Jul 13, 2025
From Firefighting to Fly Fishing: Hundreds of Youth Dive In at Outdoor Experience Event
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From extinguishing fires to hitting bullseyes, the Outdoor Youth Experience delivered a full day of hands-on adventure, opening a world of outdoor skills and wildlife education to more than 800 area youth.
On June 14, 2025, a Federal retiree volunteered to conduct demonstrations on terminal ballistics for pistol and rifle ammunition at the 2nd Annual Youth Outdoor Experience sponsored by the Long Spurs of Sunrise River and the National Wild Turkey Federation. The event was held at the Gopher Rifle and Revolver Club in Harris, MN and was attended by over 800 youth up to 17 years old and their chaperones.
Attendees first experienced a test to determine their eye dominance. After that, they were free to wander the grounds to learn about or participate in several activities, including:
- Dog training
- Extinguishing a burning automobile
- Duck decoy carving and painting
- Foraging in the woods
- Turkey calling
- Black bear habits
- Scoring deer antlers
- Food plots for deer
- Knot tying
- Trap shooting
- Axe throwing
- Fly fishing
- Cowboy shooting
- Shotgun patterning
- Spotting and watching wildlife
- Safety in the woods
- Archery
- Shooting a .22 caliber rifle using Federal ammunition
- Learning about wild turkeys
- A terminal ballistics demonstration sponsored by Federal
In addition to the demonstration, Federal gave out branded youth hooded sweatshirts.
Attendance at the event grew more than 50% over last year. Next year’s event is already scheduled for June 13, 2026, so mark your calendars!