Biggest hurdle/barrier to entry into hunting?

[Jack321]

Hands down, a mentor.

Would any of you go into a new church/religion and just walk in, sit down and just get after it? I dont care how many YouTube videos you watch beforehand from "experts" or how much reading you do on that religion before hand.

YouTube and reading internet information on your phone allows you to "test the waters" without any skin in the game. Its low investment with no downside because you can cut bait and move on if its not not for you.

But theres a catch-22 with YouTube and the internet. It only goes so deep. And moreover, often times theres TOOOO much information to wade through to know whats real and what isn't.

And learning about it and then DOING it are two different things.

I dont care how many times I watch a video on how to fix my car/heater/AC Unit/lawn mower/etc, if it doesnt go exactly how the YouTube video goes, I may not want to "tinker" and mess something up worse than it already is!

So, instead, I call a plumber/mechanic/electrician/etc.

Moreover, just look at commercialism! You watch a commercial on TV to go to a vacation--yeah, looks cool and all, maybe I'll go, but probably not. All beach vacations look the same anyway, right?

But a FRIEND books a trip and invites you & the wife along--yup, WAY more likely to go.

Why? Because you know them.

Going with a friend, buddy or mentorship program your way more likely to go.

Its why "story" is more important for marketing today than anything.

We are in the information overload day and age. There's more information in one week of the NY Times than Shakespear had in his lifetime.

We also have AI, deep fake videos and so much animosity in the news that people don't trust things. They may "trust but verify." Or they have to hear/see things 5x before it sinks in.

So people rely on relationship. They rely on people they know and trust, especially when it comes to something new.

Biggest hurdle to geting into this sport:
Mentorship. Period.

 

[Customweld]

Hands down, a mentor.

Would any of you go into a new church/religion and just walk in, sit down and just get after it? I dont care how many YouTube videos you watch beforehand from "experts" or how much reading you do on that religion before hand.

YouTube and reading internet information on your phone allows you to "test the waters" without any skin in the game. Its low investment with no downside because you can cut bait and move on if its not not for you.

But theres a catch-22 with YouTube and the internet. It only goes so deep. And moreover, often times theres TOOOO much information to wade through to know whats real and what isn't.

And learning about it and then DOING it are two different things.

I dont care how many times I watch a video on how to fix my car/heater/AC Unit/lawn mower/etc, if it doesnt go exactly how the YouTube video goes, I may not want to "tinker" and mess something up worse than it already is!

So, instead, I call a plumber/mechanic/electrician/etc.

Moreover, just look at commercialism! You watch a commercial on TV to go to a vacation--yeah, looks cool and all, maybe I'll go, but probably not. All beach vacations look the same anyway, right?

But a FRIEND books a trip and invites you & the wife along--yup, WAY more likely to go.

Why? Because you know them.

Going with a friend, buddy or mentorship program your way more likely to go.

Its why "story" is more important for marketing today than anything.

We are in the information overload day and age. There's more information in one week of the NY Times than Shakespear had in his lifetime.

We also have AI, deep fake videos and so much animosity in the news that people don't trust things. They may "trust but verify." Or they have to hear/see things 5x before it sinks in.

So people rely on relationship. They rely on people they know and trust, especially when it comes to something new.

Biggest hurdle to geting into this sport:
Mentorship. Period.

It's pretty easy to say "just get off ya arse and do it!" I know, I've said it myself. But there truly is a huge hill to get over if you grew up and didn't have anyone around to teach you the simple fundamentals. And there are a ton of simple things that those of us grew up doing this take for granted. Just being out in the woods and having somewhat of an idea of how not get yourself in trouble is a fundamental that I don't think about ,but I know that when that elk is 5 miles back and it's 80 degrees, I'm in over my head and I've been doing this since I was 10.
All that being said, if you have a chance to mentor someone, do it!

 

[BR549]

One is TV shows - Gotta have all the right clothes, do-dads and fancy equipment. Gotta pursue the biggest buck in the world.
A guy wandering the woods or fencerows with his shotgun looking for squirrels or rabbits in blue jeans and tennis shoes is having the same basic experience and learning stuff.

