BC Hunter Education Course (C.O.R.E.) 2010

© By Othmar Vohringer

For me one of the biggest annual hunting related highlights is the hunter education course. Here in British Columbia anyone over the age of 14 and a resident of this province must be in possession of a valid Hunter Number Card. It is required by law that each person wishing to obtain a Hunter Card Number has previously successfully completed the mandatory Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Education Course (C.O.R.E).

The course is managed province wide by the BC Wildlife Federation (BCWF) and administered through the local Fish & Game Clubs and Rod & Gun Clubs. C.O.R.E. instructors are trained, licensed and registered by the provincial government of BC.
This year we had 14 students, all graduating with flying colours. One thing I noticed this year is that we had more girls and mothers with their kids taking the course, for me this is a very encouraging sign for the future of hunting.

The official class picture of this years students and future hunters.

The C.O.R.E. course started on March 19 in a typical classroom setting and will end with exams on the 22nd. In the classroom the students learn for thee days about the hunting law, firearm safety, hunting ethics, wildlife and habitat conservation, game animal and bird biology, ecology and many other important aspects of hunting and nature stewardship.

Our local Conservation Officers, here Officer Paul Pike next to me, are an active part of the course, teaching about the hunting law and ethics. We also invite other speakers like Jim George (far right) a blackpowder expert, waterfowl experts and many others with a special knowledge.

After three long evenings in the classroom the students and the instructors are eager to head in the field. On March 21 we went to the Nicola Valley Fish & Game Club shooting range to teach the students firearm safety and firearm possession law. Here I am explaining to a few students the shooting range safety rules and how to use hearing protection before they head to the stand to shoot a variety of firearms. The shooting of firearms is not a mandatory part of the course but we do give the students a little experience with different guns and have some fun shooting at targets.

Here I am explaining the workings of a firearm to a girl that never held a gun in her heads. As I found out this particular girl is a natural, she hit with all five shoot smack in the middle of the target. She was so happy that she persuaded her mother, not a student, to try it too. The mother enjoyed shooting the gun as much as her daughter did. In a brief conversation the mother told me that the only part that scared her about the course was the handling of firearms and that trying it for herself has changed her mind about firearms. That made my day.

The students could shoot with a variety of different rifles and calibers and we even had blackpowder guns available to try out.



As every year we tie the course off with a BBQ. Everybody had a good time grilling sausages and burgers. BC has 14 new hunters and that is a reason to celebrate. As the year goes on there will be many more, I hope we can match the 2009 number of 6,599 new hunters province wide, or do even better than that.

This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Read my bi-weekly newspaper column online.

I am going to be busy

© By Othmar Vohringer

This is just a quick update on what is happening around here.

I am going to be very busy, which leaves me little time to write on this blog until the middle of April. Since it is almost turkey hunting season I do try and keep Wild Turkey Fever regularly posted during that time.

Starting tomorrow, March 19, the mandatory BC hunter education course starts. The course will be held at the Nicola Valley Fish & Game Club and finishes with exams on March 22. I am proud to be a part of the official instructor team and I really look forward to welcome the 14 students to the course and later see them graduate and become hunters.

Then it is on to Keremeos for my turkey hunting seminar at the Keremeos-Cawston Sportsmen Association club house on March 28, seminar starting at 10 am. If you’re from the area and read this, I think there are still a few seats available. Contact: 250-499-5984 or 250-499-7171 for more information and booking.

I am particularly looking forward to the upcoming turkey hunting season, opening April 15, because this year I will take two new turkey hunters with me and assist them to hopefully get their first gobbler. To make this hunt the success I want it to be I will head out and scout for a few days right after the seminar.

After a few editorial start up difficulties – they had to find space and added an extra page to the newspaper - my outdoor column in the Merritt News (online version here) is now a regular feature.

BC Outdoors magazine, the main hunting and fishing magazine of our province, just got a completely new designed and interactive website online. One of the new neat features are the BC Outdoors blogs written by some of the BC household names in outdoor writing, such as Brian Chan and Phil Rowely, among others, covering the fishing blogs. Mike Mitchell, Greg Blackburn and myself write the hunting blogs. I feel honored to write specifically for the hunters in my own home province in such a prestigious publication as BC Outdoors. As an avid whitetail deer and turkey hunter I will of course cover that corner. Whitetail deer and turkey hunting are still quite new for British Columbia and that lets me to believe that my blog columns will become popular and in turn I can make these two new game species more popular with the hunters.

This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Read my bi-weekly newspaper column online.

Recruiting New Hunters Works

© By Othmar Vohringer

Today I got the 2009 numbers of new hunters that successfully completed the mandatory hunter education course here in British Columbia. In total province wide 6,599 new hunters graduated from the course. Of these, and that is what thrills me most, 1,421 were women and 1,975 of the students were under the age of 19. Unfortunately there is no further breakdown of the numbers. I say unfortunately because I would like to know how many of these students came from a hunting background and how many come from families that do not hunt. In my own experience I have seen that more people then in previous years from non-hunting families would like to hunt and it is these people that we need to reach.

In any regard this is an impressive number of new hunters and I am proud to be a part of the volunteer hunter education instructor team.


This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Read my bi-weekly newspaper column online.

BC Boat & Sportsmen's Show

© By Othmar Vohringer

The BC Boat & Sportsmen's Show is the largest of its kind in British Columbia. On Saturday, March 6th I attended the show and right away realized that the attendance was up from last year. A long line of visitors stretched outside the Tradex Center in Abbotsford waiting patiently up to a half hour to get in. Inside the place was jam packed with people, the likes I have not seen in recent years.

For me this show is always one of the highlights of the year to check out all the new products that come on the market. Just as important, if not more so, is meeting with people that I rarely see at other times during the year and make new friends and business connections.

