Apprentice Licenses

[firstwd]

I fully support the idea behind the apprentice licences and understand the lifetime limit of three, for adults. I'm wondering about the limit on youth.
Did the youth limit just come as unintended consequences of the lifetime limit, or is there an intentional reason for a youth limit?
In my thinking, since the youth consolidated licences allows the youth to hunt IF they are accompanied by an adult, that can't be a bad thing.

Who would I need to talk to about lifting the lifetime limit on youth consolidated apprentice licences?

[morrison]

The Apprentice License was established to reduce the perception that Hunter Education was a barrier to people starting to hunt. The theory was "Let them purchase a license that would allow them to go hunting with an experienced hunter who was certified in Hunter Education to see if they want to pursue the activity. Allowing them to purchase three licenses (Apprentice) would provide ample opportunity to see if they were interested prior to requiring them to sit through a ten hour course to be certified." For adults, the licenses could possibly be used in a short period of time. For example: Deer Archery, Deer firearms, and Deer muzzleloader would be the limit of three. However, for a youth, the license would allow for three complete years of hunting activities as the Youth Consolidated License includes all Indiana License requirements as well as stamps with the exception of the Federal Waterfowl Stamp if they wanted to hunt waterfowl after age 15. Once the youth has hunted for three years (with a hunter that has been certified in Hunter Education), they should know if they want to continue hunting. At that time, they need to take the Hunter Education Course. The normal Youth Consolidated Hunting License does not require them to be accompanied by any one. The Apprentice license is what requires them to be with another hunter certified in Hunter Education.

The Apprentice license is under state statute and would require legislative action to be changed. You would need to speak with your local State Senator or State Representative to have anything changed.