Disturbing Statistics

[MCH]

Re: Disturbing Statistics

Mindless drones...numbers of hunters that can think for themselves????

It never ceases to amaze me how someone can turn an innocent, informational post into a flaming hot debate.

I don't have the problem, bud. You called my post BS. I responded as civally as I could.

As for them "scaring" me into giving them money, since when is helping out organizations that are fighting for our rights a bad thing???

Anyway, this cowboy is jumping off this pony.

[Guest tyshe17]

Re: Disturbing Statistics

I dont know about the hunters #...I do feel less youth are getting involved, and I know for a fact there is less land to hunt...you just have to look next door to see property being sold to development. All of this is going to lead to less hunters in the future if we are all not careful.

1) hunting is going to get more expensive, and in 20 or 30 years we could be like England and it only be a right of the wealthy and thoes that own land...I know there is a lot of public land out there, but how many people will stick with it if there are 5+ hunters per 100 acres. If the hunter #'s are not there then the states and gov will not be getting all the money we pay for licenses and there will be less incentive for them to keep the hunting land...and have it in such good condition

2)as the Baby Boomers age...if their kids (my generation) dont hunt, we loose not only thoes kids, but also at some point the Boomers (unable to get to the woods) and my children's (God willing someday) generation. How many of y'all at one point drove your parents to hunt somewhere?

I see these as the two biggest issues facing hunting. Who cares if numbers are or are not dropping now. By looking at recent posts, it seems evident that everyone is very optimistic for the coming season. If hunters dont stay together, keep speaking up, and including others in our sport, very few of us will have such a high outlook in years to come.

[Doc]

Re: Disturbing Statistics

Well, I can play the "personal observations" game too. But remember it has no official standing and only applies to my specific hunting area

First of all it might be useful to explain that I have hunted, predominately within the same 1200 or so acres for most of my 61 years, so I have seen a lot more than just hunter population changes. Back in the early 70's, I can remember year after year, sitting about 3/4 of the way up the huge hill on the opposite side of the valley. We always would get up there before daylight and get all hunkered in for the opening day. From that vantage point, I could see about 3 miles of the state highway below. On opening morning, the highway looked like a long lighted snake with almost no breaks as hunters headed into the area for opening morning. For the last dozen or so years, that same view on opening morning has been a whole lot different. At times that 3 miles of visible highway would be completely empty for 5 minute spans or sometimes longer and then the cars that were coming through the valley were only 2 or 3 at a time. Does this mean that hunters are now taking a different route to their hunting grounds or that there are a whole lot fewer hunters. I really don't see any reason why they would be taking a different route.

Observation no. 2: State parking lots that used to overflow onto the shoulders of the highway now have 7 or 8 cars parked in them on a good day.

Observation no. 3: It used to be that later during opening morning you could track the path of a deer down through the woods just by the shots along the way. Early opening morning would just be a constant noise of one shot after another around the valley. Last year, I counted a dozen shots within the first 2 hours and then just a few shots later on. Pretty darn quiet.

These changes have not been insignificant little trends. They have been quite radical, during the past decade or so.

Now, a bit of a twist. Back in '65, when I first started bowhunting, My Dad, Brother-in-law and myself were about the only ones that were actively bowhunting in the entire valley. Seeing another bowhunter was something that never happened ....ever! It was sometime in the early '70's that I saw my first bowhunter that was not part of our little threesome. What a surprise. It was almost startling to see another hunter.

Today, I am constantly running into treestands, wandering bowhunters stumbling through the area that I'm trying to hunt, or others using my ground blinds. There's hardly an area that will hold a track that doesn't have some recent bowhunter's footprint in it. Last year I shot a huge buck only to have the blood trail end with a gut pile. Someone intercepted the mortally wounded buck before I could even get to it. This is an area where hunter population has grown to such an extent that I am wondering if all the missing gunhunters have turned into bowhunters. No, that would be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.

So what does all this mean? Oh, probably not a whole lot in terms of what is going on nationally. But left only to my own personal observations, I would have to say that gun hunting has taken a severe dip in our area, and bowhunting is experiencing a boom right now. Without official statistics, I'm not real sure what the actual situation really is. That is why I have to rely on the articles and figures that are published by those that have the information. It's kind of silly not to. And to have a paranoid attitude that assumes that there are ulterior motives behind such statistics is really quite silly also.

Doc

[horst]

Re: Disturbing Statistics

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Bowhunters and ML hunters may be up a little, but these guys arent new hunters, they are the ones that used to be shotgun hunting

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This is an area where hunter population has grown to such an extent that I am wondering if all the missing gunhunters have turned into bowhunters.

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I would like to see the national trend on that, might be kinda interesting to see just how many gun hunters have taken to bowhunting instead.

[Doc]

Re: Disturbing Statistics

I'll bet the numbers are somewhere out there, but good luck finding them.

Doc