 

[Steve300xcw]

It both amazes and saddens me, at how many folks arent capable of just going for it and trying something new

It has never been easier to get good gear or info than right now.

As far as money is concerned... As pointed out earlier. You can do it on the cheap if you want. I am also not aware of very many hobbies/sports that dont take a bit of money to get started.

I'll see posts on here and other forums every so often. Where somebody is crying because they did everything right and still didnt kill a 32 point buck like they deserved Pretty easy to tell who is still clinging to their participation trophy's....


It is easy to toss the blame to everywhere but the problem. The biggest barrier to a new hunter is themselves.

 

[Axle]

We say we want to grow this, we need more people getting into hunting, etc.

But when I see a new truck with out-of-state tags parked where I like to hunt, I am just not in a welcoming, mentoring mood.

 

[PARA1977]

I’m going to go out on a limb and feel free to cream me if you disagree But one of the biggest is the Fish and game departments in a lot of the states. Imagine waking up and deciding to give hunting a try you go down to Sportsman’s pick up a Hunting season and rules book and find out you need an attorney to explain half the BS that’s in it. It’s gotten pretty bad in how complex it is to understand. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Nick22]

I was the first person in my family to hunt, it has been great to learn from the books and magazines I started learning from in the 80's then I had friends that I hunted with some I've traveled west and north on different hunts. For me it was about the drive into the unknown if you don't have that you need someone to hold your hand. As I've gotten some years under my belt we probably all carry too much gear some influencer pimped when what we needed more were skills they're so much lighter.

 

[brancher147]

I can’t say I had any real hurdles. I started hunting at 21 with no family history of hunting. I had a friend mentor me and teach me the ropes and had a bunch of National Forest to hunt in VA where I lived. The biggest hurdle was just being successful especially not having any hunting or firearm background. And this was before Onx and Youtube. But I loved it and still do. It is much easier now with all the digital information available.

 

[Rich M]

Most of us started off w small game and worked our way up. Often a new generation hunter expects to just walk out and hunt/shoot a trophy - needs a mentor to speed the process up.

The reason it is difficult to find a mentor is cause of the expectation of being taught and that the spot he/she takes you to is "how to hunt". It is not, the spot is selected to show stuff that the newbie needs to look for. They don't get it. Lotsa stories about people bringing folks to someone else's hunting areas on here. If the mental response to that it is public land, the mentor doesn't own it - then you are not a good candidate for mentoring.

You really want to hunt and can't start shooting birds and rabbits for a few years to figure out habitats, where animals hang and where they don't - get you a guide and go shoot something. See if it is right for you. Guide will hand you the animal on a silver platter and if you want, you can actually learn some stuff to shorten the learning curve. Most of it is just knowing what you are looking at - fresh sign or old, do they like wooded slopes or more open areas, knowing how to find your way back to the truck when you are done, stuff like that.

The only people who say we need more hunters are the folks in the hunting industry - those who are trying to sell you stuff you probably don't need.

If you don't believe me, go grab an over the counter tag and hunt. Can't get an OTC tag? That's cause there's too many people wanting to hunt in that area to let them all hunt during a calendar year. So, start buying those preference points for 3-5-10 yrs while you hunt small game and go guided to learn how to hunt.

We need more hunters like a hole in the foot. We need more places to hunt - which is why the push to open more public land to hunting is so emotional for some folks - they want to go and get away from the other folks. When you go hunt and see hunters to the left and hunters to the right, that just plain sucks. Welcome to today's public land.

If you can avoid hunting, it is probably better to do something else. Once you start you can't stop. It gets expensive and time consuming. Will be very frustrating at times. Big antlers do look better over the fireplace tho.

Good luck to you.

 

[PARA1977]

Most of us started off w small game and worked our way up. Often a new generation hunter expects to just walk out and hunt/shoot a trophy - needs a mentor to speed the process up.

