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Post by Reagan on Jan 21, 2021 18:17:34 GMT -6
If hunter numbers are decreasing, should we try to promote and expand the hunting population? Should we even care?
As much as I hate competition, I do think it is a good thing to promote hunting. In the past I took younger cousins and nephews on youth hunts. Non of them had a hunting parent and non of them continued to hunt as an adult. A friend who works for the state talked about the failure of youth hunts and the need for taking a non hunting adult. He got me thinking a couple of years ago.
I have a customer who hunted as a kid. When his grandpa died he never hunted again. He is now 37 and interested in learning. I took him 2 years ago for a weekend of turkeys. We never scored. He has hunted public since then and only had luck with squirrels.
Last weekend I put him in deer blind with a crossbow. I gave him the green light to shoot anything. Yes I was secretly hoping a nice 2 year old buck didn’t walk out but I accepted the fact that it might happen. He also might remember that buck for the rest of his life so it wouldn’t be all bad.
After less than an hour a button head ran into the plot. He put a nice shot on it. It ran off, laid down then got up and ran off. My hunter came back to the cabin and we gave it some time. The blood trail was sparse. I was discourage but my hunter tracked and found the deer with little help from me.
I had to coach him through gutting and breaking the deer down. We also rabbit hunted and he went out for squirrels the next day. Who knows he may be hooked. He may not be. Access might keep him from having success in the future. I’m certainly not promising a place to hunt in the future. But I enjoyed the guiding and the teaching. Time will tell if it made a difference to him. He has 5 kids so the chances are good if he sticks with it, one of them will follow.
Have any of you done something similar? I have been very protective in the past. I will continue to be that way. But it was fun loosening up a little last weekend to help a rookie and friend.
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Post by Sandbur on Jan 21, 2021 18:46:10 GMT -6
Great thing that you did. Thank you.
Hunting and fishing May have tracked up a bit with the covid shutdown and less high school sports. I don’t know if the trend will continue.
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Post by kooch on Jan 21, 2021 18:49:42 GMT -6
I've only had my place a couple of years and I've focused on my family rather than friends. My wife never hunted until after I got into it. Now she likes to kill a deer as much as anybody. I did let the neighbor kid across the street shoot a deer on my place a couple years ago. They'd been hunting hard all season across the street from Kamp Kooch without luck. I'd been watching the same six does every day. So I told them to have at it when I left. He killed his first deer an hour after I split. Now that same kid hunts, and hunts hard for birds and deer both.
So, I've done a small part.
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Post by kooch on Jan 21, 2021 18:57:45 GMT -6
I wish my Son loved it. Maybe he'll grow into it. He'll go, and smile about it. Maybe he just hasn't been beaten down by life enough yet to really feel the value in a few days of fresh air and dirt.
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Post by batman on Jan 21, 2021 18:59:41 GMT -6
I thinks its supply and demand. If you build it there is value. But how much does it cost? Managed private lands with good numbers of any specie limit the take. Public lands appear in rough shape across much of the nation.
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Post by Bwoods11 on Jan 21, 2021 19:57:27 GMT -6
I just had this discussion with a couple guys. We think there are more hunters now then ever, especially for deer hunting. We need to keep those numbers up, but there is no shortage!
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Post by smsmith on Jan 21, 2021 20:06:34 GMT -6
I've done little to promote hunting. I bought my step-daughter a bow and she hunted for a few years, she has since stopped. I give my SIL access to my place to bowhunt and he's shot two bucks since 2013. A buddy from WI used to come up and firearm hunt, but the lack of deer and distance made it less than appealing. He hasn't come up for years. If MN goes to statewide rifle, he may come up again.
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Post by Catscratch on Jan 21, 2021 22:14:13 GMT -6
Good on you guys!
I'll take damn near anyone dove and duck hunting, or trapping; coworkers, neighbors, my boy's friends, etc. I'm getting to the age that a lot of my friends have young children or grandchildren that they want to take on a hunt. It's been a blast to put them on dove fields. Most of those kids start with a bb gun and make retrieves for the old guys. Been quite a few of them.
Deer are different. The boys and I hunt the home place and maybe a couple of my good friends if they want a weekend or two. My dad traditionally let's most anyone he knows hunt deer if they ask. But in recent yrs he saves it for the grandkids to get first crack at them.
