John,
Again, I'm talking seasonal. I don't have much truck for road hunting, or using an ATV to hunt from, or driving everywhere just because it's possible. It goes back to the bad range behavior I've seen at so many informal public lands shooting sites. There are slob shooters and slob hunters and I think the gates should go up during the times of the year that mechanized use becomes a problem, or where irresponsible morons tear stuff up.
And I also want to put "hunting" in perspective. I understand where you make your living, and I'm glad you can do that, it's a cool thing.
But tourism, including hunting, is seasonal and its also discretionary. It's play money.
It's not an economic core, not a foundation for a stable economy. Tourism is just the gravy on top of the meat.
Even in Montana, hunting can't carry a community year round, although it helps in some places. Sure, there's five weeks, but what about the other 47 in the year?
A classic example of this is northwest Colorado. There are coal mines, oil and gas, ranches, and some of the finest mule deer I've ever had a chance to shoot. Yes, the hunters book Rangely and Meeker rock solid, flood the country with orange, but the rest of the year, the motels are full of resource-company people. That's what really carries these towns, and that's true for just about anywhere in rural America.
If hunters support policies that make these towns more dependent on the hunter dollar, the hunting experience WILL become less accessible to hunters in general, more elitist, and reduce the numbers needed at the voting booth to keep hunting alive for the average American.
