Does the Public lands pushback undermine Hunt Quietly?

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I’ll start by saying I’m generally sympathetic to the “Hunt Quietly” argument. I’ve watched my state pay Newberg’s group to make tags harder to get. I’m not necessarily endorsing the messenger, the message does hit home.

But… this public land sale mess and the reaction to it got a lot of traction, in part, thanks to social media like Newberg’s group, BHA, and even HQ’s public enemy #1, Cameron Hanes. The granola crowd was supporting this too, as expected, but I would imagine the hook and bullet crowd has an outsized pull with the politicians involved as losing support from conservative leaning group hits closer to home

I’m not sure how much of a difference each of those really made, but it challenges the knee jerk “influencers bad” reaction. At least sometimes.
 
Yup. Like always there's a middle ground, or at least a yin with every yang
 
I've always thought of the hunt quietly mindset as "new hunters = bad". I don't think the campaign to keep public lands public is really drawing in many new hunters, it's garnering support from the ones that already exist.

That said, it would be impossible to argue that the reach and support for pushing back against the land sales could have been obtained any other way. If not for the huge audiences the huntfluencers have, this probably would have quietly slipped through with most hunters being none the wiser.
 
I've not followed the "hunt quietly" trend/mindset. Do they hate CH because he encourages people to try hunting?
 
I've not followed the "hunt quietly" trend/mindset. Do they hate CH because he encourages people to try hunting?
I think it's really the indifference influencers show when they name a specific area and then the person's long time spot is flooded with other hunters for who knows how long when the influencer was just there for a week and will never return. A lot like naming units on here
 
I've not followed the "hunt quietly" trend/mindset. Do they hate CH because he encourages people to try hunting?

Steve Rinella's brother Matt started it, it is basically a movement to keep hunting off social media. He believes that loss of opportunity/overcrowding/poor ethics/spot burning/all the negative things you could say about hunters have spawned from social media hunt influencers.
 
Yes. This is literally the exact scenario the opposition to the “Hunt Quietly” crowd has been trying to warn about.

I’m sympathetic to the idea of Hunt Quietly, but I think they are missing some really important context. Our society, political landscape, and nation is not the same as it was 20-30-40 years ago. We can all wish it was, but it’s not. Operating as if it is still the same is a guaranteed way to get your interests spanked. If you look at the last few years of politics/culture, one thing is quite clear. If you’re not willing to fight for your values/interests, you’ll get absolutely wrecked by others who will.

I’m not saying I think the “influencer types” are a good thing, the best, or only way to generate political influence. But it’s hard to deny that it works in today’s world.

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Steve Rinella's brother Matt started it, it is basically a movement to keep hunting off social media. He believes that loss of opportunity/overcrowding/poor ethics/spot burning/all the negative things you could say about hunters have spawned from social media hunt influencers.
Matt also dislikes LO’s that lease out instead of opening land to a free for all
 
I view the “hunt quietly” folks kinda like libertarians. A small dose of their views are good… Reducing the total commercialization of the hunting experience, maintaining good PR with non hunters, reducing spot burning, shaming the “look at me” social media hunters.

But their stated goals don’t mesh at all with reality. They have no realistic end state that is obtainable. They simply stated, don’t live in the real world.
 
Yes. This is literally the exact scenario the opposition to the “Hunt Quietly” crowd has been trying to warn about.
To be fair, the main HQ counter-argument I’ve heard has been essentially that influencers will recruit enough hunters and non-hunter “allies” to outvote anti-hunting backlash, such as ballot initiatives against hunting.

HQ wins that argument imo but it’s totally different from what happened this time
 
To be fair, the main HQ counter-argument I’ve heard has been essentially that influencers will recruit enough hunters and non-hunter “allies” to outvote anti-hunting backlash, such as ballot initiatives against hunting.