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Post by nhmountains on Jan 21, 2021 22:15:02 GMT -6
I just had this discussion with a couple guys. We think there are more hunters now then ever, especially for deer hunting. We need to keep those numbers up, but there is no shortage! New Hampshire’s licensed hunters have declined from 80,000 in 1980 to 50,000 now. As the outsiders have moved in the Hunter numbers have dropped. Our fish and game department is funded by the license sales and they’re responsible for search and rescue missions in the mountains. When I started work at my company there was a group of guys that had a deer pool each year. Most of those guys have moved on. I only know 2-3 hunters at my company now. |
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Post by nhmountains on Jan 21, 2021 22:22:13 GMT -6
I mentored my nieces husband and got him his first buck in 2017. He had never hunted before marrying her. It was a great first buck and I thought there’d me several more for him. Now that he has passed there’s a blank feeling when we put up and take down stands without him. I hunted a lot more this year and enjoyed being out there by myself.
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Post by MoBuckChaser on Jan 22, 2021 6:46:45 GMT -6
How do you promote hunting when you have to pay an outfitter in most places now. Big deterrent when kids have to pay.
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Post by Sandbur on Jan 22, 2021 7:56:43 GMT -6
How do you promote hunting when you have to pay an outfitter in most places now. Big deterrent when kids have to pay. The only thing we have going is public land. The hunting will be harder, but the dedicated will stick with it. Will high gas prices deter young from hunting? Assuming most will have to drive some distance. |
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Post by sd51555 on Jan 22, 2021 7:58:16 GMT -6
How do you promote hunting when you have to pay an outfitter in most places now. Big deterrent when kids have to pay. Without connections to the land, I don't know how the next generation can connect to the land. Every so often a story pops up where some family deal went tits up and a dude that was passionate about stewardship and connected to the ground is suddenly tossed in the bin. Those guys are devastated. And why? What have they lost? They lost the connection. I don't think you can separate the recruitment crisis from the land crisis. It'd be like trying to get new farmers farming without any durable land rights or ownership. |
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Post by buckvelvet on Jan 22, 2021 8:10:31 GMT -6
The place I had to hunt since 2010 on my now Ex's family land (yes, I know, where my orchard was planted, lots of 'oh wells') I took a young man, I think he was 15 at the time lost his 2 year (& best friend) older brother to cancer a week before our youth season, he shot a nice 8 point. That was a highlight! I took my nephew out on a youth hunt, he got his 1 and only doe. I took my young gal cousin and her friend during a different youth hunt, they both shot nice 8 points. I took my cousin out and he shot his first buck a 5 pt, a few years later he shot 1 of the biggest deer ever to betaken off that place. My best friends 2 children shot their first bucks off that place. I took my oldest daughter out many times but she never connected on a deer, we had plenty of good dad/daughter time though. Many friends I brought their to experience hunting and they had plenty of success.
I can look back and say confidently, I gave more than I took, sewing & reaping, it all comes back around.
Having only state land to hunt now and Michigan has a high population of hunters, it makes it quite difficult to hunt the people (by trying to avoid them). We had about 1 mill hunters in the mid 90s, now its ticking under 500k but the stateland is mostly oak flats or jack pine stands, not much cover, and if its a like acorn crop year, its tough to pattern them. So taking 'others' at this point comes with no promises of success other than memories made while passing time in the 'hope' of waiting.
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Post by Catscratch on Jan 22, 2021 8:19:28 GMT -6
How do you promote hunting when you have to pay an outfitter in most places now. Big deterrent when kids have to pay. Without connections to the land, I don't know how the next generation can connect to the land. Every so often a story pops up where some family deal went tits up and a dude that was passionate about stewardship and connected to the ground is suddenly tossed in the bin. Those guys are devastated. And why? What have they lost? They lost the connection. I don't think you can separate the recruitment crisis from the land crisis. It'd be like trying to get new farmers farming without any durable land rights or ownership. I lived through the land crisis in KS. We were one of the last states to open the boarders to non-residents. I know most states were way past us in the leasing and outfitting game, but here it was non-existent. When I was young you could hunt about anywhere for the effort of knocking on a door. Opened boarder + media + horn porn = an immediate land grab. Hunter numbers went WAY down in short order. I asked a lot of kids why they weren't hunting anymore. Answer was always tied to loosing land access. |
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