An Outdoorsman's Journal

Florence/Northwoods Chapter of KAMO/Great People

Hello friends,

   On Monday, March 1st 2007 I woke up on a frozen lake near Mellen after winter camping for two nights and drove in a heavy snowfall to the Florence Resource Center where I would meet Mick Milner, Terry Steber and Dwaine Drewa for the first time, my lifelong buddy Jeff Moll was also there and this would be our first meeting along with several other people for what would become KAMO, "Kids And Mentors Outdoors" www.kamokids.org. We had no idea what we were doing but along with people in 2 other communities in Wisconsin we figured it out.

   Saturday, October 17th
   High 64, low 30

   I stayed at the Northwoods Chapter of KAMO's Presidents, Johnny Johnson home last night and we had a very nice experience at One O One which is a great bar with top notch food which is also where this chapter of KAMO holds their meetings. This morning I would meet Steber, Moll, Milner and Drewa at Shady Game Farm along with about 10 other KAMO members and we would be holding the 20th Shady Farm Extravaganza as Mr. Milner "past president,” would call this hunt and it was a very, very cool experience for the 16 young hunters and all the volunteers that pull this operation off.
      Shady Farm is owned and operated for the last 40 years by Howard Reed and is a very large tract of forest and field that is a pretty cool place to spend a few hours chasing pheasant. On a side note, Shady Farm, it looked like father time might be putting Shady Farm to sleep, good news, Stephen Sigg is taking is over and will be doing some renovations and that was very good news for a lot of people today.
     Our day started out with Mr. Johnny Johnson who I have found out is Mr. Volunteer, who is a Timber Procurement Forester for Rayonier Timber and a long time Florence fireman, brand new hunter safety instructor and the Northwood's chapter president welcoming everyone and giving the days plan. The 16 young hunters would go through a safety class that was given by Jon Niggeling and Tony Erickson, and what these two men would do was very cool. Each hunter would have to shoot several clay pigeons before they could hunt and after each young hunters pheasant experience, they went back and shot more clay pigeons, by days end, 1,600 shells had been fired.
   Dan Moore who has a cabin on Lake Emily was here for the experience with his German short hair "Darcy" to assist, and Dan Labeske who is from Chassel, Michigan was here with 8 kids and his German short hair "Echo.” Dan Labeske and his young hunters are very proud members of the Ottawa Sportsmen Club, and he put in a heck of a day. Dan has a prosthetic leg from the knee down and in no way did he let that slow him down in helping the 16 kids that were all very anxious to harvest a pheasant.
  For me, this was a day of shooting the jaw with old friends as well as new, and it was as cool as it gets talking to the kids and seeing how respectful each and every one of them was. Each experience consists of a hunter, a dog runner, Mr. Jeff Moll taking pictures and two wingers backing up the kids if they missed.
   There was some missing, there were a lot of pheasant that are now in heaven and a lot of laughter on a beautiful sunny day in the Northwoods.
   After 16 hunts, the kids were fed elk chili, hamburgers and brats and they were also taught how to butcher their pheasant.
   I have to tell you for myself watching my old and new friends, watching 24-year-old Blake Mclain who was a KAMO Kid that now is a KAMO mentor this was a day worth more than I can describe.
   This gang of men and women led by Johnny Johnson get it done and in this region of the world, KAMO is extremely popular and everyone is thankful to all the donors that keep it going.

   Join a chapter, start a chapter, check us out!

   Sunset

   p.s. There were a lot of very cool helpers that I did not mention and simply do not have the space like, Tom Jonet, Randy Foltz, Linda Henry ect, ect!