First G&F Youth Outdoors Day a hit with middle-school Herders

Lucy Ticknor draws back the bright orange compound bow about halfway and lets an arrow fly – well, sort of. It lands with a dull thud a few feet in front of the firing line. 

Enter Wyoming Game Warden Cody Bish. With a few twists and adjustments, he reduces the pull weight on the bow and hands it back to Ticknor.

Using her newly adjusted bow, she’s able to fully draw back the string and lets an arrow fly, again, toward a row of targets, prompting giddy cheers from her classmates.

Spearheaded by Bish, Wyoming Game & Fish held its first Youth Outdoors Day May 20 at the South Recreational Complex.

“My goal is to try to get the seventh grade class and do this every single year at the end of the school year,” Bish said, “and get them exposed to game and fish and what we do.”

Several other groups helped with setting up and running the Herders’ field trip, including the Glenrock Police Department and Glenrock Volunteer Fire Department, the latter of which  grilled burgers and brats for the students’ lunch. Game wardens from across the state also showed up to help out.

About 60 seventh graders were split up into six groups and alternated between six activity stations.

 At the archery and air rifle stations, students could shoot the ranged devices while learning how to safely do so.

At a lure building station, the youth learned how to set up jigs and build the fishing attachments. Nearby, students practiced spin-casting via a game in which they tried to snag plastic fish. 

The kids were exposed to  wildlife management by inspecting and learning about various hides and animal remains.

There was also a GPS station, at which the middleschoolers were introduced to mapping and learned how to enter coordinates and find them with GPS devices through a scavenger hunt.

“I’ve known that I wanted to be a game warden since I was 12,” Bish said. “I was inspired by some teachers who  were really into the outdoors and encouraged me to pursue a path that would put me in the outdoors and give back.

“Out of the 60 kids that are here, if I can turn the lightbulb on for two or three of them that maybe want to be a game warden or biologist or in this field, that’d be really cool.”

Bish said getting the outdoor event off the ground took about two years of collecting several thousand dollars from sponsors and grants to buy the equipment and find volunteers.

“Big shout out to (Glenrock Jr./Sr. High School Principal) Mark Fritz,” Bish said. “I told him what I wanted to do and he said, ‘I will get the kids there.’”

Bish also said GPD Sergeant Colter Felton was a huge help with communication and helping them use South Recreational Complex.

While Ticknor was all smiles after getting the hang of archery, she said her favorite station was the air rifle one because she had experience with the activity.

“I shoot with my dad,” she said. “We shoot antelope, pheasant, squirrel.”

Another seventh grader, Anton Good, said it was super awesome to get out of the classroom and learn about new things.

In fact, Good said a future job in wildlife may just suit him.

“It’d be something super cool to do, honestly,” he said. “Because you’re outside, you’re doing stuff.”