The reason it is difficult to find a mentor is cause of the expectation of being taught and that the spot he/she takes you to is "how to hunt". It is not, the spot is selected to show stuff that the newbie needs to look for. They don't get it. Lotsa stories about people bringing folks to someone else's hunting areas on here. If the mental response to that it is public land, the mentor doesn't own it - then you are not a good candidate for mentoring.

You really want to hunt and can't start shooting birds and rabbits for a few years to figure out habitats, where animals hang and where they don't - get you a guide and go shoot something. See if it is right for you. Guide will hand you the animal on a silver platter and if you want, you can actually learn some stuff to shorten the learning curve. Most of it is just knowing what you are looking at - fresh sign or old, do they like wooded slopes or more open areas, knowing how to find your way back to the truck when you are done, stuff like that.

The only people who say we need more hunters are the folks in the hunting industry - those who are trying to sell you stuff you probably don't need.

If you don't believe me, go grab an over the counter tag and hunt. Can't get an OTC tag? That's cause there's too many people wanting to hunt in that area to let them all hunt during a calendar year. So, start buying those preference points for 3-5-10 yrs while you hunt small game and go guided to learn how to hunt.

We need more hunters like a hole in the foot. We need more places to hunt - which is why the push to open more public land to hunting is so emotional for some folks - they want to go and get away from the other folks. When you go hunt and see hunters to the left and hunters to the right, that just plain sucks. Welcome to today's public land.

If you can avoid hunting, it is probably better to do something else. Once you start you can't stop. It gets expensive and time consuming. Will be very frustrating at times. Big antlers do look better over the fireplace tho.

Good luck to you.

We need more young hunters for sure and by young I mean kids and Teenagers that’s the age that respect and admiration for it is grown, I’m 48 and I’ve matured to a point that I don’t give two shits about killing anything that’s not a trophy to me and I think I speak for a lot of people my age that have hunted their entire life. I average 1 good Mule Deer every 4 to 5 years and I see a lot deer
And hunt every year more then most and less then others, but if I had two kids with me I’d shoot a lot more! And that would make me happy because hunting like other pastimes come and go with different generations. We need Voices young enough that other young people will listen too because anyone that has raised kids no that they don’t appreciate old wisdom and views until they are old themselves.

 

[Half Nocked]

Hands down, a mentor.

Would any of you go into a new church/religion and just walk in, sit down and just get after it? I dont care how many YouTube videos you watch beforehand from "experts" or how much reading you do on that religion before hand.

YouTube and reading internet information on your phone allows you to "test the waters" without any skin in the game. Its low investment with no downside because you can cut bait and move on if its not not for you.

But theres a catch-22 with YouTube and the internet. It only goes so deep. And moreover, often times theres TOOOO much information to wade through to know whats real and what isn't.

And learning about it and then DOING it are two different things.

I dont care how many times I watch a video on how to fix my car/heater/AC Unit/lawn mower/etc, if it doesnt go exactly how the YouTube video goes, I may not want to "tinker" and mess something up worse than it already is!

So, instead, I call a plumber/mechanic/electrician/etc.

Moreover, just look at commercialism! You watch a commercial on TV to go to a vacation--yeah, looks cool and all, maybe I'll go, but probably not. All beach vacations look the same anyway, right?

But a FRIEND books a trip and invites you & the wife along--yup, WAY more likely to go.

Why? Because you know them.

Going with a friend, buddy or mentorship program your way more likely to go.

Its why "story" is more important for marketing today than anything.

We are in the information overload day and age. There's more information in one week of the NY Times than Shakespear had in his lifetime.

We also have AI, deep fake videos and so much animosity in the news that people don't trust things. They may "trust but verify." Or they have to hear/see things 5x before it sinks in.

So people rely on relationship. They rely on people they know and trust, especially when it comes to something new.

Biggest hurdle to geting into this sport:
Mentorship. Period.

I absolutely agree to everyone of these points.

to literally everyone of these points.

