Opinion On New Hunters

[Smokey Bear]

We need as many new, but responsible hunters as we can get, that vote! It’s a no brainer. The anti’s are taking everything away.

 

[Howdoyoulikemenow]

The internet, social media and YouTube videos have to a great extent ruined hunting for me. I’ve always felt that hunting was a personal endeavor as we all hunt for our own reasons. I hunt so ultimately I take an animal’s life. But I don’t want to watch a video of an elk dying sometimes not very humanly. They will die. I just don’t want a video of their death throes as the life is leaving their body. Given the attacks by anti-hunters increasing each year I feel we as a group are nailing our own coffin by posting every damn thing on the internet. I just do not understand that mentality.

We need hunter recruitment, young, adult onset, women and minorities. Our strength and perhaps obligation is to educate them all to be good representatives for hunting and stewards of our wild places.

 

[Wolfshead]

I, selfishly, would like to see less hunters in my area, for lack of competition.
The truth is that more hunters is a better choice as has been stated for many reasons, many also stated.
I feel as though hunting is going the way of the wealthy. I can’t hunt some of the places I used to. The field I took my Buck off last season is under attack from someone who wants to lease it now. A lot of rural private land is being turned into wind and solar farms, etc….
Fortunately I have public near me I can use, but there is some significant competition there too.
The landscape of hunting is changing and those with the funds are starting to dictate that. The average hunter is the one who is going to lose out because they will not be able to compete with the more well to do hunters.
Never hunted out west, but from some things I’ve read, it is becoming increasingly more expensive to just get a tag, and that is usually off a lottery.
Along with other costs.

 

[Elkangle]

Your a new hunter to someone, anyone in the less hunters camp please lead by example and stop hunting

 

[Mr.Ktm]

Everyone saying no, acts they weren’t a “new” hunter at some point. I was a new hunter when I was 8. Some start early, some start late. We are stronger in numbers

 

[Macintosh]

. On the other hand less people hunting is less opportunity for people to do stupid stuff and turn more of the tide against us as hunters.

Perhaps. But if its 10% of hunters that are bad apples, that means there’s 9:1 odds that the impression non-hunters get is a good one, or that they are more likely to know a hunter that will check their negative reaction.
Im sure both happen.

 

[hunt1up]

People act like every hunter is equal to the next. Just because someone is a hunter, that doesn't automatically mean they're a benefit. This can be applied to any group, be it in your community, politics, your local school board, fishing club, you name it. Sharing one thing in common with another doesn't automatically make them an asset.

Hunting has changed DRASTICALLY nationwide in just the last 10 years. Western, Eastern, and everywhere in between. I know many new whitetail hunters here at home that are adult onset hunters. The complete lack of restraint with harvest and disrespect for the resource is mind boggling. Shoot every deer you see and promptly post it to social media.

Additionally, in the renowned areas of whitetail country, land that was once hunted by many locals, is now bought up in large swaths by wealthy nonresidents. One guy might own several square miles of timber, he pays land managers to maintain and develop the land, and he flies in a few weeks a year to hunt. A family friend's grandfather bought 500 acres in prime deer country in the 80s for $50,000 TOTAL. It sold a few years ago for several million, just for the opportunity to kill a buck or two a year. The owner lives out of state and comes back a few times a year and kills a few deer. This is now the rule and not the exception. Deer hunting is unrecognizable from what it was just 20 years ago.

Now go West. In the late 2010 I drew a good LQ bull tag in WY with 5 points. Then the following two years drew general tags back to back with 0 points. Those tags, just a few years later, are take 11 and 5 years to ensure a tag. In 2020 I drew a decent AZ bull tag with 11 points. In 5 years that unit now takes something like 18 points and it's not even a premium area. We can thank our social media hunting allies for this. Apply here, burn your points here, this unit is awesome, this one sucks. The barrier to entry is now extremely low. Not long ago you had to pay the AZDGF $5 and they'd email you a couple hundred pages of data to parse through to determine odds. It took days. Now it's a few clicks.

Go to any prominent outdoor show and look at what outfitted hunts cost. Pick any species. The year over year increase in price is far outpacing inflation.

I've hunted a ton and been successful on so many occasions so I'm not pleading poverty. I'm simply stating that the resource is finite and there's a carrying capacity to the amount of hunters that can feasibly pursue game. It doesn't matter the geographic location, the trend is the same. In my opinion, we're on the wrong side of supply and demand at the moment. How do you recruit new hunters when the barriers to entry are now so substantial?

With all that said, I guess you could say I'm somewhere in the middle. On one hand, people die and people replace them. We need new hunters to keep hunting a thing. And I'm happy to welcome and help a lot of those people. But just because someone joins the ranks, that doesn't automatically mean that person is an asset. There's a not insignificant number of hunters that for the greater good, would be better off stopping. If you're pimping the resource for social media glory or commercial profit, I'd rather you take up golf.

 

[Weldor]

Hunting and Hunters were better before it became a business, did not matter if you were new or an old hand at it. To me I see gear junkies more than I see hunters. JMHO

 

[bowkill]

So just brainstorming a bit here, if there was some way to limit the number of species/hunts that one person could go on in a year, would that then limit the number of hunters out in the woods while still making room for more new hunters to get involved? I understand that the number of people doing several different hunts each year may be small, but by restricting those people, you should technically be reducing the opportunity for social media posts because the ones that are doing all the hunting to feed their social media would be limited to only a couple of animals. If you could only get a license for say two separate big game species each year you would eliminate the guys that are going to Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, etc. each year for elk, mule deer, whatever. This would then open an opportunity in those states for someone that doesn't normally hunt there or can't get a tag there to try it out.
I don't know, hopefully this came off as making at least a little bit of sense. It sometimes doesn't come out as clear as it is in my head! Again, not trying to ruffle any feathers, just trying to get some thoughts rolling and get some input from others.

 

[SteveFlock]

I can about promise you, if less hunters were the answer and some kind of rule was put into place to limit the hunters in the field it will not be regulated by the amount of time you have hunted. It will be regulated by money and 99.9% of the hunters will loose.

So instead of being selfish to get what you think you deserve, that you won't actually end up getting, I would try thinking as a team of like minded individuals and rally together.

 

[WoodlandCritter]

Ideally I'd be the only hunter in the country and 100% of everyone would support it.

Its hard to solve the tragedy of the commons.

 

[WoolOverAll]

Short answer: More hunters is more better. "Public" officials push whatever narrative their donor daddy tells them to. Tags are never going to be easier unless we do real reforms in game management.

Getting more people out in the field and hunting/fishing gets them closer to their food. I am all for that. I think we have gone too far into antler madness as a community and need to dial that back. There is an abundance of small game that is overlooked and would fill freezers the same as a deer. Around me there are no tags or limits for rabbits.

As for the issue of existing hunters having harder times pulling tags. The countries population is only going up so they need to get used to it. The city I grew up in has a higher population than multiple western states combined. Its not a surprise there are Californians, Texans, and New Yorkers everywhere. Those are the states with strong economies and populations with cash to burn.