I’m sure it’s not just Colorado that’s seeing a decline in hunters.
I have seen the same thing happen here in Pennsyltucky as well.
Hunting has changed a helluva lot since i began almost 50 years ago. Not only hunting, but attitudes towards it also.
50 years ago you had to get up out of the farm valley, because the deer were all Up on the mountain. Now they’re all down in the valley, and hunting on the mountain I see far fewer deer than I ever saw before.
Back in the 70s most of us hunted in smaller groups, usually splitting up to hunt separately from one another, and most of it was done by stalking, or what we called “still hunting “. You walk a few quiet steps, and stop and watch around for a few minutes, taking a few more step’s and pausing again.
Now everybody sits in a heated shanty all day. Others get a gang of over a dozen people and put on drives.
Kids now grew up with cable television, microwave ovens and other gadgets that offer instant gratification. Few of them have the patience to wait all morning for a shot.
After a few years of going, they lose interest and quit.
Some of us are born to it. Spending a day in the woods with my rifle is tonic to me, but most find it tedious and boring.
Pennsylvania in the 50s and 60s boasted well over a million hunting licenses sold. We’re nowhere near that level now. Land we were welcome to hunt on is now a subdivision full of soccer moms.
Deer have moved into the suburbs, living in patches of woods you wouldn’t look twice at . They come out ant night eating people’s flowers!
Living on the mountain eating acorns is too difficult for them, so they’re down here in cornfields and orchards!
I still love to do it, but most of my former compadres either quit, or they’re hunting that big mountain where the drags are all downhill.😀
I’m 58, who knows what it’s gonna be like for my grandkids? I just hope that I can instill in them what my Dad did in me.
Reon
