The 2023 Annual North Texas Hunter Education Instructor update is being held in the Hart-Morris Conservation Center on the grounds of our own Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens.   Our guest speaker, TPWD Wildlife Biologist Heidi Kryger, will give us a behind the scenes look at a Texas Deer Check Station through the eyes of a biologist.   We’ll enjoy a noontime meal followed by a guided tour of the Fisheries Center, to include walking the wetlands trail which serves as a hunter skills trail for students participating in courses offered at the center and viewing the outdoor hatcheries on a tram tour. Participants will be afforded the opportunity to tour the Texas Game Wardens memorial and end the day watching the daily dive show during which a scuba diver hand-feeds fish in the 26,000-gallon aquarium in the Anhueser-Busch Theater.   The TFFC is an $18 million facility built without the use of state funds even though it belongs to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Many public and private entities worked with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation to raise this money.   Much of the money came from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Fund, a federal program funded by a tax on the purchases made by hunters and anglers.   TFFC houses a hatchery, laboratory, aquarium, and education center focusing on underwater wildlife in the state’s freshwater streams, ponds, and lakes. It serves as home base for the ShareLunker program, which invites anglers to donate trophy-sized largemouth bass for research and breeding purposes. Annual visitation is more than 60,000.