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Deer hunting is dying. That should worry you even if you don't hunt.
Wild Turkey
Member Posts: 2,425 ✭✭✭✭
Neat commentary. Well worth reading.
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All hunting is dying, as is shooting. I'm glad I'm so old this wont affect me.
My grandkids are screwed!!!😥
This is true. There are far fewer hunters now than when I started many years ago. I was in KY for the opening of rifle season this past weekend and I heard maybe a 1/3 of the shots that I used to hear.
Part of the reason is that you have to be a Philly lawyer to walk in the woods!
I've noticed that back in my day I enjoyed being outside, made my own toys, had my dogs, was shooting guns at a young age and always carried a pocket knife, even to school and several of my school teachers were hunters and some asked me to take them quail hunting and deer hunting and we talked guns and hunting.
I see kids now days that are brainwashed in school (about bad knives and guns and the Boogie man in the woods, they have to constantly look at their cell phone, they are scared of the dark due to being taught the Boogie man will get them, and they have more fun playing with their cell phone vs being out in the cold air before daylight waiting on a Bambi that has been mistreated by bad hunter that killed his mommy. (or them being asked to shoot Bambi's mommy)
I've also noticed that the Wildlife Dept in my area has not even woke up to the fact that hunters are going away. The wildlife dept employees do not seem to realize that hunters, especially young hunters is what makes their bread and butter. (pay checks)
The wildlife dept offers special draw Youth hunts in some area's for a 2 day hunt and if weather is bad it's a wash out. They should issue rain checks if conditions where they were to hunt is not right.
Cost of individual tags for each hunt is also out of sight. A youth Deer tag should be good until a animal is harvested no matter the type of gun used, whether for black Powder, Gun, Archery, Bear, and maybe even a year later. (at least try to give them an incentive to want to try to hunt) Assign couple of youth hunters to the Dept employees and the Game Wardens to take them hunting and they stay assigned until the Youth hunters harvest a animal.
At least give the Youth and their Dad a incentive to want to hunt instead of just constantly draining their pocket book for tags and lic's. Game Wardens also need to quite acting like they are God of the woods and have better public relations toward the Youth hunters.
If a youth gets drawn for a hunt they should be allowed to hunt until they at least get a shot at a animal.
When I was a kid, I could take a gun into about any woods around. Now, if you don't belong to a hunting lease, there are few good places where you can hunt.
I'm in the corn fields and I don't hear any shots in bunch of years
the loss of places to hunt is the biggest cause of hunter participation numbers dwindling. why buy all the necessary gear needed to hunt if you have no place to use it? between the closings of public hunting acreage in response to the establishment of hiking, biking, horse trails, leasing of private property hunting rights, and manipulation of hunting laws by individuals aimed at stopping hunting near their property. Joe SixPack and his 2 kids find themselves on the outside looking in for a place to hunt. and the situation will not get any better in the foreseeable future.
Plenty of Amish around here hunt and they all have lots of kids. I used to see droves of deer and the herd sure has been thinned.
A complex issue to be sure. A few thoughts that come to mind:
I love to hunt deer. I, however, have come to dislike butchering deer and dislike eating it even more.
I don't what planet you guys are on but no shortage of deer or hunters in MO
I hunt on a 6200 acre lease in SW Arkansas. We have 35 members, pay $1100/yr, and have a waiting list to join. As with everything else, it is expensive, but I enjoy it. We lease from timber companies, land corporations, and private owners. Some parcels are as small as 25 acres. We have to put up with clear cutting, select harvesting, and trespassers/poachers. The liability insurance keeps going up, as well as the per acre lease payments. If you aren't incorporated to protect yourselves and the landowners, you are out of luck. Locked gates, posted signs, and cell cameras are all used by all the leases around us.
My 16 year old son and I went to the movie "the creator", basically we thought it was a man vs AI war movie kind of in line with the terminator series. I told him the movie was almost a training manual for what was to come.
When it started it said year was 2060. I said to him, "ok I'll be 80, I probably don't have to worry too much, it'll be his problem to fight the robots" haha
He replied "we're screwed, you see all the * my age I'm left to fight with"
He has several friends who hunt but even in rural North Dakota there are getting to be less and less that hunt and shoot.
Access: Begins right outside my back door and extends for a mile.
Hunting laws: I'm in a constant battle with the 'bunny cops' about just how many deer should be removed from our property to reduce crop damage.
Changing society: ?? Half the small communities have a 'deer hunters meal' at some point during opening weekend and the area is inundated by non-resident hunters.
Costs: Hard to quantify that. Land values are escalating. Latest offer was a touch over $3M but who's counting? Two family farms that are 5 and 7 generations of immediate family and won't be sold.