Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Amount of hunters in the woods

Why do I keep reading that the amount of licensed hunters is going down each year, but I keep seeing more and more hunters in the woods? I speak generically, but it seems most articles I read are that we need to get more people involved in hunting so it's not a lost sport. Need to introduce youth to the sport, teach women to hunt, take a friend, all to show them how to hunt and share the sport so it's not lost as the older generations stop hunting. At the same time, I see more and more hunters in the woods and less and less game. Even more so, my state of Colorado wants to raise tag fees significantly. I can literally pay double the fee and see half the game - what gives????

with the INCREASING population and DECREASING amount of hunting land it just seems like there are more people hunting

Like the game your pursuing, it all comes down to loss of habitat for both game and hunter in many cases. It used to be my thoughts about hunting were when and for how long on a particular day, never where. I could head east, west, north, or south until my legs gave out or my vehicle ran out of gas. Now where I'm going to hunt is at the top of the thought process on any given day because options on private land is increasingly limited.

Good leases are hard to find in Texas. Lot of guys cry about having to pay for hunting, but that's the way it is in Texas. At least you know who you are hunting with. If you see someone you don't know. Shoot them, they are trespassing.

You boys in the Western states are going to continue to see more and more hunters....from the Midwest and East. First, the whole western/backpack hunting trend is the new cool thing to do. It has really picked up in the last 5 years or so. Secondly, as both access and opportunities decline in some of the Midwest and East, guys are realizing how nice it is to go West and hunt the big tracts of public land. It has gotten tougher to get on land. It has gotten tougher to get tags in some areas as deer numbers drop. MT sold out of NR big game combo tags in the initial lottery this year, first time since 2011 that has happened, when they jacked the prices up. It's only going to get worse.

Well I hope hunting all that public land will be enough, for nonresidents, to justify the cost. We got some horrific winter kill this past winter in Wyoming. The antler point restrictions have gone up in several areas for deer, and some areas, a shortened season. I'm just grateful to get out in the National Forest 40min away, whether I put game in the freezer or not.

We can thank scripted shows like Duck Dynasty and others for dragging more and more of the idiot factor out into the woods. Honestly, I can't stand other hunters, especially the ones the border my family property. Most are game pigs and trespassing scum.

And to the OP's observation, yes!!! I, too have seen the same for years. All we hear is "wahhhh less people are enjoying the outdoors" bullchit, there's 7 fold the number of people seems like in the last 20 years around here. I think this is propaganda pumped out by wildlife agencies to feed bloated administrative salaries. Notice I didn't say enforcement salaries or personnel.

a lot less small game license sold more deer permits.i think polls are on the overall numbers of license sold than what kind .

where i hunt in PA the numbers are waay down from where they were even 15 years ago. i hunt almost all public land and the areas that are easy to hunt are still loaded the first day of each season but after that i have the woods to myself. i avoid the spots popular with the casual hunter and hit the mountains. it used to be even the mountain ridges were packed but with the combined deer seasons (antlered and antlerless) starting 15 or so years ago, the deer herd got the schit shot out of it so the casual hunters got discouraged. ok by me. i see very few deer but i see the occasional big buck and the buck sign is prevalent in my area. if i was a serious as i was 25 years ago, i'd have a wall hanger every year. but i just like to get out and spend the day in the woods. these days in the remote areas i hunt, i really am selective and hold off on shooting a doe until the last day or so.

dont see hardly anyone small game hunting, around here, 3000 acres of Nat. Forest land, 1st weekend of bow, is heavy, as the rifle opener, but 3 days into the gun season the woods are empty. but theres alot fewer deer than there was 5-6 years ago too!

There is a fraction of hunters in northern WIs. compared to 15 yrs ago. Even grouse hunters are way down and grouse numbers are up. We used to have a lot of out of state hunters . Kentucky for some reason was most common. Ohio, Indiana , Tennessee were the most common. I even seen Georgia plates. I asked a guy from Kentucky, " why do you come all the way here for a dumb old grouse."? I was not complaining in any way. He said he can flush ten grouse in the time he flushes one down home. The deer numbers are so dismal you are hard pressed to see a deer or two on an opening gun season. Hunting is so poor there Skane and his dad gave up the ghost . They had a cabin a few miles from me. It is getting a bit better now though cause of 3 mild winters and few doe tags. There are so few hunters that on a quiet day , you will hear about 20 - 30 shots, and you can hear a shot 3 or 4 miles away. I like it that way and dont go hunting to get meat , just love seeing deer. I dont believe we will see hunter numbers there like 20 yrs ago. The avr. age hunter is about 50 yrs old and many just won't sit all day to see one deer a weekend.

And speaking of public land hunting in the west, you had better be vigilant, lest a certain class of politicians sell it all off to the highest bidder.
Any sob running for any office that advocates this schit doesn't get my vote, even if they pay for it!!!

I notice less hunters than say 20 years ago....

Woods?

I notice less hunters. I hunt in the national forest in ohio. The area I hunt is circled by a few roads I would guess 8-10 miles around.
When I started hunting there 25 yeas ago I would guess there was 100 guys hunting in that area. The last 5 years I either been alone in there or one or two other guys. There used to be about 40 guys from the area I grew up who would travel down there and hunt but now there are 5 of us going down.

On the other hand I see signs of more bow hunters being in the woods before the general gun. Many guys are hunting closer to where they live taking advantage of the longer bow season rather than the week long general gun season.

With less hunters in the woods keeping deer moving we see less deer and take less deer. By the time general gun comes around there has been enough bow hunter traffic in the woods to have the deer nocturnal.

Boarmaster, when it come to bow hunting I see the same thing in southern WIs. , but up north there is hardly a bow hunter. I all but gave up bow hunting northern WIs for good reason and started hunting inside 15 mi. of home. I had very little success cause of so many people in the woods. Small game hunters, gun scouter, bow hunters, mushroom pickers, horseback riders, photographers ,and who knows what else. I decided to try a whole different method and gave up on nice looking woods hunting and started hunting big marshes with high grass, cattails, Red Dogwood and of course WATER. Water keeps more guys out of an area than going back in 1/2 mi. If I didn't walk in water at least half way up to my knees, It aint wet enough. When I started hunting like this my deer sightings went up several hundred percent.

I think the biggest problem we have here (Indiana) isn't the amount of hunters in the woods, but the amount of woods for the hunters. Every little chunk of woods on private property is leased out and what little public ground there is is packed with hunters to the point where it really isn't safe to be in the woods, honestly. Are there more hunters than there used to be? Maybe, but most all of them are casual "weekend warriors" who spend more time buying designer camo clothes and putting stickers and lift kits on their pickups than they do actually hunting.

Designer camo and lift kits. . . Snicker.

I know the woods aren't as crowded as they were 20 years ago, but I am not sure it is from fewer hunters. Most of the properties are now leased, so unless I am on that lease I won't be seeing much sign of them. Also, our seasons have gotten so much longer than they were. Used to be we had a two week season and the diehards took vacation time off to hunt. Some public hunting areas almost needed parking valets. Now we have so many days open that most hunters tag out or wear out well before the end of the season. During the week the woods are almost empty.

I hunt public and private land here in North Florida, and in Georgia. I don't see very many hunters at all in the Osceola NF or the Ocala NF. Even fewer on the local State run WMAs.