Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Its official, hunting is dying..

Thats a good Idea useing the Milk crates, in the upright freezer!

Our youth is hunting's future in Pennsylvania. When most of us baby boomers started hunting we cut our teeth on rabbits and ringnecks here in Pa. It was fun and exciting, we got to shoot at game often. There was plenty of land to hunt on not far from home so you could make it out for a hunt after school and on Saturdays. Nowadays most private land is posted no trespassing, which pushes hunters on to overcrowded State Game Lands that for many is a considerable distance to travel with very little small game to hunt. Kids want to shoot the gun, it's what keeps their interest, they don't want to sit quietly and still for hours waiting for a turkey or a deer which is what Pa. hunting has evolved into. I don't know the answer but if video games and cell phones continue to be more exciting to our kids than hunting the sport is doomed.

Wisconsin has been seeing a decline of about 2% per yr. for deer hunting for about 15 yrs.. This yr. may be different however. Since the Covid hoax , many are out in their boats fishing and skiing, canoeing and kayaking. The fishing pole racks were half empty this summer. As far as I am concerned there are still an awful lot of deer hunters on public land in southern WIs. but in northern Wisconsin, the woods are almost completely empty of deer hunters. There are very few deer in NW Wisconsin anymore and we go , , well, just to go.

I have got lots of tags for 900 miles from here.

I am told that the fire damage will change how we hunt this year.

Every year we hear that hunter numbers are dwindling Nationally and as far as I’m concerned it’s complete BS. When I lived in Texas the cost to get on a deer lease was going up and up every year and finding an open spot was tough. I move to Colorado and the armies of non-residents that descend on this place from all corners of the country for all the unlimited OTC hunts Colorado offers is mind boggling. Many of the folks Ive met here that are residents either don’t hunt anymore or do nothing but complain about the pressure and or lack of animals. Some travel to Wyoming or Idaho to hunt elk because elk hunting is so bad here. Either way there is no less hunters in the woods. I do believe that the non-resident invasions brow beat residents desire to hunt though, I see that very clearly. The non-residents show up here with all the Kuiu and Sitka gear a guy can buy ready to battle big bulls only to drive a 1000 miles home empty handed and a couple thousand dollars less wealthy. But the next year a whole new batch will be back to do their once in a lifetime crap shoot called OTC elk hunting in Colorado. Too damn many people and not enough animals, only goal is for the state to make as much money as possible irregardless of how bad the experience is for the outdoorsman, but as long as they have that green tag in the pocket they think they’ve got a chance!

Regarding ND, SD, and MT to a lessor extent. The loss of CRP acres has had some serious detriments upon game populations. The habitat that is left then concentrates hunters. Whether or not you consider things "crowded" or not depends greatly upon your frame of reference. It will be an interesting year in ND as we've sold LOTS more waterfowl licenses this year since folks can't get into Canada. Some who live here and/or have hunted hear for decades will be fuming mad at the "crowds". Some who've never been here might think they've stumbled into the uncrowded happy-hunting-grounds. ND has no limit on NR waterfowl licenses. SD limits ND waterfowl licenses to 3500 via lottery in the spring.

As a DIY hunter, I want game populations and tag allocations managed for resident opportunity 1st, whether it's my home state or not. IMO, when resident hunter opportunity is maximized, DIY NR-hunters benefit as well. When Game and Fish dept's and state legislatures manage game populations and tags for guides/outfitters they G/O's and their clients are the only beneficiaries. Game populations often don't thrive in a G/O driven environment as often too few are taken and disease or tough weather puts a bigger hurt than it would with a larger harvest.

When I was a teenager hunring in Colorado with my dad, you really felt like you were in a remote and magnificent land once you left the city limits of whatever little town was nearby the area you were hunting...Now, the government has sold off most of the prime farm and ranch lands at the foot of the mountains, cut off access to prime fishing spota on the rivers by selling off the land. Everywhere you look around every corner in the highway there is some California Commie's McMansion like cabin blocking what used to be a magnificent view of the mountains. Private land everywhere with no access around what used to be awesome hunting spots at the lower elevations...It's sad what happened to that state..

.You have to go back into some really rugged country just to get away from all the peoole, and that, in my opinion, is why hunting is dieing off for the younger generations these days at least in some of the Western states. I don't really feel comfortable taking my young early teen son into the kind of country you have to go back in to to find game animals and get away from the hoards of hunters if it's just me and my son...If another adult was with us I would consider it, but it's hard to find good reliable hunting partners these days; especially those willing to be out the expense to travel to another state when it takes forever to get drawn in your home state.... Not like in my dad's day when there was always 4 to 6 men in his hunting group and everyone was looking out for each other....I worry I would put my son's life in jeopardy at his age if something accidental were to happen to me in the way far back country....

Common knowledge here in PA in the 80s we had like 1.2 million hunters, now we're at around 750K I believe give or take a little. Rare to see any kids hunting. No small game hunters on public land after the first day where there are stocked pheasants. Few public land deer hunters after the first 2 days. Where a lot of my family hunted years ago, now nobody, I'm usually out there alone. Hunting will always be but I would not be supprised to see PA down around 500K hunters, or less, within the next 10-20 years as the current generation dies off.

