Chicago’s Family Day Outdoors brought the incongruity of archery, duck calls, shotguns, fishing and turkey mounts to the Chicago Southeast Side to the area on Saturday. William W. Powers State Recreation Center.

Sounds of children making duck calls and the occasional shotgun blast floated along the shores of Wolf Lake on Saturday. The incongruity of archery, duck calls, turkey mounts, fishing, shotgun shooting and a hot dog lunch mingled with the second day of the outdoors in Chicago family at the William W. Powers State Recreation Area in southeast Chicago.

Juliana Senorski took charge of showing her younger sister Angelina how to pitch correctly. Kevin Culhane and Carol McGhee asked William, 5, and Morgan, 3, to diligently make their orange duck calls. Mountains of wild turkey varieties sprawled across the Traveling Turkeys trailer. Connor Kmiec, 6, turned around with an invaluable expression when he hit a target with an arrow, under the steady hand of Dan Stephens of the Illinois Learn to Hunt program and the watchful eye of his father Carl, of the ‘International Association of Machinists Local 126. Steve Wabi again gave instruction on handling shotguns, before taking adults or youth to the water’s edge to shoot clay pigeons.

It was beautiful and necessary.

Dale bowman

It also took a community — Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2, New Concept Benefit Group, Union Sportsmen’s Alliance, Illinois Learn to Hunt, Illinois Conservation Foundation, TEACH Outdoors, South Cook County Chapter of Pheasants Forever, Illinois Department of Natural Resources —To shoot it off.

Dale bowman