Give youngsters the first shot.

What gives with these adults writing in and whining about kids getting the first crack at the ducks before the regular season?

I think that it is a great idea. How else will you get some kids interested in the sport? I know a lot of adults who shoot a lot better than their kids do, so why not let the youngsters have the first chance at the ducks? I bet all of the adults who don't like this special opener have surely shot their fair amount of ducks in their time, if not a lot more. So why be selfish?

If the ducks leave because of some pre-opener shooting, there will be more to come. If guys only hunt the first two weeks as stated by Larry Hanneman (October Letters), then as far as I'm concerned, they should go hunting more.

Also, I question the notion the Midwest and North are froze up by early November. The way the weather patterns are now, I don't see any freezeup by Christmas--plenty of time to hunt birds and the new migrants.

I take my son every youth weekend. I just enjoy watching him shoot and call the birds. Besides, it gives me more time to train my Lab. So to all of the cry-baby adults who whine about youth hunts: Relax, take a kid hunting and help the sport out any way you can before it is all too late.

ROGER KENNEDY, Aurora, Colo.

I've tried to resist the controversy over youth hunts, but at last, I have been worn down.

Of course hunted birds are more wary--that is a no-brainer. And to be sure, a harsher hunting climate will weed out those weaker, less-committed 12-year-olds who have yet to pay their dues. Only the pure and masochistic will endure.

What we will end up with are some foolish hatchlings for an RV full of fat old men to shoot at, which will come at the expense of building on the sportsmanship and generosity of the fathers of conservation-minded waterfowl management past.

Waterfowling is better with more waterfowlers. This includes new hunters, women and youth.

It is wrong to believe that a late-season option can compete with modern distractions, or that competition alongside veteran hunters will be just the incentive to sell a teenager on spending more time with the geezers.

I hope never to blame a slow day in the field on some 6th-graders, or depend on a 10-pound duck strap of mallards for validation of a well-spent day.

I started hunting with a handful of paper-hulled shotshells, and have since been blessed to shoot birds on both sides of the Divide. I don't recall many of those birds, but I do remember all of the dogs and a good number of the people. I never have been angered by someone tooting at geese with a $200 cocobolo call, or even flaring ducks because she's checking text messages.

I might be jealous of them, because I know I am in the sunset of my days afield, and it doesn't seem fair to have passed so quickly. And because water-fowling of the future will be better, not in spite of the youth-only opener, but because of it.

D. REETZ, Absarokee, Mont.