Hunter safety starts early

YAKIMA, Wash. — At 4-foot-6 and 68 pounds, Faith Torres doesn’t look like your typical hunter, but she has earned the right to be one. In fact, the 75-question written portion of the state’s hunter education course was a breeze.

From left, Nathan Slick, 9, Eric Torres and his daughter, Sophie, 8, Cheyanne Slick, 7, and Faith Torres, 9, learn how to safely hold a gun during a hunter education class. (SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic)

She answered just one question wrong.

“The one I missed, it asked if you could stand up in a boat and take a shot, would that be legal,” Faith explained. “I thought it was illegal, but it wasn’t illegal. It was just … stupid.”

She giggled then, like the 9-year-old fourth-grader she is — albeit one who is fully qualified to be a hunter. For that matter, so is her little sister, 8-year-old Sophie, as well as brothers Jordan, 14, and Ryker, 11.

The Torres quartet of Yakima took the week-long hunter education course in early  September — Jordan for the second time just as a refresher — and all passed easily. And if their young ages surprise you, well, you’ve never been to a hunter education class.

“In some classes, I get all young kids, and in some classes I get adults,” said Byron Kent, who taught the class attended by the Torres kids. “The students have stayed pretty much the same age over the years — they get to 9, 10, 12, that range. In some classes, I get parents or kids who will never hunt, but they do it for the firearm safety.”

The Torres kids, though, come from a hunting family, and they’re accustomed to eating game brought home by their dad, Eric Torres, a Yakima construction contractor. Both Jordan and Ryker had gone out as learners and observers on multiple trips with their dad before they ever hefted a gun.

From left, Faith Torres and Cheyanne Slick watch Faith's sister Sophie Torres learn how to load and unload a gun during a hunter education class. (Sara Gettys/YH-R)

Jordan took hunter education at 9 and is a regular hunter now, Ryker’s early Christmas present this year was his first hunting rifle and when Faith’s birthday was coming up last May, one of the gifts she really wanted was to be enrolled in hunter-ed.

“As for Sophie, she’s just kind of game for anything and everything,” Eric Torres said. “It was one of those things where I included her in the class and didn’t really hold out an expectation either way. I didn’t know if it would capture her interest and if she would fully comprehend all the material, comprehend all the material, but she just totally took to it, paid attention, passed the written exam, did the field work. I was really pleased.”

The field test, though, was tough on the girls — particularly the shooting part.

“The recoil,” Faith said, her eyes wide at the memory. “It was so much.”

“It almost knocked me over,” Sophie added. “My arms were so sore. It knocked my ear thingies out.”

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Sophie Torres, 8, learns how to hold a gun from teacher Byron Kent during a hunter education class. (Sara Gettys/YH-R)

Hunter education is a serious undertaking in Washington; all hunters born after Jan. 1, 1972, have to pass the course in order to get a hunting license. The class calls for four 4-hour evening classes, typically Monday through Thursday. That’s followed by a five-hours-or-more field test on Saturday in which students must demonstrate weapon handling and carrying safety. They must know not only how to load and unload a gun but when that’s necessary, and be able to fire at targets or clay pigeons without difficulty.

And even if a student aces the written test, the instructors — all of whom are volunteers, not even paid for their mileage — have plenty of latitude when it comes to the field test.

“If I do not feel that student is going to be safe walking behind me with a loaded firearm,” Kent said, “he’s not going to pass my course.”

Kent has a deeply personal reason for having been a devoted hunter-ed instructor for 15 years. Two of his boyhood buddies died as the result of gun accidents. And any student not taking his class seriously, especially when it comes to firearm safety, is going to have a very difficult time getting certified.

“The academic part is pretty simple,” Kent said. “Where I have failures is when I get out on the range. If they get to playing with the guns, horseplay, if they can’t load and unload safely or maintain muzzle control, if they can’t control themselves … I tell the parents (to) bring them back next year. They’ll be a little more mature then and can understand.”

Maturity was never a concern when it came to the Torres kids, who, Kent noted, “were very focused.”

Even Jordan, at 14 already an experienced hunter, got something out of his second time through the course.

Young students and their parents listen to instructor Byron Kent during their hunter education program, a class that is required in order to get hunting licenses. Students learn about many aspects of hunting conservation, gun safety, first aid, and wilderness survival. (Sara Gettys/YH-R)

“You definitely forget some of the little teeny things you learned the first time,” he said.

Jordan’s first experience as a rifle-carrying hunter came that fall after his first time through the class. In retrospect, he says, he hadn’t been quite ready to maintain the stealth and patience necessary to be a successful hunter.

“I was all jittery and nervous and couldn’t stay quiet,” Jordan admitted.

The next year, though, he took a buck and remembers well the rush of adrenaline when his first shot put the deer down.

“Volcanic,” he said. “My hands were like this” — he shook his hands like branches quaking in a strong wind — “or at least they were after, when (the deer) was on the ground. That’s when it started to kick in: ‘Wow, I just shot a buck.’”

Ryker didn’t have the same kind of success when he went on his first official deer hunt this fall with his dad, but he knows his time will come. It may be a while, though, before either of the Torres girls goes hunting.

“Maybe I could go,” Faith said, “but I don’t really want to go because that gun really makes me sore.”

Sophie had another reason altogether for being in no hurry.

“I don’t like being quiet that much.”