Passport to Texas

Hunters at sunrise.

2018 Resolutions for Hunters Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas Resolutions Week

Today: resolutions for hunters. Hunter Education Director, Steve Hall, provided a list of resolutions that, when followed, will make it even more rewarding to be a hunter in Texas this New Year.

Attend a hunter education course and recommend the training to anyone who wants to learn more about firearm, hunting and outdoor safety as well as game laws, ethics and responsibilities.

Be safe and obey the laws such as always practicing proper muzzle control, staying within a safe zone of fire and brushing up on game laws and regulations each year through the Outdoor Annual.

Practicing your shooting skills before you leave for your hunting trips; learn proper shot angles, shot placement, distance estimation and vital zones of the game you hunt.

Take care of your game from “field to table”; learn how to properly field dress, transport, butcher, freeze and prepare your favorite wild game meals.

Take along someone new to hunting on your next trip; expose them to the joys of the outdoors and to taking their own healthy, organic meat for the table.

Become a hunter education instructor and give back you knowledge, skills and proper attitudes towards the hunting heritage and a brighter future for hunting and shooting sports.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

How to Sight Your Rifle Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bring a properly sighted rifle into the field this hunting season. You may have your own method, and here’s another to consider:

With an unloaded firearm, make initial adjustments on the scope by bore sighting with a device or the naked eye. Yet, a shooting range is where real adjustments occur.

Practice with the same ammo you’ll use when hunting. Different brands and cartridge weights vary in performance. If you sight in your firearm with one kind of cartridge but hunt with another, you risk missing your target.

At 25 yards and using a paper target with a one-inch grid pattern, shoot three rounds, aligning the scope’s crosshairs at the exact center of the target. This three-shot group will reveal how far off center your scope is set.

Based on the average of your shots, use the scope’s dials, to make adjustments. For vertical movement adjust the elevation. For horizontal movement, adjust left and right, called windage. At 25 yards, you can adjust for windage, but for proper elevation, it is best to move the target back to 100 yards and shoot three more rounds.

Depending on the average distances you shoot at game in the field, you may want to center your group either at the bulls-eye or at one inch high at 100 yards.

Find a sighting demo video at passporttotexas.org.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Keep unloaded firearms locked in a gun safe, separate from ammunition.

Firearms: Locked (up) and (un) Loaded Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

If you own a firearm, you owe it your family and your community to keep it stored properly when not in use.

All firearms in the home should be locked, and separate from the ammunition; [the ammunition] preferably in a locked location as well.

Steve Hall, hunter education coordinator at Texas Parks and Wildlife, also says when not in use, always keep firearms unloaded.

 And so, [we want to] make sure that kids don’t do like we did when we were kids: “Oh, what’s this? Let’s load that, and let’s put this in there…” [These are] the kinds of things that you don’t want kids doing with firearms that lead to accidents.

Curious children have unintentionally harmed themselves and others with firearms supposedly “hidden” in dresser drawers, garages, under beds, and top shelves of closets.

The good news is, that because of hunter education and because of all the firearm safety taught by organizations like the NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, accidents in the home have gone down. And so, there’s a safety record that’s a lot better than it was in the 60s and 70s; but still, one accident is too many. So, we’re trying to promote safety at all cost.

Owning a firearm is a full time responsibility. Always lock it up. Find more firearm safety tips and hunter education classes when you log onto the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and supports shooting sports and hunter education in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Firearm Safety Begins at Home Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Experienced hunters and gun owners understand the importance of firearm safety.

Basic firearm safety begins with firearm safety in the home.

Steve Hall, hunter education coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife, says Project Child Safe is a program that helps firearm owners maintain high standards of safety in the home.

It’s a long-standing program of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and it provides free gun locks to anyone that needs to secure their guns in the home. So, we’ll be able to offer those through Hunter Education, through the Game Wardens, and through many outlets in Texas, because of a donation by the Cabela’s Outdoor Fund to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Hall says Parks and Wildlife will distribute free gun locks to parents when they become available later this summer.

We should be receiving locks this summer in preparation for the busy hunter education season starting late July-August. We’ll have information on those locks [on the website] once Texas parks and Wildlife Department receives them.

Texas Parks and Wildlife offers hunter education classes throughout the year to help would-be hunters—and even non hunters—how to handle and store firearms safely.

Find Hunter Education classes on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Be aware of safe zones of fire.

Firearm Safety Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Firearm safety should be every gun owner’s top priority.

Firearm safety really revolves around four main things, and that’s the primary rules of shooting safety or hunter safety.

Steve Hall is hunter education coordinator at Texas Parks and Wildlife. He says the first rule of firearm safety is to have your gun pointed in a safe direction at all times.

Number two is, check the action and make sure it is unloaded. That’s the rule of treating every firearm as if it were loaded. Number three is keeping your finger outside of the trigger guard. And then number four is be sure of your target. What is in front of and beyond.

Hall says if there is one rule that gun owners break most often it is muzzle control.

There are a lot of folks who just unknowingly point the firearm in an unsafe direction. Whether they’re walking next to their buddies, or pulling a firearm out of a vehicle, or putting it into a vehicle—or even inspecting it in the home. Maybe when they’re cleaning the firearm.

Learning and practicing the four rules of firearm safety will prevent accidents in the field and at home. Need help? Find a hunter education class near you when you log onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and works to increase shooting sports and hunting in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.