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Ted Fischer (standing, right) takes pride in showing the ropes to young hunters like Erik Papke (kneeling), including how to respect the land and landowners like Dean Tesker and Jeff Opitz. About TedHometown: Port Washington, Wis. |
Q&A with Ted Fischer
Ted Fischer empowers Wisconsin’s youth by sharing his love of the outdoors and knowledge of hunting safety and ethics with the next generation of hunters.
NWTF: Tell us a little about your background and how you became interested in the outdoors.
Ted Fischer: I was born in Medford, Wis., and grew up in Perkinstown surrounded by Chequamegon National Forest. After moving from where the forest was right outside my back door, I realized that many people have never heard songbirds at daybreak or the bugle of bull elk. They don’t know what it’s like to lure a buck using a grunt call or have the feeling that you and the animals are the only ones alive. What a shame that there are people who have no idea what the great outdoors has to offer their soul. Harvesting game is only a bonus — just being in the great outdoors is the real reason to hunt.
NWTF: What activities keep you busy?
TF: I enjoy making turkey calls; hunting turkey, deer, elk, ducks and grouse; working on household projects; playing around with the computer. Did I mention hunting?
NWTF: How long have you been involved with the NWTF and with the JAKES program specifically?
TF: I have been involved with both for 17 years — including giving seminars at hunter safety courses, helping with JAKES days and teaching JAKES and many other NWTF members how to hunt.
NWTF: What made you get involved with the JAKES program?
TF: Our chapter held our first couple of JAKES events when my two oldest children were first getting involved with the JAKES program.
The North Shore Chapter has held our JAKES day in coordination with Wisconsin’s Learn to Hunt program [for the last seven years] with great success. And we’re also [taking over our local] hunter safety program. It would be a shame for kids not to have the chance to take a course that is required to hunt.
NWTF: The North Shore Chapter runs one of the best Learn to Hunt programs in the Milwaukee Metro area. What’s the secret to your success?
TF: Mike Keefe, the Learn To Hunt coordinator and founder, has a great amount of enthusiasm, which carries through to all of our mentors and to our hunters.
NWTF:What does it take to run a successful Learn to Hunt program?
TF: You need high quality mentors and a coordinator who is organized. And you absolutely have to make it exciting for the new hunter.
The program must strongly emphasize the safety aspects of handling a gun and using it both correctly and ethically. You also need landowners willing to donate the use of their property for a couple days so you can teach participants how to respect a landowner’s property.
NWTF: What do you think the NWTF and its partners can do to get more youth interested in the outdoors?
TF: The NWTF was a great asset in lowering the mentored hunter’s age to 10 in Wisconsin last year. But we need to focus on getting kids involved at an earlier age so we can show them what great things the outdoors has to offer.
Chapter presidents should get younger committee members involved, because kids relate to a 24-year-old person better than they relate to someone who is older.
NWTF: What motivates you to stay involved in the JAKES and Learn to Hunt programs?
TF: The committee members of the North Shore Chapter love our hunting rights. And without showing youth and women how to get involved in the outdoors, we are all in danger of losing them.
NWTF: What would you say to someone to encourage him or her to volunteer for the NWTF’s outreach programs?
TF: The excitement that young hunters have, even when they don’t kill something, is fantastic. Last year, I had the privilege to take Kevin Winter on his first hunt. Kevin hunts from a wheelchair. And even though the hunt didn’t turn out as we expected, Kevin’s enthusiasm and politeness will stay me forever. — Melanie Swearingen