Learning Curves

As a California resident, my first step in becoming a hunter was to complete a certified Hunter Education/Safety course.  In many states, you can’t legally hunt unless you complete a hunter ed course, which covers basic firearm safety and handling, shooting, hunting techniques, ethics, and conservation, among other things.  At first glance it seemed straightforward.  You attend a class and once you pass a written test, you can start blasting birds and dropping deer. Or so I thought.  There were a couple of important steps needed before I could get to the fun stuff.  Fortunately, I had solid resources to draw advice from, namely the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife website (www.wildlife.ca.gov).  Their Hunter Ed page gives a good introduction into the course and how to find classes in your area.

But according to the CDFW, before you can even register for Hunter Ed in California, you must first create a California Get Outside (GO) ID here https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Hunter-Education/GetGOID.  From what I understand, the GO ID is a unique identification assigned to CA residents in order to purchase and possess California fishing or hunting licenses.  Since I’d fished before, I already had my GO ID set up for fishing licenses, but the process is pretty quick if you don’t have one.  Follow the steps in the page, and you’ll receive a GO ID after providing some personal information like your address, phone number, and valid identification.

With my GO ID ready, I had two options according to DFW: 1) take a traditional 10+ hour in-person, instructor-led course over an entire weekend, or 2) study online at my own leisure and take a 4-hour in-person follow-up class.  The page is pretty nifty because it lets you search for upcoming classes based on your location.  As a beginner, I definitely considered the 10-hour class because I felt I might benefit from a more hands-on and direct session where I could ask questions and get immediate answers.  But I also have a terrible memory, and I wasn’t sure spending a weekend cramming would be helpful in retaining all that knowledge.  What’s more, I live in San Francisco, and I couldn’t find any traditional courses offered within an hour’s drive of me.  Most classes were being held in some distant gun club or sporting store, and began either too early or too late in the day when factoring in the drive.  So instead, I opted for the online course + follow-up, and I think I made the best decision given my circumstances.

CDFW lists three online course options (I ended up using https://www.hunter-ed.com/california/). The course costs about $30, is browser-based, and accessible any time and anywhere you have an internet connection, and you never lose the materials in case you ever want to reference back.  That’s super helpful, especially with my full-time job, because I could study at my own pace. The material is easy to comprehend, and combines written text, audio, video, and imagery, all reinforced by chapter-end tests, and small quizzes sprinkled in.  Coverage of each topic can be extensive and lengthy, but there’s no time limit to complete the course so you can take your time.  And believe me I took my sweet time, only studying during my lunch hour, then taking a multi-month break (got distracted by work and life), and then resumed studying again after that.  All told, about six months passed before I actually finished the course, but the materials were always there so it wasn’t a big deal. If you were to devote just a few hours a day, you could probably get through the course in couple days. YMMV.

Once you complete the online portion, you will receive an Online Course Completion Voucher to print out. You’ll need this for the next step: attending the 4-hour follow-up class.  If you go back to the CDFW Hunter Ed page, you can find a follow-up class based on location, just like the traditional class.  There are far more options offered for the follow-up class vs. the traditional.  At the time, I registered for my class at the SF Archers Club in Pacifica, which was only 20 minutes away from me. My class was on a Saturday at 9am, and cost $5.

The class itself had roughly 30 attendees with 3 instructors. It was well-structured and mostly centered on firearm safety, and to a lesser extent, state hunting regulations and acceptable hunter behavior/ethics. We also watched a short video on the history of conservation, and got to walk through the correct handling of various dummy guns. At the end of the class, we took a final test which most people passed.  If it’s been a while, as was my case, I strongly suggest you brush up using the online course materials, and bring a pen and paper to take notes.

If you pass the test, you’ll be given a physical certificate of completion about the size of a business card, with the instructor’s signature. Make sure you keep that for your own records, at least until the instructor submits your completion to CDFW, and it shows up on your online GO ID account. For me, it took about a week until it was reflected on my GO ID page.  As soon as that happens, you can start purchasing hunting licenses and different tags online and begin hunting legally. Of course, if you’re brand new like me and don’t own a gun or any gear, you’ll have a whole other set of hoops to jump through.  More on that in my next post!