Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Future of Hunting?

Most of the public parcels I've been to are probably in the vicinity of 2-3k acres, some little pockets are much smaller. There's bigger tracts down south in rock country, but that's not where most people think of for big bucks. You can hunt a lot of these spots the week before rifle with a bow (golden time to hunt) and there's not too much interference/conflict due to number of hunters relative to property size. Go back opening weekend of rifle season, it's a warzone. MO offers unlimited OTC buck tags, at a relatively bargain rate compared to some of its Midwest neighbors. Dumbing archery season down and making it easier to sell more tags to those that currently sit it out (the handicapped can already get a medical exemption to use a crossgun) isn't what I see as a positive for hunting on public land.

It won't end soon here, as a whole, unless the US really goes down the tubes.

Now certain areas and states are acting stupid, banning lead bullets and the like so in certain areas I could see it being curtailed.

As to pricing, the market self adjusts.... see the rates in Mexico for a deer lease, and or when the US inflation goes up or down our rates reflect it here.

Being that there will be fewer and fewer folks with lots of money, because of what Obama and crew are doing, adn trying to do, IMHO costs may stay the same or go down, folks that own land will need money, folks won't have as much to spend, and so the pricing might actually go the other way....

there has to be "value" on one kind or another in hunting. for me, meat hunting made perfectly good sense under existing conditions.

for a lot of folks from suburbia, etc, is that only big horns count and everyone else is a version or clone of white treash. of course, hunting didn't get it's deep roots with that phiosophy.

as kroger, et. al, offered more afforadable meat, then hunters didn't have to be so successful. add-in the industry as it has developed, and now matured. it's an interesting paradox.

loss of habitat due to urbanization (read human population growth) is the biggest threat. regulations can be adapted to. it's difficult to create an additional acre of land to hunt on.

Hunting is becoming more excepted every year. Many suburb people have learned that deer are beautiful but have no place in an upscale subdivision. Venison is being viewed as organic and free range . Young girls are getting into hunting more every year. It is very hard for A holes like George stephenopolis and Katie Kurig to demonize a sport that young single women and young girls are enjoying. Honestly, they might save the sport to some degree. They know how to go out and have fun without going into depression if they dont get a big buck.

Constructional Right to Hunt,,

Here and 18 other states.

As of 2015, eighteen states have constitutional amendments providing for the right to hunt and fish. Vermont was the first state to constitutionalize such a right in 1777. The other sixteen states have all adopted right to hunt and fish amendments since 1996. The following is a list of states with constitutional amendments establishing the right to hunt and fish:[4]

1777: Vermont
1996: Alabama
1998: Minnesota
2000: North Dakota
2000: Virginia
2003: Wisconsin
2004: Louisiana
2004: Montana
2006: Georgia
2008: Oklahoma
2010: Arkansas
2010: South Carolina
2010: Tennessee
2012: Idaho
2012: Kentucky
2012: Nebraska
2012: Wyoming
2014: Mississippi

http://ballotpedia.org/Idaho_Hunting_and_Fishing_Amendment,_HJR_2_(2012)

This is how it will go down, at some point. Just like in Europe today.

For a lot of folks from suburbia, they'd rather lose the deer than their azaleas.

15 years ago I told many of my friends Gay Marriage would be legal in all 50 states.

My friends said I was a Gloom and Doomer!

I said, to the contrary, I am a realist!




Shod

Do the math. We're vastly outnumbered.

Only about 45 million Americans have hunted or are known to actively support hunting. (Fewer than 20 million buy hunting licenses, though.)

The last census indicates the U.S. has a population of nearly 319 million.

Bill Quimby

Maybe our kids won't see the demise of hunting, but I do think in 75 years or so it will be vastly different than it is today. I think on the flip side, shooting will remain strong. I know plenty of people that shoot a lot, but never hunt and have no interest in it.

Some states like CA might just outlaw virtually all forms of hunting, but the real killer will be lack of interest. Hunting will be something that was done "back in the day" but has no real purpose in the future more urban world other than a novelty.

