps teach respect for the animals . . . to learn their habits. It doesn’t matter if you get anything. The hunting is just the reason. It’s a benefit if you’re able to put something on the table to eat.”

Stephen Phillips, 12, of Downey said: “They don’t sell pheasant in the markets. You’ve gotta go out and hunt ‘em.”

Each youngster needed to be accompanied by a parent. For most, it was a father. Phillips was there with his mother, Irene, a lifelong hunter.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking around. “Don’t any women hunt anymore?”

Sara Autry will be one. She already has a sound hunting ethic, largely fostered by her grandfather, Bud Clinton of Anaheim, who taught her to safely handle a single-shot .22 when she was 8. She isn’t too squeamish to clean her own game. She cleaned about 100 fish on a large family outing last summer.

She got her 20-gauge Winchester for her 10th birthday.

“A lot of my friends didn’t believe that,” she said.

With the wisdom and idiom of her 13 years, she said: “People have been hunting, like, forever, not just to kill but to survive. Whatever I catch, I’m gonna eat.”

The youngsters were given the same safety course adult hunters must take to get a license.

“It’s tougher because you’re dealing with a youngster who may not understand all the words,” Wheeler said. “But we don’t compromise the program because of a child’s age.

“These kids all show a healthy respect for firearms. You won’t have the shooting accident in the home after the classes they’ve gone through.”

Raahauge said: “Just the world we live in, I think everybody ought to take a hunter-safety course. There are guns everywhere. People ought to be familiar with them, even if they never shoot ‘em.”

Before the hunt, Raahauge cautioned: “Let those birds get up and way over your head before you start shooting.”

Wheeler reminded them--probably for the umpteenth time: “Ninety-nine percent of hunting accidents are not accidents. They’re pure stupidity.”

Before driving to the fields, guide Del Pettengill reminded all: “Chambers open.”

The one-day course covers outdoor survival, how to clean game and the safe handling of a weapon--unloaded in a vehicle (that’s the law) and when climbing through a fence or over awkward obstacles. And the safety on at all times.

“There is no need for you to take that safety off that firearm until you’re absolutely ready to take the shot,” Wheeler said. “It’s like wearing seat belts. If you’re taught young enough that that’s accepted procedure, you won’t have a problem with it in later life.

“You keep the finger outside the trigger guard and up alongside the stock of the weapon. When it comes times to shoot, the finger comes down and hits the safety and follows on through to hit the trigger. If you teach ‘em that from Day 1, they get real good at it.

“Anything that will delay that shot will give you a little bit more time to look and see what’s going on. You want the bird to get up and clear the dog. So you spook the bird, the bird flies, you bring your finger down and click off the safety, you put your finger on the trigger. By that time the bird has cleared the dog and also is committed into which way he’s gonna go fly--in a safe direction or not.”

Wheeler wasn’t concerned about the few girls in the group.

“I don’t know what it is about a female hunter, but she seems to be more meticulous and very serious,” he said.

Before entering the field, Clinton reminded his granddaughter: “Remember, left foot forward, boxer’s stance . . . “

“I know, Grandpa,” Sara replied.

Lining up her first pheasant along the barrel, she took all of the lessons into account. Gun up, safety off, track-- bang.

Feathers flew. It all happened very fast.

“Pretty cool,” she said afterward. “Pretty cool.”