Louisiana has a special either sex Youth Hunt before the regular season opener. It allows youths younger than 16 years of age to hunt under the supervision of an adult who must maintain visual and voice contact with the youth at all times. Only one gun is permitted.

It's a great program that gives dads, grandpas and uncles the opportunity to take a kid in the woods before the pressure of the regular season. Naturally, the week after the hunt the Louisiana Sportsman hunting forum contains lots of posts with pictures of young hunters and their kills. Fine stuff.

One recent post contains the picture of a pretty little 4-year old girl with blood smeared on her cheeks who took a nice 8-pointer during the youth hunt.

While I love the idea of the youth hunt, it seems to me that four years old is just too young. It's great to have a kid like that accompany an adult in the stand. But four year olds should be shooting BB guns at tin cans, not .243's at deer. They're just too young to fully understand what they're doing and what hunting is all about.

What say you?