Patrick Durkin: A sobering fact is older, experienced hunters cause most hunting-related shooting incidents

At risk of annoying my fellow old-folk hunters, please remind your hunting partners to keep an eye on you – and you on them – when you’re hunting deer, ducks, turkeys, coyotes or small game.

That’s especially true when hunting with firearms, but it’s also possible to kill yourself or others with archery gear. In October 2012, a 50-year-old Marathon County, Wis., man died when his arrow struck his neck and penetrated his head as he hauled his cocked-and-loaded crossbow up to his treestand, broadhead pointing up. Something jarred or caught the crossbow’s trigger, releasing the shot.

Three other crossbow hunters – ages 40, 42, and 78 – shot themselves in the foot during the 2015, 2020, and 2023 hunting seasons.

Although hunter safety gets lots of attention each deer season, Wisconsin hunters in recent years also died while hunting ducks, squirrels, turkeys, and coyotes. In fact, seven of the past 12 gun-deer seasons had zero fatal shootings, including 2023.

Still, even one death or crippling wound is too much, no matter what we’re hunting. According to annual “incident reports” compiled by the DNR (posted on the agency website), 28 Wisconsin hunters died in 357 hunting-related shootings since 2007, an average of 1.5 fatalities and 20 shootings annually. No fatalities occurred in any hunting season in 2014 and 2023.

Those are vast improvements from 1966, when we endured a record 264 shootings and 21 fatalities in just one autumn. The next year, 1967, Wisconsin began offering hunter education courses. These classes, which must provide at least 10 hours of instruction, became mandatory in 1985 for anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 1973.

Starting in 1980, Wisconsin also required hunters to wear blaze-orange clothing while hunting deer with firearms, and strongly encouraged orange while hunting upland birds and small game. Another factor that improved safety is that most deer hunting today is done from treestands or other elevated stands, causing most bullets to be aimed downward into the ground, reducing ricochets.

Further, deer drives are less common today and use fewer participants. Drives can produce unsafe situations as deer flee unpredictably, sometimes running between drivers and shooters. Also, hunting participation is declining. Wisconsin sells 100,000 fewer gun-deer licenses annually than it did 25 years ago. Also, hunting pressure on opening weekend of deer season has dropped as more hunters prefer hunting earlier in autumn with crossbows.

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Even so, older, more experienced hunters regularly cause the most hunting-related shootings, even if they’ve passed the state’s mandatory safety course. Of the state’s 357 hunting-related shootings since 2007, hunters 40 and older caused 47% of them, followed by hunters 18-39, 33%, and hunters 17 and younger, 20%.

That older age group caused the most shootings in 13 of the past 18 hunting seasons, and tied with the 18-39 age group in 2019. The 18-39 age group caused the most shootings three years. The youngest age group caused 45% of the shootings in 2016, the only year it held such dishonor.

In other words, when hunters get shot or shoot themselves, the triggerman probably isn’t a young neophyte. Since 2007, hunters 17 and younger typically cause 17% of all hunting-related shootings. The group’s overall average of 20% includes that 2016 outlier of 45%. Only one other time, 33% in 2022, did youngsters cause more than 29% of the shootings.

We should note, however, those percentages don’t factor in the sizes of each age group. It’s possible some age groups account for more shootings simply because they include more hunters. Even so, hunters 40 and older caused 50% or more of the state’s shooting incidents in eight of the past 18 seasons, and more than 40% of the shootings in five other seasons.

The patterns are consistent. The DNR’s 2007 report showed hunters 40 and older caused 66% of the 27 incidents. Of those, the riskiest group was 40- to 49-year-olds, with 30% of the shootings; followed by 50- to 59-year-olds, 22%, and 60 and older, 14%.

Five years later, the DNR reported 28 shootings during the 2012 fall hunts, with hunters 40 and older causing 58% of the incidents. And five years later, the DNR reported 22 shootings, with hunters 40 and older causing 55% of the shootings in 2017.

Variances occur, of course. In 2018, hunters 40 and older triggered 29% of the shootings, the same percentage caused by hunters 12 to 17 years old. And the past two years, the 40-and-older group trailed the 18-39 age group, which caused 55% and 42% of the shootings, respectively.

The DNR also reports that hunter-education training can’t guarantee safety. In 2022, 92% (11 hunters) of shooters were hunter-education graduates. Only 8% of shooters never took the course.

A year ago, 18% of shooters never completed a hunter-education course, while 73% of shooters were graduates. And as recently as 2021, 33% of shooters weren’t hunter-education graduates, but 67% had passed the course.

Matt O’Brien, the DNR’s deputy chief warden, said in a recent interview that remedial training might help. After all, the average time lapse between a shooter’s hunter-education graduation and the shooting was 20 years.

But O’Brien said it’s challenging to reach older hunters and convince them they might need a refresher class. A simple public-service ad on TV or radio won’t reach most people, given declines in local news programming as more hunters get their information from podcasts and social media.

“Not everyone will believe they’re complacent about firearms safety,” O’Brien said. “In some ways, it’s like telling senior citizens they must re-qualify for their driver’s license. It’s not an easy conversation.”

O’Brien said the surest way to improve safety is to guard against complacency.

“Don’t assume you’re alone in the woods. Don’t take shortcuts just because you’ve gotten away with it before,” he said.

O’Brien urges hunters to live by the four “TABK” rules of gun safety: T – treat every firearm as vif it’s loaded; A – always point the gun’s muzzle in a safe direction; B – be certain what’s in front of your target and beyond; K – keep your finger outside the trigger guard until ready to shoot.

The “TABK” acronym builds in redundancies.

“If you don’t do one thing right, you should still be OK,” O’Brien said. “You lose redundancies with each shortcut. If you trip and fall with the safety off, and your finger or a stick gets inside the trigger guard, you’re in trouble.”

Also encourage your hunting partners to watch and correct how you handle your firearm, and point out careless handling you see.

If they don’t appreciate mutual inspections, remind them that complacency kills.

Contact Patrick Durkin at patrickdurkin56@gmail.com.