Milk River Gobblers set Youth Day for Saturday

For its inaugural Youth Day, the Milk River Gobblers group is bringing experts to Havre Trap Club Saturday for youth, along with their parents and guardians, to enjoy fun activities and a free lunch as they learn about Montana game birds, their habitat and how to hunt them safely and effectively.

The event is set for 11 a.m. to about 4 p.m. at the trap club off the south end of Fifth Avenue on the same road as the softball complex, Milk River Gobblers member Jeff Dibblee said, adding that activities will be geared toward youth 14 and younger, accompanied by a parent or guardian, but everyone is welcome to attend.

Different learning stations will be set up around the trap club grounds. One will have experts on hand to teach how to safely handle and shoot a .410 or 20 gauge shotgun, with a balloon shoot and some clay pigeon shooting to test their skills. Families can bring their own shotgun or borrow one made available at the event. A bow hunter will have the equipment and camouflage needed to hunt turkeys and other game birds with a bow and arrow and give hunting tips.

A biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will be on hand to talk about turkey and game bird characteristics and habitats and, Dibblee said, he hopes a warden also will be available to answer questions about hunting laws and limits. He said he also is working on getting a hunter safety instructor at the event to talk to youth about what the course, a prerequisite for getting a hunting license, entails.

People can learn about turkey and duck game bird calling and, he added, Havre High School cheerleaders will be on hand to do some face painting.

Participants can have a free lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs, he said, and each youth 14 and younger will be given a raffle ticket in a drawing for a shotgun, one going to a girl and another to a boy. The trap club facility has enough space for the event even if it rains, Dibblee added.

Milk River Gobblers is a club primarily intended to enhance the development of turkey hunting by creating better habitat and increasing the turkey population, as well as to get more youth out in the field hunting, Dibblee said, but the event will have information about all game birds, in case turkeys aren’t a participant’s interest.

A catchphrase that sums up the club’s attitude, he added, is to “save the habitat and share the hunt.”

Merriam’s wild turkeys, found in this area, provide a tasty meat, especially the turkeys harvested from the Bear Paw Mountains, he said, and they are a hunter-friendly game bird for youth and inexperienced hunters to learn from.

“It’s a great sport to get into. You don’t have to do a lot of hard work to find them and it doesn’t take a lot of very expensive equipment,” Dibble said. “These turkeys really aren’t the top of the line when it comes to intelligent birds. You can get pretty darn close to them; that’s what makes it fun, I guess.

Hunters in the area don’t use decoys, though some will use a turkey call in the spring, he added, but “normally in the fall, once you spot a nice flock you can kind of put a little sneak on them and get really close to them without much effort.”