President?s message –
Hello to all KAMO members and friends of KAMO,
This is Kids And Mentors Outdoors President, Mark Walters with my monthly report. I want to thank each and everyone of you for helping to sell or that purchased tickets from our raffle. After everything was paid out, we cleared a good $7000.00. I heard from a few people that selling tickets is a pain in the behind, but in reality we just raised a good chunk of money and at our multichapter meeting in Wisconsin Dells we agreed on some very positive ways to spend it as well as much of the funding for the upcoming “Joe” deer hunt.
Speaking of The Joe, please take care of all required business as in paperwork that needs to be sent to either Kevin, Bob or Rick.The work these three do is incredibly important and not fun to do, so please respect what they achieve by sending them what they need, on time, to achieve it.
The weekend of Oct 11th is Wisconsin’s Youth Deer Hunt.I will be hunting with one very excited young lady and our camp will have at least four hunters, all of which are part of KAMO. There is time for you to plan a simple hunt with a young hunter that might create memories for a lifetime.As always, no matter what your level of time that you put into KAMO, thank you for helping create opportunities for our youth to enjoy the outdoors!
Mark
Mac Kenzie Hunt 4 hour Pre-hunt Lesson – The Learn to Hunt is a state program. It can be for any species. No hunter ed required. No license required. Does not need to be in a regular season. Needs approval from Emily Iehl, state coordinator. Each hunt has a required pre-hunt 4 hour training.
In the case of the Joe Hunt, we deliver one of the 4 hours on the Mac Kenzie site on Friday night. The other 3 hours is the responsibility of your chapter. With a certified hunter education instructor present, your group?s Joe hunt participants go to a shooting range. There should be a safety portion – discuss range etiquette – aspects of using a range, TABK, demonstrate loading and unloading with dummy ammunition, shoot small caliber rifles followed by deer rifles. Shoot using shooting sticks. Optionally set up a blind and shoot out of that. Clean the rifles, tidy up the area where you shot.
Kevin will need a record of your safety class – who was there, where you had it, the name and customer ID # of the hunter education instructor.
Coulee had a range safety outing last Sunday, October 5th. One family (which has already signed up for the Joe hunt and turned in the paperwork) could not bring their kid at the last minute. They also let us know that they will be vacationing and can not make it to our make up day coming later in October. This means that they will not be able to come to the December hunt unless Coulee has a second make up day just for them.
Decoys – Did you leave with the goose field decoys home after the September planning meeting? Outstanding! – They look better in your truck than in my garage. One of them is missing a head because it fell out of the box in my garage. Will bring it to the Joe.
Satellite mentors – We have been hearing from people who wish to join KAMO, but do not have a chapter near them. A couple from Eau Claire recently joined the Coulee Chapter. The woman figure was a former long-term Coulee mentee.
A man from Cambridge called and was put in touch with Bob B. and Jim B. since both Lake Wisconsin and Beaver Dam are about the same distance from Cambridge.
We agreed one year at a state convention that we would offer satellite mentorship. A satellite mentor has do the background check and mentor profile and formally meet with a member of the chapter they are working with, maintain good communication with the chapter. They should be giving a designated person in your chapter notice prior to taking a kid on an outing.
If they work with any kids in their area, those kids’ parents have to speak with an officer from the nearest chapter (the satellite is working with) and they have to fill out profile and waiver forms. This is where electronic form use is especially useful.
Chapter Reports
Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter of KAMO held our monthly meeting on September 8th at Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center in WI Dells. We were joined by several Mentors (including President Mark and V.P. Mike) from all other Chapters except Northwoods to conduct the State Raffle Drawing and hold the Joe Hunt Preparation meeting. We held a brief Chapter review and our group reported 145 hours of volunteer time of getting Kids Outdoors in the past month. This was camping, fishing and prep work for the Joe Hunt. We made plans for taking 3 kids out for the Youth Waterfowl weekend September 20th and 21st. It was great to hear a couple other Chapters had plans to take kids age 10–15 out that weekend. There are no license requirements or stamps needed for the youth during this special hunt. The Dodge County Conservation Chapter had a KAMO booth at the WI Waterfowl Expo August 23rd & 24th where 450 Youth attended (9000 total visitors). This event seems to grow each year and plans are underway for a booth next year?August 21st & 22nd, 2026.

Since there were 5 State Board Members present at this meeting we held a vote to donate $500 to Access Ability Wisconsin, which provides equipment to get disabled individuals into the outdoors. It was a unanimous vote & there were several Mentors who knew people in this worthy organization. We also voted to supply a $200 gift card for the Medic at the Joe Hunt and purchase a First Aid kit. The Delton Sportsman?s Club again donated $500 towards KAMO events. Mentor Craig B. is also a member of the Sportsman?s Club and gave them a presentation of our group and activities. The Sportsman?s club was very impressed with our Joe Hunt program and we got Mark Walters committed to stopping by one of their meetings in the future.