I look at my own kids and their friends as a barometer, and hunting just isn't as popular with the young now as compared to when I was a kid, simply due to time, access, and so many other things for kids to do now.

And fewer hunt every year.

Like just about everything in life, follow the money trail. Who pays for conservation? That would be those who hunt.

This is exactly what has already happened in my area. I didn't hunt last year and won't this year. Dunno if I ever will. Due in part to an increase in auto/deer collisions and the subsequent lobbying by the insurance companies, Georgia first raised the bag limit to what it is now and then made baiting legal. There are more hunters and less deer. Land to lease has become PRICEY. Rich man's game.

We've always been outnumbered if you look at the percentage of the population that hunts. But we're still roughly equal to the percentage that's actively anti-hunting.

Which leaves all the people in the middle who neither hunt nor are actively anti-hunting. Those are the ones we need to concern ourselves with because they are the majority of the voters.

What RL said is true; hunting is now hip. Every year I see more and more gauged earlobes in our hunter Ed. classes. Some may see that as a negative, but it's a good thing.

in the long run (in which we're all dead), hunting has been able to offer a positive social assist. that is, the social contract has held firm.

short of hungry people chasing rabbits & squirrels down the street throwing rocks at them in order to procure supper, hunting must remain as a positive social assist if it's to remain legal.

the anti-hunters are coming out of the woodwork. not to worry, so long as they perceive that we're providing a valuable social service.

otherwise, we remain dead in the water, but still afloat.

Barkoff;
Good afternoon to you sir, I trust this finds you well and keeping cool enough.

The short answer is no I don't believe our children will be the last generation to hunt.

The reasons why I believe that are legion - here's a few.

I've been teaching the provincial Hunter Safety course here in BC since '89 and have seen the numbers of students either holding its own or increasing slightly.

In that time period we've gone from 1 or 2 females in class to between 35% - 45% of the class.

While in the late '80's it was unusual to see females hunting on their own locally, now it's commonplace to the point that it goes unnoticed.

Some may think that those last two points are insignificant, but I beg to differ as that represents 50% of the overall population and females are most often the head of single parent households - so if they are accepting of a hunting lifestyle the odds are exponentially higher that the children will be also.

As Rancho Loco noted, it's becoming quite acceptable in many urban and hip circles to hunt. A young couple taking the course years ago was the first time I'd heard of the term "locavore".

They were so excited to be mentored by "old guys" who'd been "doing it that way their entire lives".

We recently went round and round provincially with wildlife allocations between resident and non-resident hunters and surprisingly all the provincial political parties came out strongly in support of hunting.

Personally I was most surprised at the support we received from the Green Party - who were fine with hunting as long as we were eating what we shot.

Anyway sir, as you can likely tell I could go on for some time on the subject, but I'd suggest that if anyone is too pessimistic on the subject they should get involved with their state's Hunter Safety course or a hunter mentoring program.

Thanks for reading and letting me air my thoughts on the matter folks. All the best to you for the remainder of the summer Barkoff and good luck on your hunts this fall.

Dwayne

Anti-hunters don't perceive that we're providing a valuable social service, and they never will. They'd like to end hunting, period.

Non-hunters are the group you're really talking about.

ok. so what are we trying to sell and how does that help the average Joe walking down the street?

folks want to know how they're benefiting or being hurt from any said action.

holding down vehicle collisions offers value to the non-hunting public. how about other value-added actions that hunters offer?

in other words, in the post-capitalist, post-modern world, what good is a hunter to the average tax-payer, citizen, or voter?

It's not only what we are trying to sell, but who we are trying to sell it to. Trying to sell it to anti-hunters is a non-starter, that's my point. We need to sell it to the people in the middle, who neither hunt nor are actively against hunting. They are the majority, and their opinions can be swayed unlike anti-hunters.

And I don't think we need to "sell" them on the benefits of hunting to them as much as we need to convince them that it's an honorable and ethical thing to do.

Hunters do the rest of the citizens a service by controlling populations and pay for it thru license sales and Pittman-Robertson tax $$ on purchases of guns, ammo,etc. The political class will never give that up. But I do agree that finding hunting land will be more difficult and expensive.