Fading Sport


HuntingInMaine

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Re: Fading Sport

Glad you brought this topic up.

I don't know if hunting is a fading sport. I don't think its fading here in South Carolina because its a southern tradition. But what I do know is that its becoming increasingly difficult to find land to actually hunt if you aren't loaded with money & not a member of a particular club.

I disagree with the NRA about politicians being a threat to hunting. I believe the major threat to hunters is land conservation and realators. The urban sprawl is INCREDIBLE!!!!! They just built a super walmart here & totally destroyed some great deer habitat. Several realators have also destroyed great hunting property by building apartment complexs just on the outskirts of town. That sprawl is only going to go further and further out into the county. With the farming business being so tough these days alot of farmers are getting out of the business & selling their land to real estate companies.:(

You can barely find anywhere here where there's not a club running dogs all over the land or their isn't a sub division going up or a new mobile home park going up out in a rural area.

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Re: Fading Sport

I believe that the national numbers are showing a steady decline. Certainly, there are spots that go against the trend, particularly the more rural areas. The perception may be different also between those that are relatively new to the sport and those that have been around for a few years. I've been in the same area for 60 years and have witnessed dramatic changes in hunter participation. That includes, not only the actual numbers of hunters, but also the enthusiasm of the fewer hunters that do go out each year. We seem to be getting a lot of 1/2 day hunters. The trends seem to be following the demise of agriculture here. We used to have a lot of small family farms that provided a lot of small crop plots that were scattered around and through the woods. As these have disappeared, a lot of the areas actually got a little better for a while, but now they are reverting back to thicker forested areas. The best green areas now are people's yards and an occasional field that someone might keep mowed......Of course 95% of these are posted and owned by people who do not hunt.

I also noticed that the last decade of my career, the Monday morning bull sessions about hunting experiences started to get fewer and fewer with less people even interested in talking hunting. It's a shame, but I think it is a trend that is going to be accelerating in the years ahead.

Doc

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