The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks is offering free hunter education classes at Clarkco State Park on Saturday, November 30, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. A break will be given for lunch. Online students are required to be onsite that day at 8:00 a.m.
Anyone who wishes to participate must pre-register. To sign up for a hunter education course, register at https://education.mdwfp.com/web/Event/AllEventsByDate.
The state requires that anyone born after January 1, 1972, complete a hunter education course before they can attain a hunting license. The state also made it effective on July 1, 2000, that anyone age 12 or under age 16 must have a certificate of completion from a hunter education course before hunting alone in the state. Anyone who is at least 12 years old and under 16 years old can hunt without a certificate of completion, but they must hunt with a licensed or exempt hunter who is at least 21 years old.
The course consists of 10 hours of instruction, and students must be at least 10 years old to attend. It addresses a variety of topics and is completely free to attend. The only thing not provided is lunch.
“Once a person takes and completes the class in our state, it’s a once in a lifetime class so it stays with them. It transfers to all 50 states. It takes 10 hours total and covers nine different chapters related to outdoor safety and hunting safety and has a written test at the end. Once they complete the course that day, all students are issued a hunter education number that is an individual number for them. That allows them to purchase a hunting license once they turn 16 years of age. It’s kind of like the equivalent of driver’s ed for a driver’s license,” explained Marshall McCraw, Hunter Education Coordinator. “The two categories that we focus on primarily and really emphasize to people are going to be the firearm and tree stand safety type stuff. Those two categories are what we see mostly with hunting incidents in our state. We try to really emphasize what we see in the field and really promote that to the class. We teach hundreds of these classes across the state in 82 counties. The classes are taught by our officers in the field. They’re taught at different locations, and when we teach them, they’re free to the public. We provide all the materials.”
The class is important for teaching safety, and the officers who teach it are able to provide real life examples of when things are done correctly and what happens when they are not done correctly.
“It is required by state law, but more importantly, it promotes safety,” proclaimed McCraw. “Some of the topics are wildlife conservation, basic first aid, and there’s a small boating section in there for life jackets and stuff that’s boating safety related. It helps people just navigate the outdoors in a safe way. The in-person classes are taught by our conservation officers who see the results of accidents and incidents in the field, and they can relate to these students by telling them personal stories of what they’ve seen. It drives home the point of safety. That way, if children are the correct age and have permission to go hunting unsupervised, because they’ve had the class and know what to do, they can carry that firearm and climb into a deer stand if that’s how they’re hunting and do it safely and enjoy their hunt and come home safely. We want people to be able to enjoy the outdoors and enjoy what our state has to offer in natural resources but to do it in a safe way so people aren’t injured.”
The following are things the hunter education program is designed to do:
• Reduce hunting and tree stand accidents
• Teach hunter ethics and responsibility
• Promote wildlife conservation
• Teach firearm safety
Specifically, the course will cover the following:
• Hunter ethics and responsibility
• History of firearms
• Rifles
• Shotguns
• Ammunition
• Gun handling
• Marksmanship
• Black powder and muzzleloading
• Bowhunting
• Wildlife identification
• Principles of wildlife management
• Survival
• Water safety
• Hypothermia
• First aid
• Tree stand safety
Join a class and attain a hunter’s education certificate if you haven’t already.