HQ wins that argument imo but it’s totally different from what happened this time

The difference is semantics IMO. This wasn’t a ballot initiative, but it’s still well within the realm of “political influence”. If we as hunters seriously think that we will be able to fly under the radar and keep what we’ve had, we’re not living inside reality. Whether it’s a ballot initiative, or calls to a senator to show grass roots support…let a representative know that they’re toast if they screw their constituents, it all comes down to political influence. Which requires numbers of passionate people.


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The fight to keep lands and keep our hunting rights is just beginning. We're gonna have to speak up and show up, to keep hunting.
 
This is just about the most accurate political quote of the century thus far. Hopefully the hyper-tribalism will burn itself out in another decade or two, but until then, we need to fight on.

Unless this country can come together around a set of defined shared values (like it used to be), the divides will only deepen. Turns out “diversity is our strength” only goes so far…once the shared underlying beliefs and values become “diverse”, society doesn’t have much holding it together. I hope we can figure it out, but I’m not optimistic haha. In the meantime, we better fight for what we believe in. Because nobody else will do it for us…


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Steve Rinella's brother Matt started it, it is basically a movement to keep hunting off social media.
Half right, but it can't be an effort to keep hunting off social media because HQ is on social media and has a hunting related podcast.

HQ is a manic passion project stemming from a family feud. That's all. Everything beyond that is so inconsistent and incoherent I can't believe it has lasted this long. I tried in good faith to understand it and found it to be a sad state of affairs.

And as for whether the push back contradicts the HQ message? Yes, 100% it does. Matt told me in person that he doesn't believe that legislation or politics are a real threat to hunting. He has aid it many times. I explained time and again that in Washington where I am from it is the foremost threat. It fell on deaf ears.

While most groups have their own silo of focus - BHA for example focuses only on public land issues - and I criticize them for that sometimes, at least they recognize and respect the other groups for what they are doing. HQ is siloed on the issue of crowding but gives no recognition or respect to the good work of the other silos.
 
Killing for content = bad.
Being a good ambassador for hunting =good.
Hawking your sponsors crap at every turn = bad.
Downplaying the horrific decrease in hunting opportunity since social media started =bad.
Rallying hunters for causes =good.
Refusing to see that you are impacting hunter experience in the field with your content = bad.
Trying to prove you’re worth sponsoring by killing/poaching/do whatever it takes = bad.


There’s always two sides to every argument, then there’s the actual truth somewhere in the middle.
 
Not even a little.

Every hunting influencer can and should stand up for public lands. They don’t have to do it by posting the same dead animal they posted 10 times already with captions like “without public lands I wouldn’t have killed this big buck/bull and be able to tag all my sponsors and get famous.”

I don’t get why it’s so hard to advocate for conservation, habitat, public lands, etc without pimping onX, Gohunt, all the clothing and gear companies, zillions of how to apply videos. Other than the obvious - $$$

And BHA is problematic for one main reason, R3. They spend the majority of their time and $$$ on recruiting new hunters for one reason and one reason only.. you guessed it, to appease their main sponsors/donors who depend on R3 to sell their products.

For the record recruiting friends, family, neighbors isn’t what HQ is against. R3, giant marketing campaigns, Netflix series, Cam Hanes recruits the general masses to an already over crowded way of life.
 
Not even a little.

Every hunting influencer can and should stand up for public lands. They don’t have to do it by posting the same dead animal they posted 10 times already with captions like “without public lands I wouldn’t have killed this big buck/bull and be able to tag all my sponsors and get famous.”

I don’t get why it’s so hard to advocate for conservation, habitat, public lands, etc without pimping onX, Gohunt, all the clothing and gear companies, zillions of how to apply videos. Other than the obvious - $$$

And BHA is problematic for one main reason, R3. They spend the majority of their time and $$$ on recruiting new hunters for one reason and one reason only.. you guessed it, to appease their main sponsors/donors who depend on R3 to sell their products.

For the record recruiting friends, family, neighbors isn’t what HQ is against. R3, giant marketing campaigns, Netflix series, Cam Hanes recruits the general masses to an already over crowded way of life.

Correct. And overconsumption.
 
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