Taking the hunting safety course "can't hurt."
Maybe you already know all the important stuff. But taking the course might give you good ideas on how to TEACH the fundamentals of safety to other people, young hunters coming up, or other beginners.
My dad taught my brothers and I pretty thoroughly about gun safety.
But I've seen the basics of gun safety violated many times out in the field.
Just recently I was out for a walk on a Sunday afternoon, along a gated woods road. I heard some shotgun shots ahead of me. I kept walking and up ahead two young guys were walking toward me. I talked to them briefly and the one guy's shotgun was sort of bobbing around, and at one point I'm pretty sure my legs and feet were in the line of fire.
He wasn't doing that deliberately to intimidate me. He was just careless. He probably figured it's empty, so he didn't feel the need to be careful about where the gun was pointed.
Small game hunting, I've seen people go under a fence, where one guy is going under the fence with his shotgun pointed at the guy ahead of him.
My dad would have had a cow if we had ever done these things. We were drilled that you NEVER have the gun pointed anywhere even close to anyone. And that was followed very strictly.
Here's something I've seen 3 times, and this is relevant to fisherman safety in regard to guns.
Three times I have encountered target shooting where the people had no backstop and other people in the area were put in great danger.
One time the guys were target shooting across a field to a target on the opposite side of a trout stream which I was fishing up. They were shooting directly across the stream, with deer rifles.
Another time guys were target shooting with handguns at cans sitting on top of a log. With no backdrop. And a flat floodplain and a stream beyond them. And I was fishing up that stream.
Another time I was out for a hike on a trail in Rothrock State Forest that is pretty close to State College and a very popular hiking place. Near dusk I was walking back down the trail towards the parking area and I heard some shots.
I kept hiking down the trail. And came upon some guy target shooting with a 22 at a target on a tree. There was no backstop and the line of fire was directly towards the trail that I had just walked down.
So, here's the safety tip for fishermen and hikers. If you hear target shooting up ahead, do not continue. Turn around and go back. You cannot assume that the target shooters are behaving safely. Assume the worst. Your safety is much more important than the inconvenience of interrupted fishing.
It's like the "drive defensively" idea. You have to assume that the target shooters might be senseless, careless idiots, and take precautions accordingly.
Yet another reason not to take a gun along while fishing, you cannot according to law shot at a target that isn't protected by a backstop, it's always been right in the book you get when you get a license. I don't know if it's still true but there used to be a requirement that it had to be a certified gun range or something similar to that.
