Sports show: Help from a mentor can be a huge help for a novice turkey hunter

Pat LaBarbera was fortunate.

His father instilled in him a love of the outdoors. Taught him to fish and hunt, from strategies and techniques to safety and ethics. Their time in the field was priceless.

Not everyone has an Iggy LaBarbera at his disposal, but Pat would like to see others benefit from the same sort of hands-on lessons. For that reason, he loves Wisconsin’s mentored hunting program that permits novices to forgo classroom training and instead learn in the field directly from an experienced hunter who is focused solely on the newcomer’s development.

“It’s unfortunate it wasn’t brought up many more years ago because it’s very popular and fantastic program for not only young people but older adults as well that want to get introduced to hunting,” LaBarbera said.

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“The mentee gets the hands-on, one-on-one experience of actually being out in the field and actually pursuing game, coupled with the fact that he or she is being mentored by an experienced hunter, be it a father, an uncle, the next-door neighbor who’s providing that individual with their experience, whether it be hunting turkey, hunting ducks, hunting white-tailed deer.”

LaBarbera and his wife, Kelly, will bring their passion for the Wisconsin outdoors to the Journal Sentinel Sports Show as presenters in two seminars, including one on mentored turkey hunting.

Really, LaBarbera said, the principals of mentored hunting apply across all types of game, but turkey is a particularly good fit for the practice.

“One of our most popular methods of hunting involves a turkey tent, a ground blind,” LaBarbera said. “We’ll post that on the edge of a field where turkeys are known to frequent, and we’ll sit in that blind for a couple, three, four hours. We’ll put out some decoys and then call off and on as the day goes on.

“There might be an hour when absolutely nothing is happening; you don’t hear a turkey, you don’t hear a turkey, and it can get a little boring.”

A first- or second-time hunter, especially a young one, might be fidgety. The blind provides cover for movement – or reading or even playing a game during the lull.

“But the fascinating thing about turkeys is one second there’s nothing and then next second all of a sudden, a gobbler will gobble right behind the blind,” LaBarbera continued. “Where did he come from?”

As the novice hunter moves his gun or bow into position, he has the cover of the blind and advice of a nearby mentor, who also can share in the success of the hunt.

LaBarbera, 60, of Black River Falls, laughs about how his knowledge has evolved over the past 30 years. When he started, he often would be out of the woods by 8:30 a.m., a time LaBarbera now realizes is prime for hunting.

His father might have taught him that when he was young, but wild turkeys were scarce, so it’s the sort of knowledge LaBarbera accumulated on his own and can share with those he teaches and mentors.

“I can remember back to 1989 and 1990 just parking my car alongside the road and standing in awe at flocks of wild turkeys that I had never seen in my lifetime,” LaBarbera said. “I can remember my father telling me about hearing gobblers in the woods but never actually seeing one.

“So here for me to stand alongside the road, I almost got in a  traffic accident. … But I was like, oh my gosh, this is fantastic!”

Pat and Kelly LaBarbera will present "Mentored Turkey Hunting" at 6:30 pm. Saturday and "Falconry: Hunting with Hawks" at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sm