Maybe he comes from hunting stock, but has no one to share a sun-up under an oak tree scratching a slate to make that turkey decoy seem like the real McCoy.

Maybe he’s a city kid in a house devoid of shotguns and camouflage, yet curiosity suggests that, who knows, maybe bird-hunting would be cool.

Or maybe she’s a teenager who occasionally deer hunts with her family, but they spend their springs fishing on the Rogue River and not on the brushy hills around it.

"Maybe they’re kids who haven’t hunted or who deer hunt but never tried turkey hunting," Heil says. "We just really want to make an effort to find those kids who just don’t have the opportunity."

And when he finds these three over the next three weeks, Heil and the rest of the Rogue Gobblers Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation are prepared to give them a big taste of turkey hunting complete with all the trimmings.

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They will get a free guided hunt during the inaugural spring youth turkey hunt set for April 8-9 statewide.

They will get free camouflage from head to toe, a turkey call and even lunch in the field for them and an accompanying parent.

And if they bag a bird, they will get a free turkey-fan mount.

"We’ll even loan them a shotgun, if they need one," Heil says.

All the winners need to do is get their hunter-education certificates, hunting licenses and youth turkey tags by April 7.

The winners will be chosen from kids 17 and under who fill out applications available at several Medford-area sports stores. Applications are due April 26, with the winners notified by March 1.

The winners, and a parent, also will get tickets to the chapter’s March 4 annual banquet-auction in Medford.

It’s a complete dive into turkey hunting, free gear and all, for one weekend.

And if they want to go back to the X-Boxes and iPods after the whole experience, then that’s OK, too.

"If they turkey hunt this one time and don’t like it at all, that’s fine," Heil says. "That’s their choice."

But it’s a choice based on hunting experience, not a lack of chance or formed by what someone else tells them about hunting.

"All of us, as hunters, see the population of hunters going down," says Ric Timm, a fellow NWTF chapter member working on the project. "We need to reach out to the youngsters and show them how much fun it is being out there."

This show-don’t-tell style is the type of approach natural-resource agencies across the country are looking for in their quest to reverse, or simply slow, a decades-long trend of loss of hunters in America.

A recent survey conducted by a coalition of hunting and shooting groups concludes that only Nevada and Michigan are expected to lose hunters faster than Oregon.

Oregon still sports more than 200,000 hunters and close to 1 million licensed anglers, yet those numbers are the lowest in more than 35 years.

The downward trend has inspired Roy Elicker, the ODFW’s interim director, to form a committee to explore better ways to recruit and retain hunters and anglers.

The committee will look at possible youth licensing changes, altered hunter-safety programs and other ways to entice kids to stay connected to the traditional outdoor pursuits.

That committee is forming this month and its first report to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is in March, Elicker says.

When told of the chapter’s turkey hunt plans, Elicker —an avid turkey hunter himself — says the program seems ideal.

"It’s not going to turn things around overnight," Elicker says. "But think about what that says about the local community, where people go that far to help a kid have a unique and interesting experience."

It’s not like the ODFW and its sister agencies haven’t tried to stem the tide of lost hunters.

The agency last decade forged a series of youth-only hunts meant to get kids a short season of their own without getting trampled by adults.

Youth-only deer and elk hunts have been popular as a father-son hunt where the kids have a good chance to end their hunts happily.

But Elicker agrees that they are primarily used by kids who likely would have been exposed to big-game hunting anyway.

The youth pheasant hunts at places like the Denman Wildlife Area have reached over the fence to youngsters outside of the current hunting community.

That’s where Heil, a 39-year-old Medford man and upland gamebird fanatic, has helped youngsters hunt pheasants each September.

"You always see some divorced mom bringing her kid out, happy someone will take them pheasant hunting," Heil says.

During last fall’s hunt, he thought of arranging one for the spring youth turkey hunt, he says. The chapter followed suit.

The only thing left is finding the right kids.

And when he does, he plans on introducing them to turkey hunting the right way.

"I want to take them out scouting, show them what to do," Heil says. "I want to teach them proper etiquette, everything."