The State Raffle is the main fundraiser for KAMO and we appreciate all of the Mentors who sold tickets. Mark was chosen to draw the 11 Lucky Winners and the Northwoods and Dodge County Chapters seemed to have sold the most winning tickets. We were all impressed with the generosity of our supporters as the third ticket drawn had a name of ?Donate Back? and then when contacted about being drawn, 2 other winners donated the funds back for a total of $1200 returned to KAMO!

The Joe Hunt Prep was led by Huntmaster Kevin Seymour and preparations are well underway for the December 12th?14th Hunt at the MacKenzie Center. We agreed on a maximum of 25 kids. Mentors should have their novice hunters lined up soon. The DNR Warden, Biologist, Cooks, Chaperones for both Male and Female dorms and various other assignments were confirmed, but we are still needing to confirm a Medic. Several ideas were discussed, and the Lake Wisconsin Chapter is going to check into this further. The Meadow Valley Chapter will again supply KAMO stocking hats for the kids. There will be some upcoming required safety trainings with details and times TBD. We will again be playing Buddy Bingo on Saturday evening with the hope of having at least 1 outdoor type prize for each kid. Please bring your prizes to the event. We do already have a 12-gauge shotgun lined up as the Grand Prize during the blackout game. The group decided to host a ?Hunter Attic? again due to popular demand. If you have any outdoor gear or clothing to give away this is a great opportunity to get it to somebody that will use it. Rich also talked about KAMO decals that are ready to attach to almost any clothing. Absolute Imprints in Baraboo (608)355-2909 have 20 on hand and can order more. They are $5 each.

Our next meeting will be Monday October 13th at the River?s Edge in WI Dells starting at 7pm.

Thanks,

Greg

Coulee – Randy and 2 kids set up 4 blinds on a DMAP property in preparation for the October Youth Gun Deer Hunt. 3 mentors, 4 volunteers, a landowner, and 5 kids joined together on muggy, mosquitoey, mid September morning on a property near Goose Island for a trap/ pigeon shoot. After the initial safety instruction, the mentors and volunteers teamed up with a kid and helped them score on clays coming out of an auto thrower. The group then went out on pigeon hunts. One volunteer came in and did a duck retrieval demonstration. This was a great outing and there are pictures of it on Facebook.
On an area kids day off of school, Friday, September 26th, Mike and two other hunter education instructors ran an internet field day hunters education class at the USFWS Brice Prairie Interpretative Center. For several years in a row, we had students travel from distant counties to get into every IFD, even staying the night before in a hotel. In this class, other than a mother and son from Ferryville, the attendees were mainly from Holmen.
We?ve already had two outings in October that will be reported in the next newsletter. Randy and Mike are arranging for a mentor appreciation/ get together in the near future.

Dodge – Some of our mentors participated in the youth duck hunting weekend. . Lots of holes in the sky but one of our kids was successful at bagging his first duck. Check out our Facebook page for pictures of Lucas and his mentors and the others that had a blast hunting with the kids.
Punt Pass and Kick was another event and kids came out to try their luck against others their age to see how they fared with a punt, pass and kick. Local radio personality Wally from ESPN Madison was punking kids and having fun and everyone had a great time. . We had 2 new mentors join our chapter and a few more will be coming on board in the near future.
Preparing for the Joe Hunt and The Duck opener. LTH pheasant hunt with Pass it on Outdoors and the Youth deer hunting weekend are just some of things we have on the calendar. Check out our Facebook page Dodge county conservation KAMO or kamokids.org. Our meetings are the last Tuesday of every month at Tower Lanes in Beaver Dam at 6. pm. This month it will be Oct 21st. Get a kid outside and see what happens.

Jim B.

Meadow Valley – Meadow Valley ? Hello from the Meadow Valley Chapter
Aaron Bigalke has been very busy working with the 2 kids with their new bows. They have been target practicing and may even get the opportunity to harvest an animal on the Bigalke farm. Bob Nicksic held another hunter safety class where he may have found a participant for the Joe Hunt. Learn to Hunt bear has been difficult to this point, but a lot of memories are being made.
Thank you and have a great fall – Jim

Northwoods – Hello from the Northwoods,
We had a great event Saturday with the trap/pheasant outing. The weather was too warm though and the dogs needed lots of breaks. Several first time shooters gained confidence at the clay range and several father-son groups shot friendly competition for the first time ever. Last month with the Propbusters RC plane club they donated almost $1200 which covered the pheasant hunt costs. We will take a little break and have a pizza party in December. I believe we ended up with 5 of the raffle ticket winners too. Good things ahead!.
Johnny Johnson from Florence Wi..