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For many people who live in Southwest Minnesota, hunting and fishing is a favorite hobby for any season. In a sport that now has many young women taking part in what was a male-dominated activity, there needed to be a training program for the young adults to enjoy hunting and fishing.

With state regulations now in place to make it safer for everyone, the teenagers had to have training in order to get a license. It wasn’t enough for the parents to teach their children the rules and regulations required. This is where the communities needed to have an organization that could provide this.

So many sportsman’s clubs in the area organized the training programs to give the kids a tool to be able to enjoy hunting and fishing, just as their parents and grandparents had done. In Lincoln County, one of the organizations stepped up that provided this was the Tyler Rod and Gun Club. They re-incorporated in 1982, after the club had gone dormant since the 1960s.

There were several people that got involved in getting the club going again, mainly to start gun training again, since it had been awhile since that had been done. In order to be certified to teach the classes, they needed to be certified by the state.

That early group included Steve Thomsen, Eldon Wellberg, Chuck Gackstetter, Harvey Dressen, Lenny Burckhardt, and a few other local residents. They took a one-night class in Marshall in order to get certified. But no one has been more involved than Chuck Gackstetter, who has been doing training for over 40 years.

“We started holding those classes at Lenny Burckhardt’s farm, then we switched to the basement of the Black Bear Bar in Tyler for the first five years,” said Gackstetter.

“After the classes, we would go to Lenny’s farm and do the shooting and testing. The classes were four nights, three and a half hours each. Then we did the testing on Saturday afternoon, where they shoot and do the gun handling lessons. The tests came from the state, and we administered them. There was a written test with about 50 questions, and you needed a score of 75% to pass.

“Then we would go the actual gun handling portion, and they would have to demonstrate that they knew how to cross a fence alone or with friend, how to take the gun in and out of a vehicle, and learn the zones of fire with a hunting party.”

In 2000, the club built a shooting range about a mile outside of Tyler, and the training continued there. The facility has accommodations for guns as well as bow and arrow targets and trapshooting.

“We also started doing the training there for four nights, and we still do the testing at the gun range. We have one night on pistols and one night on archery in addition to rifles and shotguns,” Gackstetter said. “The kids have to be eleven years old to start classes, and there is no other age limit. If you were born before 1980, you don’t need to have gun training to get a hunting license in Minnesota. We try to do classes just once a year in September, because of all the activities that both the boys and girls are involved with in high school. We have kids that come from about a 25 mile range from Tyler.”

Chuck has been teaching the classes since the inception of the training.

“Steve Thomsen started giving the classes, and I took over after four or five years and have been doing it ever since. I order all the books and testing materials in August in preparation for the classes. The game warden comes one night in the training, usually the second night, to help teach the classes. We get a lot of help from our members, since one person can’t do it alone. We do the testing in segments, with some kids starting at the rifle range, another group doing field testing and the rest doing the written test. Because the state is concerned with security, I have to do all of the paperwork by hand and send it in,” Gackstetter said.

For every five years of training, the instructors get a token of appreciation for their volunteer work.

“The five-year gift is a pen, the ten year is a belt buckle, and I got a wood duck print after 35 years, and just a couple of years ago, I received a plaque for 40 years of training. Shortly before his death, Eldon Wellberg received a 35-year print for his efforts. The fun part for me is that many years later, you will see the kids around and they never forget the training I gave them. I may not remember all of their names, but I know that at some point, I gave them some gun training, and that is very satisfying. That is your pay for volunteering,” he said.

The age group of the youths can make things a little challenging.

“We try to break into groups of five, and split up the friends to increase the focus a little. Larry Wyttenback tries to put a little fear into the kids to keep them in line, and Al Barber also can use a louder voice to keep them focused. I am probably a little lighter on them, but we are dealing with a serious topic, so it is important to keep their attention as much as possible. Larry and Al have been doing this for awhile, and Eldon Wellberg did this from the beginning until he passed away a few years ago. I am the only guy who is left still doing the training from the original group that we started with. Ron Persoon and Deb Honebrink have been helping the last few years. One year, we had enough volunteers to be able to build a deer stand, and we were able to show the kids how to get up and down from there safely. After 40-plus years, I still enjoy doing this,” he said.