I had the chance to talk to Les Trendall, the show manager, about possibly attending the show next year as a seminar speaker. He told me that he had heard so much positive comments about my seminars that he would like for me to appear on the show.

Other people I spoke too are my good friend and award winning outdoor writer and conservationist Bill Otway. With Wes Swain, the BC Wildlife Federation Hunter Education Manager, I discussed how we could improve the hunter education program, not only make it educational but a bit more entertaining for the students too. Ken Sward, is the Wildlife Chairman of the Keremeos, Cawston Sportsman Assoc. With Ken I talked about my upcoming turkey hunting seminar in Keremeos.

Ken is also the manufacturer of the "Pak-Kart", a big game cart of exceptional quality that lets you haul big game animals out of the rugged back country with ease and comfort. This is a very neat product and much stronger built then similar carts you can purchase from big box retail stores. This is the quality game cart that I have been looking for in all my many years of hunting.

Last, but not least, in the lineup of people I spoke to are Jim Shockey, perhaps Canada's most recognized hunter celebrity. Going by the very long lineup of show visitors wanting autographs of Jim he really is a true celebrity. It was the first time I met Jim and found him to be a very personable man. We have outdoor writing, bow and muzzleloader hunting in common which provided plenty food for discussion. Then I met, also for the first time, with Mike Mitchell, editor of the BC Outdoors Magazine. In the past I have had several email exchanges with Mike, but as things go in the outdoor writer business, editor and writer rarely meet in person.

A long line of people, patiently waiting to get inside the Tradex in Abbootsford to see the BC Boat & Sportsmen's Show.

The show has three distict section. Fishing, Boating and Hunting. In each section visitors were busy looking for good deals to be had and try out equipment.

Throughout the show were hourly seminars and workshops held on the "Angler Stage" and the "Hunter Stage”. Here is BC's very own Brian Chan, one of the most popular flyfishers, outdoor writer and TV show host, giving a demonstration on fly tying. Other attractions available to visitors and widely used were the kids fishing pond, the laser gun hunting game, fly casting river and a computer machine where anglers could pit their skills in reeling a large fish in.

British Columbia is known for its rugged landscapes and harsh Nordic winters. To get in an out of some of this remote places an ATV and snowmobile are essential. Accordingly was the interest of the visitors at the ATV stands. Fun and skill ATV rides outside the Tradex building attracted a lot of young and young at heart people.

Of course no hunting show is complete without displays of stunning taxidermy art and the BC Boat & Sportsmen's Show had plenty of that to admire too. Most people do not realize, until they see all the mounts, that British Columbia and Canada, for that matter, are the number one destination for hunters all around the world. Canada simply has it all from a large variety of upland birds right up to all bear, elk, caribou and ram subspecies, black,- whitetail,- and mule deer to muskox and even walrus. You name the North America native game species and we have it here in Canada, a true hunters paradise.

All in all I had a great day at BC Boat & Sportsmen's Show with many interesting conversation and seeing new products. One of the highlights was when four different hunters, at different times, approached me because they recognized me from my turkey seminars. Each of them thanked me for the seminar. All four of them claimed that it was my seminar that enabled them to get a turkey last spring. That alone makes me feel very good. It’s exactly what I strive to achieve with my seminars. I am looking forward to next year and the way it looks I am going to be a part of it, instead of just visiting.


This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Read my bi-weekly newspaper column online.

Busy March

© By Othmar Vohringer

This time of year is typically very busy for me. Everything happens in March and early April with hunting trade shows, club events, seminars and writing articles for publishing in the fall and winter editions of hunting magazines.

Tomorrow I am going to the BC Hunting and Fishing Show, the largest hunting and fishing trade show in our province, as an outdoor media representative, taking lots of pictures and notes on new products and people I meet. For me that show is always one of the highlights of the year. Meeting old friends and acquaintances that I rarely see throughout the year and establishing, or renew, business relationships are an important part for me too. Of course I also enjoy just wandering through the exhibitions and see what new products are on the market.

Then on March 19 to 22 I am part of the Nicola Valley Fish & Game Club hunter education instructor team. As a promoter of our hunting heritage this to me is a very important event. The hunter education course (C.O.R.E.) is mandatory in British Columbia for every resident over the age of 14 years wishing to become a hunter. Each year we see more people attending this courses, which is a very good thing as far as I am concerned.

On March 28 I go to Keremeos, which is about a two hour drive from Merritt, to give a four hour turkey hunting seminar at the Keremeos, Cawston Sportsman Association Club House. Since that small town is in the middle of the best turkey habitat, and going by my past seminars, it should be a packed house. Turkey hunting is still relatively new to British Columbia and hunters are understandably eager to learn how to hunt these birds.

(If you’re looking for a seminar and hunting event speaker check my website for more information on the seminar topics I cover.)

February 27 the Nicola Valley Fish & Club, of which I currently serve as the 2nd vice president, held their annual Game Dinner and Trophy Award Night. To see how that went read my “Field Notes” here.

In between all this coming and going I am writing articles for hunting magazines that need to be submitted by the end of April to the beginning of June for fall and winter publishing and there is of course my regular newspaper outdoor column that is not only work but also a lot of fun to write. Somewhere in all that I have to find time to go turkey hunting this spring. With any luck I hope to finally shoot my first BC wild turkey to be featured as main ingredient for the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner. But what really thrills me about it this year is that I will accompany an elderly couple on their request to help them get their first tom. To help a novice hunter, regardless of age, getting their first game is always a very special and enjoyable event for me.

This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Tags: Hunting Trade Show, Hunting Seminars, Outdoor Column, Turkey Hunting, Hunter Education Course, British Columbia