Barriers for new hunters? (Poll)

What are the biggest barriers for new hunters out west?

  • They don't know where to go

  • Lack of hunting knowledge (i.e. animal behavior and hunt strategy)

  • Inadequate physical fitness

  • They need someone to help them with the logistics of the trip

  • Fear - Worried they might get lost or hurt / fear of failure

  • Lack of time/money

  • Other (see comments)


Results are only viewable after voting.

SDHNTR

WKR
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
7,104
>you think a billion dollar industry was just gonna sit back and watch sales decline

Monkeypox virus just might be flying out of your butt (not that theres anything wrong with that)
It would’ve never been a multi billion dollar industry without it, and we all would’ve been better off.

It’s not just hunting. Got a teenager? Especially a girl? I do. It’s so very easy to see the societal poison that is Social Media. Especially IG/YT/TT. It would be a better world without that garbage. It ruins everything it “influences”, hunting included.
 

Mattys010

FNG
Joined
Dec 18, 2020
Messages
92
Other- I am a teacher. I typically start work for the year around sept 1. It’s not possible for me to take off time to travel out west (I live in NY) once the school year starts.

I am in search of opportunities earlier than September 1 and around Christmas time.
 

IBen

WKR
Joined
May 15, 2021
Messages
354
It would’ve never been a multi billion dollar industry without it, and we all would’ve been better off.

It’s not just hunting. Got a teenager? Especially a girl? I do. It’s so very easy to see the societal poison that is Social Media. Especially IG/YT/TT. It would be a better world without that garbage. It ruins everything it “influences”, hunting included.
It WAS a billion dollar industry before SM. Be a better father and a role model and you won’t have to worry about sm for your daughter. Discretion and good judgement are passed on by the parents. And my father taught me that quarreling over people hunting “your spot” or “your deer” is childish and selfish. Perhaps you should start doing the same.
 

SDHNTR

WKR
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
7,104
It WAS a billion dollar industry before SM. Be a better father and a role model and you won’t have to worry about sm for your daughter. Discretion and good judgement are passed on by the parents. And my father taught me that quarreling over people hunting “your spot” or “your deer” is childish and selfish. Perhaps you should start doing the same.
Calling a person childish and selfish after being the one stooping to personal insult level (your monkeypox comment) is sure rich in irony. Take your own advice buddy. And thank you very little for the parenting advice. Ignore.
 

TaperPin

WKR
Joined
Jul 12, 2023
Messages
3,255
FWIW I am a new aspiring hunter. Didn’t grow up hunting, and the hunting my friends do is sitting in a blind looking at a feeder waiting for a whitetail to walk up and then shoot it.

I want to go on an elk hunt, so I’m planning on buying an OTC tag in Colorado and going next fall. Basically, the biggest hurdles for me have been time and knowledge. I’m making the time, and using the vast resources on the internet to get the knowledge.
There is a way to ask for input that works so well it’s in my top 20 most important concepts in life. It works at work, looking for work, hobbies, hunting, relationships, school, politics, and just about anywhere you’re looking for information.

Simply say, “I’m really interested in ______, is there any guidance and direction you could give me?” Then don’t say anything, not a word, even if there is a long awkward silence. Listen and only ask clarifying questions about what they are saying - don’t inject your ideas, there will be time for that another time.

You’ll find people want to share what they know and help out someone getting started in what they enjoy, especially when you’re interested in what they have to say. When you bump into an experienced elk hunter at the range, or gun store, or a trailhead in Colorado, use that phrase.

I learned that when my office had a paper thin door leading directly into the CEO’s office that I didn’t dare use, but he sometimes would. He was a big deal, not only within our industry, but also in local and regional politics - very strong leader in everything he did. Anyway, I could hear everything he said and bet he used that phrase twice a day, every day in all sorts of situations with people he knew or just met.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 13, 2022
Messages
312
Location
Anchorage AK
A child growing up in a household with parents who went to college and values education is much more likely to save, study, and prepare to go to college, and succeed.
A child growing up in a household with parents with no education and no interest in education is way less likely to graduate high school, and way less likely to go to college.
Are there exceptions? Absolutely.
Same thing with hunting. I know lots of people, especially females, who say they want to hunt but have never been exposed to it. It’s too daunting, so they don’t really get off the ground. They go to the popular easily-accessed areas where everyone else goes and -surprise- don’t see game. Fail, go home.
Most of you had someone when you were being raised as kids.
I didn’t. But I’m not going to tell people to just suck it up and learn it on your own just because I had to learn as an adult.
I will help when called upon.
 