Beginning in 2000 there was a significant drought in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming, followed by a couple moderately harsh winters. Those two factors hammered the pronghorn populations. Colorado reduced available tags a huge amount. Prior to 2000 in Colorado’s GMU 3 for example, it was taking 3-4 PP to draw a pronghorn buck tag, by 2010 it required 15 PP’s or more. Since then the number of tags have been increased, currently requiring somewhere around 7-8 PP’s.

And the number and size of mature bucks in Northwestern Colorado are nothing like it was in the decades prior to 2000, in part because their have been more drought years than not since 2000.
In the 80’s and 90’s I killed two 15-16” bucks in GMU’s 2 and 3, and since the mid 70’s didn’t kill any bucks less than 14”. It’s not like that today.........

Coronavirus seems to have encouraged a lot of people to pick up hunting, fishing, and hiking. I hope this is a permanent boost to outdoorsmanship, but I think it would be best if we could better encourage this.

As far I can tell, there are a few major obstacles that that prevent Millennials and Generation Z from picking up hunting.

The first is that hunting has a high initial monetary cost. A cheap hunting shotgun like the Mossberg 500 runs around 300-500 dollars in normal times, let alone during this pandemic. Add in blinds, binoculars, ammunition, and licensing fees...the cost can easily eclipse the disposable income of a young professional or college student.

The second is that younger people disproportionately live in urban environments and hunting is largely seen as a rural affair. There are a surprisingly large number of suburban and urban hunting opportunities, but it takes a lot of research or connections to dig up leads. Rural hunting is possible but difficult; public transportation only goes so far and it's expensive to possess a car in the city.

The third is that the stereotypical hunting culture is shockingly different from the stereotypical youth culture. The tip of the iceberg is that younger generations are disproportionately comprised of minority ethnicities and cultures relative to older generations. Add in the generational political divide on top of the usual generational social struggle...well, let's just say that the result isn't very pretty.

Surprisingly hunting license sales were markedly up this year in NY. Maybe all the new gun owners want to go out and "Catch a dee-ah."

Pressed the wrong button and I think I made too many edits to ethically continue. I'll write a bit more down here.

The good news is that a lot of younger people are interested in conservation and sustainable consumption. Hunting is basically as ethical as meat "production" gets and serves as an important ecological tool for state conservation agencies. At least one person in my hunting group is opposed to eating meat out of a factory farm, but has no objections to eating animals that live "complete" lives in nature. Another interested person likes that the food they produce would be guaranteed to be halal; they don't have to worry about the practices of a third-party butcher.

I believe that lowering barriers for new adult hunters*, stressing the benefits of conservation and sustainability, and deemphasizing politics might be the best way to expand the hunting population. The generation that follows most of us will certainly be a bit different in terms of culture and practices, but it's the best way to make sure that our lands and nature persist past us as well.

*On a tangent; the "no semi-auto" rule PA has for big game is extremely annoying; most newer gun owners own semi-autos.

Less hunters = more game.

More game = more predators.

More predators = more hunters.

There are many factors. And I think lazy and computer are lower on the list than
many claim.

Sports are so much bigger now. A lot of the kids that would have hunted play games.
Any sport you can mention is now a year round endeavor. Along with pay lessons.
That all takes time.

Land availability, and true rural living.
As a kid, there were few places we couldn't hunt. And those owners were prices.
Now, there are few places open. So many more kids lived rural where they
could walk out the door, load the gun and be hunting.

This has been an impediment to me.
Spoiled by my past, a quick hunt is a pita.
Requiring either a drive to public, or a longer drive to
friendly private land. No more walk out the door and have an hours hunt,
in an hour.

Then there is our herd reduction coupled with stand hunting replacing
moving tactics. The result is not seeing deer. I get bored. No deer to see.
Not hearing anybody else shoot. I hear a tiny fraction of the shooting we
used to hear. Back then, it was bucks only, 1 tag. Now it's dang near any
deer, and 2,3,4,5 tags. But few shots.

I wonder why kids would rather sit inside.
There isn't much spark to light the fire.

None of this is an insurmountable mountain.
But it's all impediments to getting people hunting.

Schools and teachers/ coaches these days are not conducive to promoting kids hunting. They could care less if a kid put in for points for years to get drawn for a good unit for a good experience. They will still get bad grades for the time they missed even if they do make up work for the assignments they missed. The coaches will still punish them harshly at practice for missing days...That has been my experience with my son...

Schools are even harder these days as well, and they move through the material so fast that a kid can get way behind in classes just missing a week in school to go on a hunting trip.. It's a lot of stress on the kids and as a parent, it makes you wonder if it is worth it to take them out of school to hunt even though they love the experience. Schools where we live get paid by the Government based on attendance/ number of students in class each day so they frown on kids missing school for any reason and send out nasty gram type threatening letters to the parents if they miss so many days...I can see why parents opt out of getting their kids into hunting and try to push the kids toward getting into the school related sports...