 

[Boarmaster]

Greatest barrier depends on where you live. I would say “access” where I live in the Southeast. We have very little public land. Second would be costs and finances as much of the hunting areas are leases.
Since there is little hunting property close to where I live I would say third is time off of work and away from family to travel long distances to hunt. These not always the case in the whole of the Southeast but they are specifically where I live in SWFL. My hunting property is 9 hrs away. It used to be 20 minutes outside of town 40 years ago, then 2 hrs 20 years ago.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Too many people equate “killing” with “hunting.” As the old joke goes, “Chuck Norris doesn’t go hunting, because hunting implies the possibility of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.”

If you don’t love the chase for the sake of the chase, then hunting isn’t for you.

I think most people have a hunter inside them, but that has to be nurtured and developed. It’s a mentor’s job to do that and to take it in the right direction.

My young years of failure as a killer fed my desire to improve my hunting skills. My small successes - squirrels, groundhogs, spike bucks, etc - fueled the fire that was burning in me. But my desire is now satisfied by filling the freezer to the legal limit. And I get real joy out of mentoring good material.

In some ways, I think my desire for hunting is so primal that it’s akin to reproduction. And the trajectory is similar: dating the first 6 lead me to my 7’s, 8’s, 9’s, and 10 (and, let’s be honest, a 3 or 4). I didn’t lose interest in women because my first girlfriend wasn’t a 10. At the same time, having had a 10 doesn’t ruin a good 7.

I honestly feel sorry for people who only get excited about big or rare animals. And I wonder what got warped in them that their hunting fire only burns if it is fed sequoias. I think it might be akin to men who watch so much pornography that they no longer find their wives attractive.

Of course, I am lucky because I have always had land where I could just go hunt. And that’s what people fixated on faraway locations and exotic experiences are losing. Everything has to be meticulously planned. Most people can’t just “go hunt.” Many people don’t see hunting opportunities an hour away because they are chasing a dream thousands of miles away.

 

[WoodlandCritter]

I starting hunting as an "adult" (18) on my own. By far my biggest barrier was not having a mentor. No one in my family and none of my friends were hunters. I had to figure everything out on my own or via internet. It made things very difficult. Ended up spending 4 cumulative days in the field before I shot my first squirrel and I about froze to death doing it.

Its only by fortune that I'm the type of stubborn person who stuck with it because I said I was going to do it. Otherwise I would have given up without someone to show me the ropes. Hell, a couple years later I had a buddy who had wanted to go hunting all his life, but also didn't have any mentors. I was able to be that "mentor" myself, despite being extremely inexperienced and bad at hunting. Just having someone with him a couple times was enough to get him out hunting all on his own in pretty short order.

The second biggest barrier for me at the time was access. It took me a long time trying to figure out what areas I could hunt in and not. Especially as an inexperienced person who grew up in the city, it was very difficult for me to wrap my head around there being places I can just walk in with a gun and shoot an animal. I was very used to parks, not State Forest. Ohio has very little public land and trying to find it was a big pain in the butt. Then once you did, it was all very high pressure. Tough to have success on it.

 

[RockAndSage]

Too many people equate “killing” with “hunting.” As the old joke goes, “Chuck Norris doesn’t go hunting, because hunting implies the possibility of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.”

If you don’t love the chase for the sake of the chase, then hunting isn’t for you.

I think most people have a hunter inside them, but that has to be nurtured and developed. It’s a mentor’s job to do that and to take it in the right direction.

My young years of failure as a killer fed my desire to improve my hunting skills. My small successes - squirrels, groundhogs, spike bucks, etc - fueled the fire that was burning in me. But my desire is now satisfied by filling the freezer to the legal limit. And I get real joy out of mentoring good material.

In some ways, I think my desire for hunting is so primal that it’s akin to reproduction. And the trajectory is similar: dating the first 6 lead me to my 7’s, 8’s, 9’s, and 10 (and, let’s be honest, a 3 or 4). I didn’t lose interest in women because my first girlfriend wasn’t a 10. At the same time, having had a 10 doesn’t ruin a good 7.

