BRIGHTON — They probably won’t be confusing him with “The Governator” anytime soon.
After Gov. John Hickenlooper took his time connecting birdshot with clay pigeon during a guest appearance at Saturday’s third annual Capitol Challenge Shoot Out at Colorado Clays, his son, Teddy, could no longer contain his impatience.
“This is taking FOREVER,” Teddy, 8, moaned as he awaited his turn at the shooting stand. “We’re going to be late for the movie.”
With a crowd of Colorado sportsmen looking on, Gov. Hickenlooper eventually regained the marksmanship of his youth and splattered enough clay to give Teddy a turn. And, after being instructed on how to fire a gun for the first time, junior forgot all about the matinee.
“That was awesome,” Teddy said. “Can I do it again?”
The giddy reaction was music to the ears of the nearly 100 attendees of the gathering designed to unite Colorado lawmakers with their sportsmen constituents — but less because of the young shooter’s lineage than his age.
“It brings in a youth component that we really like to see,” Gaspar Perricone, co-director of the Denver-based Bull Moose Sportsmen’s Alliance, said of the smattering of young shooters at the event. “Really, at the end of the day, this is how it starts. You don’t introduce somebody to the sport with a rifle and a first elk hunt. It begins at the end of a dock with a can of worms.”
Opening that can of worms is among the missions of Perricone’s and Tim Mauck’s Bull Moose Alliance.
The nonprofit organization founded nearly two years ago aims to ensure the passage of rod and gun sports to future generations in Colorado by promoting policies paramount to those activities. And along with Hickenlooper, they’ve attracted the attention of some major players.
“It really is just an opportunity to get rank and file sportsmen and legislators involved with one another,” Perricone said. “From the sportsman’s perspective, it’s an opportunity to show the role that the hunting and angling community plays in protecting the state’s wildlife and habitat, as well as the economic benefit that we bring as the second largest tourism industry in the state.
“On the other hand, I think it’s something that the legislators appreciate — an opportunity to come out and engage with their constituents in a setting that’s a little bit less political and a little more fun.”
With youth volunteers from 4-H Shooting Sports lending a hand and the guest of honor’s son taking his first shot, it also helps establish a foundation in the future of field sports.
“It’s kind of the next generation of hunters and anglers that will carry the torch for us,” Perricone said. “Getting them engaged early and often, I think, is an important piece to ensuring that all these policies that we fight for and the heritage of the sport continue.”
Bottom line, Perricone said, is that the outdoors are all about looking out for the future. From wildlife and habitat to those charged with its protection, the passion for preserving every piece of the puzzle needs to be as infectious as the passion for gunpowder, he said.
And he’s not alone in his optimism.
“I think the public at large appreciates the natural resources more than they did when I started my career,” said Ducks Unlimited CEO Dale Hall, the former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The challenge is going to be that that public is the one that’s aging. We need to get the kids involved so that there are future conservationists to share that.”
The key, Halls said, is simply getting them outdoors.
“I think the kids get it more now, but they think conservation is the Animal Planet, instead of getting outside,” he said. “Our big challenge with the kids is to get them outside. To get them connected with nature in that sensory way where you touch and you feel and you smell and you actually bond with nature, instead of watching it on TV or the computer. That’s our biggest challenge for this generation.”
And sometimes that means missing a movie.
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
