headgear wrote:DaveT1963 wrote:I know I should stay away form this topic but cant...… IMO, the decline in overall hunter numbers has more to do with private land being locked up from local kids then any other factor. In our pursuit to keep the best for ourselves we have made a lot of tags and hunting opportunities above the wage scale for a lot of working class families. Sure some states have a lot of public land - others not so much. There was a time when a kid could go explore all over his local turf and the land owners were pretty inviting. IMO - The overall population of "hunters" these days could give a rats behind about recruiting new hunters.... I don't see a shortage of Posted keep out signs that is for sure. As a kid I don't ever recall seeing one. Horn envy has led to hunting becoming a privileged sport in a lot of places.
Completely agree with everything you are saying here but I grew up in an area with unlimited access to public land, all the guys I grew up with hunted and fished and we had a blast. However as everyone got older almost all of them stopped hunting, the ones that still do barely go out. They just walked away from it without any real explanation, they must have better things to do but I don't know what that is and I can't explain it. People are just disconnected from nature and it is a sad reality.
I'm going through that right now. Hunted and fished 50 weekends and many weekdays every year up until a couple years ago. Always wondered why the middle aged guys would stop going or severely curtail their efforts.
Frankly, it gets to be too much for some folks - they like to but the drive isn't as strong and who wants to be shivering out in the cold when you can snuggle up under the warm covers and not be tired for the whole weekend... Or too flipping hot - this is FL and we're gonna be in the 80s soon. 3rd year in a row that we had sweating temps in early December - prolly more but I tried to hunt the last 3.
It also depends on your job. I have the opportunity to deer hunt this weekend and am not gonna go. In order to go to CO mule deer hunting I worked 3 80-hr weeks back to back just to go on vacation, Drove 62 hours to get there & back + 2-4 hours per day covering ground. Had a good time. Have worked 60+ hr weeks since (can't forget opening weekend of duck season). Last week had to travel to see family (about 14 hours of driving total). Now I can go an drive 10-12 hrs total for 3 hunts and just don't find it to be worth it. Saw something online - it was how many hours folks need to work each week to live "comfortably" and every state was over 40 hours, many over 50 hours, Hawaii was at 90 hours.
Then there is the whole hunting aspect of my future. Just sick and tired of the public land BS around here. (we are up to 21 million people and growing daily - hunting isn't ever gonna get better in FL) I'll do a few travel hunts, play the quota game, and that'll be that. Introducing 2 guys to the sport this month - taking em to shoot deer, then taking stepson & his GF too.
As for hunter retention and generation - there needs to be more opportunity to hunt and more opportunity to shoot stuff. The local NWR has 3 day archery hunts. It is enough to provide opportunity but not enough for most folks to shoot anything - they provide opportunity and increase the numbers of folks using the resource that way.
Less hunting area = less hunters. More development/population = less hunting areas. More leases = less hunting areas. More hunters in smaller areas = more competition and less sportsmanship. More population = more animal sympathy and less hunters as more folks are not born to hunting families. Tough cycle to break. I'm phasing out due to these very issues.