Lowg08

WKR
Joined
Aug 31, 2019
Messages
2,233
I myself for years dreamed of hunting out west but the drive absolutely turned me off. On top of that I can not stand the thought of not hunting mountain whitetails. If think of leaving them alone for anytime. I get antsy. I just can’t let them go long enough to try out west. The amount of money for a week trip that could be a goose egg also weighs on my mind
 
Joined
Mar 20, 2019
Messages
369
Other- I am a teacher. I typically start work for the year around sept 1. It’s not possible for me to take off time to travel out west (I live in NY) once the school year starts.

I am in search of opportunities earlier than September 1 and around Christmas time.

They don’t give any vacation time to teachers?


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TWHrunner

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Nov 24, 2018
Messages
147
Location
Calgary
This is the definition of social media and it is used as a resource for new hunters. While instagram may inspire people to go on different hunts rokslide and other forums help get them there. Rokslide is often the first result when someone googles a popular hunting question. I think its hilarious that people on Rokslide are complaining about sm, its the definition of hypocrisy.
Hunting is an industry and like all industries they succeed on expansion and growth and that expansion would have happened with or without instagram and youtube. sitka, leupold, kifaru, vortex, cabelas, outfitters etc don’t make money if hunting isn't expanding. The US population in 1950 was 150 million its currently 339 million, every year we lose animal habitat and every decade a nation forest becomes a national park. Do the math.

So for you to not contribute to increasing the number of hunters you’d have to boycott all hunting brands, buy your gun from overseas companies, delete your rokslide account, and lobby for eliminating NR hunting.
Man. Hunting is not an “industry”. It may happen to be one for those involved in it that way, but for me, and I know a lot of guys like me, it’s the farthest thing from one. It’s actually where I have always gone to be away from an “industry”. Calling it that means we are doing it for completely different reasons. And guess what? That was exactly my point in my fist post, because some of those reasons are the problem with hunting today.
 

TWHrunner

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Nov 24, 2018
Messages
147
Location
Calgary
It WAS a billion dollar industry before SM. Be a better father and a role model and you won’t have to worry about sm for your daughter. Discretion and good judgement are passed on by the parents. And my father taught me that quarreling over people hunting “your spot” or “your deer” is childish and selfish. Perhaps you should start doing the same.
Buddy. You can’t say that to the man. You don’t know him from Adam and you’re calling him out on parenting. Not cool.
 
Joined
Aug 13, 2022
Messages
312
Location
Anchorage AK
I am happy to pass on any knowledge I have acquired about hunting, as little as that may be, to a newbie. Especially tags that I have hunted.
I like to see women, youth, newbies, disabled, Wounded Warrior, whomever, join the ranks and be successful. If we can impart safe and ethical hunting practices early in their development, we give the anti’s less ammunition.
Plus I have more interesting people to drink a beer with.
 

Tl15

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Aug 25, 2023
Messages
121
For me, it’s money and time. I feel bad dropping $10k on a trophy hunt when I could dump that into our investments or daughter’s college fund. I only get 2 weeks of PTO per year, so burning a week on a hunt feels irresponsible. Add night school in the mix and it just never works out.
Can we afford it? Sure. Could I take the time off if I really wanted to? Sure. I just can’t feel good about doing it, so I stay here and hunt on our place in Texas and tell myself,”One day I’m…”.
 

IBen

WKR
Joined
May 15, 2021
Messages
354
The number of “new hunters” as men who have picked it up later in life is simply astonishing to me. I think the biggest factor in driving it has to do with the advent of social media that has taken over society in the past decade. So to me the question isn’t “what’s in the way?” but rather “why?” The “why” is for reasons that never even existed when I grew up. It was always about tradition. Not so anymore.
This was your first comment What tradition are we talking about? The tradition of men hunting which is as old as time. So you have more right than other men? Because you started at a younger age please tell me what do you possess in your constitution that gives you more right to public land than someone else?

Your post is off topic to the OP anyway you are just an angry fudd online using social media to express your opinion
 

Mattys010

FNG
Joined
Dec 18, 2020
Messages
92
They don’t give any vacation time to teachers?


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No, just the school breaks. It’s a lot of time off just not during hunting season. I get plenty of hunting locally, but the allure to go out west is always there.
 

IBen

WKR
Joined
May 15, 2021
Messages
354
No, just the school breaks. It’s a lot of time off just not during hunting season. I get plenty of hunting locally, but the allure to go out west is always there.
Lots of great hunting in AK before September 1st
 
Joined
Mar 20, 2019
Messages
369
No, just the school breaks. It’s a lot of time off just not during hunting season. I get plenty of hunting locally, but the allure to go out west is always there.

Well dang, that’s too bad. You could always come to Washington, bear season opens August 1st. OTC tags, you can get a 2nd tag if you fill the first one and there’s a black bear behind every fir tree.


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