Keeping Sisters Country hunters safe

Teaching Sisters' youth the merits of safe and responsible hunting is a job Rick Cole takes very seriously.

Cole heads up the Oregon Hunter Education course that starts February 7 in conjunction with Sisters Park & Recreation District. Classes are held Tuesday and Thursday evenings for three weeks, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. each night with a field day on Saturday, and are sanctioned by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The cost is $10 and the course is strictly limited to the first 25 people who sign up.

"Any new hunter in the state of Oregon is required to pass this instruction, with no minimum age required," said Cole. "Hopefully parents will use good logic in signing up their kids not too early. With younger students like 8- or 9-year-olds, they aren't used to required homework every night, and that can be tough. I had one 9-year-old girl go through, and she did great on the test and the field day. We like to have them at a minimum age of 10 but sometimes we get an over-exuberant parent."

The field day involves students from classes in Redmond, Prineville and Sisters; the facility is donated by Redmond Rod and Gun Club.

"At that point they're required to demonstrate safe and responsible handling of guns. We have stations set up for wilderness survival, map-reading, archery, shooting a .22 rifle at a target, fence crossings, getting in and out of cars, and identifying shoot/no shoot situations. At the end of the class they get a card signed by the instructor and issued by the State, so there's a permanent record on file. Students will carry that card with their license whenever they're out hunting."

Cole has lived in Sisters since 1989 and got involved with hunter education in 1991. He's been teaching the Sisters class with other lead instructors for the past seven years.

"We have other certified instructors: Dayton Hyde, who has been doing it at least 25 years, Tom Shnell, Mike Houke and Brian Ferry, who is the area coordinator for this part of the state. Houke comes to all the classes and helps me here in Sisters when I need him. It's good to have the extra teacher on hand."

For three consecutive weeks, students are immersed in a comprehensive set of lessons starting with gun ID and practicing effective muzzle control.

"They need to know whether it's a rifle or shotgun, pump or automatic and where the safety switch is," Cole said. "We want them handling guns as much as they can, so they're schooled well for their final tests. There's a tremendous amount of information they have to have. It's really a great class, even if you're an outdoor person, because of the disciplines we cover."

In addition to basic gun-handling, the course spends time on wildlife identification, water safety, survival skills, coping with extreme weather, signaling for help and hiking into the wilderness.

"We have videos we show every night that scare the heck out of these kids," he said. "They're all dramatized but very realistic and it affects them. A lot of it is about accidents and how they happen. Not all the instructors show these. It's scary stuff, but we want them scared. This is life-or-death stuff and they need to know it."

Cole has many people come through the program who have no intention of hunting but desire the knowledge of how to handle firearms safely and like the outdoor skills they teach.

For more information call Rick Cole at 541-420-6934.