If hunters are a dying breed, no one told these kids. That was the message Erika Larsen returned with after more than a year of photographing young hunters all over the country. In the face of studies that cite fading interest among youth in traditional outdoor sports, Field & Stream dispatched Larsen during last year's hunting season to get beyond the numbers. Her goal, she says, was to capture the intense connection that kids have with the natural world, to tap into their raw enthusiasm, and to get at the pure, unfettered joy of the hunt. "These kids were all hunting for the experience of it," says Larsen. "To them, anything they shoot is a trophy. They weren't looking to make it into the record books; they were just excited to be out there."

If you read the latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife study, you might think there soon won't be an American child left who wants to spend time in the woods. But on the following pages are 20 future sportsmen and -women who don't care about statistics yet. They want to go hunting, and from the look in their eyes, they'll be doing it for a long time. -"The Editors