Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is Hunting Dying?

even here in Utah with public land a plenty......

I've somewhat lost interest.....LE tags are hard to draw.....expensive

even general season buck deer.......draw every 2 years or so

depredation tags are easier.....if you're so inclined to do that for freezer meat

now shooting in general......or p/dogs....different story.....every chance I get !

I was on our local DU Chapter Dinner Committee for ten years. Ive seen the F&W reports on hunting license and tag purchases. Its down significantly since the 1970's.

Agreed for sure, for a whole host of reasons & it's not really going to turn around in a significant way either.

MM

There's no shortage of hunters applying to hunt on public lands!

Clearly it is for a variety of reasons.

yes it's dying. Becoming a rich mans sport.

Sad, but I think in this part of the country it is dying. I don’t see or hear near the numbers as in the past.

All of these things plus, people are getting farther away from the family farm where food was raised and everybody knew that if fried chicken was going to be on the menu for Sunday dinner, somebody was gonna have to kill some chickens and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hardly dying out in Colorado. It's more popular than ever here, though I think hunting is becoming a rich man's sport. Paying for leases, buying private property, paying for out of state tags, buying the latest gear, missing work for a week or more, just to hunt, has become incredibly costly. It's no longer loading up the Ithica and 10/22 Friday night and getting up early for a Saturday stroll through a friend's cornfield or the neighbor's back 40. Not that it can't be done cheap, it's just getting harder and harder to do. Like others have said, demasculization, electronic trends, laziness, and miseducation about conservation are also contributors.

The other fellows from Michigan are spot on! 20 years ago opening day was hundreds of shots all day, last couple of years iv heard 7-8 shots! Like it or Not the Baiting Ban here will Kill hunting! the last gen. was raised on hunting from a bait pile, and instead of learning how to hunt guys are just going to say screw it! Kids now days only want to shoot a Big buck, cuz all the Dam hunting shows, id Daddy not rich these kids arent going to see a Monster buck, so after a season or two they just give up! I fig I might have 10-12 years left to hunt, and plan on HUNTING ALOT!

It’s expensive, hard to get that trophy wife to give up some of nail and hair appointments so hubby can go hunting.

Colorado still gets lots of hunters. Mostly (in my opinion) out of staters and recent arrivals. That being said it is harder to access "QUALITY" public land, private land is mostly held hostage by big dollar hunters. As for that 10-22, if you buy one, it is hard to find a place to shoot it. My gun club has "fees" for extra shooters, and if I want to take the grandkids, I also have to have a parent along to sign a waiver.

I would say it costs me about 4000.00 a year to hunt, 2200 for lease, 1000 for corn? 1000 for gas food etc. That’s tough for a young couple starting out to justify.

Dieing? Not really, changing, hell yes.

Kids have more demands and more options on time with school sports, club sports and then college. I hunted all through HS, with the exception of Saturday morning football games. When college got here, sorry hunting took a back seat to school, so for 4 years I didn't hunt. Then I did again.

I've seen the same with my kids, they were into hunting til about high school, then they hunted, but as time allowed around sports and friends. then college, they didn't hunt at all, now they do.

Small game/bird hunting seems to have dropped, harder and harder to find a spot to hunt, in NH pheasant is stocked only and it's a suicide hunt to try it, people everywhere.

Accessible land is the major issue.

It's expensive because mine wants here own gun, knives, binos, boots, rods, reels, gearbags and now she is looking into archery.

Just like others are saying...But, this makes me think of the what's going on in general with hunting and it applies to land as well.
Just like farmland in IL and IA by me...

Fewer and fewer farmers...but larger and larger farms...rich get richer.
Let's be honest...There is no trickle down. There's a larger and larger gap all the time.
It's not for a lack of interest either... it's just 15-20 years ago land used to be 2-4K per acre around me. And people would be small chunks to hunt. Now it's 10-15K per acre for the same ground so it's not because people aren't interested in buying it, it's just expensive.

People with money buying up spots...or the lack of delayed gratification now-a-days like someone said.

Edited to say...
Interest in hunting is still here all over though...just fewer spots because of what I stated above. So it's more difficult to be a part of.

Hard to prove by me, there are more and more people hunting around here every year.

11.5 million hunters?

How many gun owners in the us?


Kinda puts into perspective when the politicians say "hunting purposes".

Everyone saying they are seeing more hunters than ever in their area, go find the actual numbers on licenses and tags sold in your state over the last several decades.

With that comes locked gates, no hunting land posted, tag quotas and more restrictive rules and regulations from the state. Population growth is not a good thing for hunters or any outdoor activities.