I honestly feel sorry for people who only get excited about big or rare animals. And I wonder what got warped in them that their hunting fire only burns if it is fed sequoias. I think it might be akin to men who watch so much pornography that they no longer find their wives attractive.

Of course, I am lucky because I have always had land where I could just go hunt. And that’s what people fixated on faraway locations and exotic experiences are losing. Everything has to be meticulously planned. Most people can’t just “go hunt.” Many people don’t see hunting opportunities an hour away because they are chasing a dream thousands of miles away.

Some profound truths here about male nature, 100% agree. Wish I could like it twice. Show me a man who doesn't "hunt" something in his life regularly, gaining skill and success with it, and I'll show you a male, at best. Even if that's just learning how to hunt down inner truths and deficiencies and steadily figuring out how to improve, a key part of a man's vitality requires the hunt. What that hunt is may change over time, but it's core to our nature. And if that's suppressed or repressed, the man fades and shrivels. Denying that truth to our boys is one of the worst parental and societal mistakes of the last 75 years.

 

[displacedtexan]

If youre a gear junkie maybe. Plenty of tags get punched very year by folks in carharrts, work boots and a $500 rifle

Even that's a chunk of money to try something...

 

[Customweld]

We need more young hunters for sure and by young I mean kids and Teenagers that’s the age that respect and admiration for it is grown, I’m 48 and I’ve matured to a point that I don’t give two shits about killing anything that’s not a trophy to me and I think I speak for a lot of people my age that have hunted their entire life. I average 1 good Mule Deer every 4 to 5 years and I see a lot deer
And hunt every year more then most and less then others, but if I had two kids with me I’d shoot a lot more! And that would make me happy because hunting like other pastimes come and go with different generations. We need Voices young enough that other young people will listen too because anyone that has raised kids no that they don’t appreciate old wisdom and views until they are old themselves.

This is getting way out in the weeds and off topic but these are some of my incoherent thoughts.
I've got 3 daughters, only one of them hunts now, but all three grew up hunting. I taught them how to be woodsmen, they can pitch a wall tent, run chainsaws and butcher their own animals. The lessons they learned while we were hunting will carry with them for a lifetime . They wouldn't have sought these lessons out on their own but I'm glad that they wanted to learn and I hope that they will be able to pass that knowledge on to their youngsters.
I've still got a bunch of rocks rattling around in my noggin, there's going to be a bunch of hard learned knowledge that will die with me and likely won't be passed on to anyone else. That's depressing when you think about it.
I hate seeing trucks at the trailhead as much as the next guy and I've been referred to as a gatekeeper, but we should be passing this knowledge down to the next group when they ask.

 

[Sinistram]

Solid question by the OP, and I think it depends on what kind of hunting someone wants to start. For most types, access to convenient areas to hunt is at the top of the list with mentor or companion right next to it. If you want to start Western hunting, you have to add the nonsense around lotteries, preference points and draw limits. Its hard to go hunting when you can't get a license! If you're truly going to start small with small game, like so many of us did, someone to show you the ropes and encourage you to get started is top of the list.

There's an innate fear of the unknown, and when you add in the potential for trespassing or firearm injuries, it's easy to give in to that feeling. Someone to reassure you and lift that pressure goes a long way to the enjoyment of the sport.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Even that's a chunk of money to try something...

Im not sure what your point is. Things cost money. I dont care if its hunting, a paddle board, a stupid pedal bike, or just chasing ass, there is a buy in.

Since when did everything need to be easily attainable and instantly rewarding?

 

[displacedtexan]

Im not sure what your point is. Things cost money. I dont care if its hunting, a paddle board, a stupid pedal bike, or just chasing ass, there is a buy in.

Since when did everything need to be easily attainable and instantly rewarding?

Since modern society...

People want free samples at breweries because what if they don't like the $6 beer. They eat at chain restaurants because they know they're always the same.

It's really stupid, but it's how people are. They're generally scared to try something different if it comes at a cost.

Took me a while to get a "stupid pedal bike", because that $2k will buy a lot of other stuff I know I'll use. Even $500 will buy a good bit of other stuff people already know they like.