My 12 year old son and I are sitting in the deer blind. He's asleep (as usual) so I snuck out my phone.

I had a thought. What will hunting be like for him in 20 or 30 years? Will we still have lawful hunting seasons?

I worry that at a minimum it will look much different both legally and culturally. The two are necessarily linked because it is much easier to ban/limit something when it is no longer culturally important.

It matters a lot to me and my family. I will never stop, even if they banned hunting and trapping. I however think we as a group are phasing out. Not good.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/why-we-are-losing-hunters-and-how-to-fix-it/

I think access to land will be much harder. Everyone will lease there land. Trapping will no long be around except for nuisance trapping or paid by the state to get ride of some problem animals. It is hard to say, with all the car deer accidents we are having I can not see deer season going by the way side. JMO

In Minnesota the deer hunters are down over 33% in the last 15 years according to the radio, they did not break that down by state region. In a wide swath of the cold north, very traditional deer hunting area, the deer herds are depleted sorely. No fun for anyone particularly a youngster to sit out in this climate and see nothing. Mismanagement of the herd, wolves, weather, disease, whatever the cause hunting is fading away.
The tradition is one thing but the hundreds of millions they say the deer season instigates is also drying up. Hard on the northern economies.

Osky

Hunting is fast getting very expensive. KS just raised the cost of a resident deer tag to 52 dollars. It costs more for a turkey tag here than it costs to buy one ready to cook at walmart. TV shows and magazines have pretty much ended hunting for food. Its all about antlers now. A substitute for the biggest penis contest. We are getting more like Europe every day and the change is not good. In 20 years 90% of people hunting will be upper middles or higher. Leasing hunting ground is seen as normal now. Urban areas are expanding rapidly. It bothers me how few people know how to grow and can green beans or butcher a hog. I expect gun ownership to be a lot different as well. Just like in Europe only an elite few will legally own firearms and most of them will have to be stored at a club armory. D's are already talking about making all semi's class III.

I have the same thought. It took a few hundred years but soon hunting in America will be relegated to the elite. The poor will just have to sign up for welfare.

Can't add much to Danny Clifton. I teach(rural) and the number of youth that deer hunt has plummeted. After the youth and reg rifle season opening weekend we used to be able to talk all hour. This year I had a class of 15 and no one hunted. The pathetic thing is local land owners that lease out their land and have local relatives that would hunt. Even worse is that the out of area land owners and those that lease do not allow any hunting period. So kids can't hunt rabbits, squirrels, etc. Everyone always harps on taking the youth out hunting. In reality why? Get some kid addicted and fired up about hunting and then say "Now go out and find a place to hunt. Good luck."

Excellent point on guns. The issues are solidly linked.

If you want them to hunt in 20-30 years, buy some land now, away from urban expansion

I have several teenage children. For the most part, their friends couldn't care less about hunting and shooting. In fact, there is a stigma against both in their school. And, it's a rural school.

Whitetail hunting is now some kind of circus where everyone wants to be a utube/social media hero.

^^^

I’ve been noticing that the YouTube / Facebook recognition IS the reward for a lot of them anymore. They care little about putting up fur or processing a deer. Just to have something to “post” is the driving factor.

30 years ago more families/friends got together and did drives after opening morning.

deer were a resource and while getting a trophy was cool , you shot a bunch of basket 6 pointers to eat.

people now think of the deer is theirs before it is hanging form their meat pole.

hunting land , look at a deer on someone else field and they are about ready to fight you.

hunting is still strong ,but it has changed , it seems to be getting more and more lonely where it used to be a time when families got together to work together as a team now so much solo.

For some reason you guys all fell for that brain washing stigma and can’t shake it out of your heads.
I’m sure 100 years ago when some of you guys were kids they were saying the same thing.

Talk about how all the hunters in the USA is larger than any army in the world. Yet we need to worry cause hunter numbers are going down.

It’s a scam and it’s the way many people convince others to spend money so they can make money.

It’s a double edged sword. Yes, in Europe hunting is/was mainly for the well to do. However, if the rich didn’t hunt there simply would be no wildlife at all. We are privileged and lucky to have been born in America, even this day and age. Freedom and independence to hunt trap fish and have a relatively good chance to bring home game. No, I don’t want it to be a rich mans game, but if it comes to that, it will save the sport. Otherwise the game will disappear. Regular folks, non hunters, animal rights freaks, farmers and ranchers, all of them simply don’t care when it comes to building their new homes and businesses. On the other hand, imagine if 100 million people went hunting next year, every weekend, how much game would be left? I can’t envision much sport hunting in a couple hundred years. Simply put, too many people. I’m thankful for being in on the end of a frontier and the beginning of a myth.

It’s like how every year a month before Christmas the local food shelters will say our shelves are bare and so empty, we don’t know how we’re going to hand out enough food hampers for the people in need.
Then the day after they hand out the hampers they say it’s been their best year yet and they’ve handed out the most hampers so far. Thank you all for being so generous during this holiday season.

I saw the signs. I saw the signs.

Oklahoma is trying to make it easier to get out and hunt deer... On the face that seems like a good thing. But I believe it also shows how hunter numbers are dwindling. The state has made it progressively easier to harvest deer for several years... And they keep making it easier. Which tells me that fewer hunters are taking advantage.

• I've heard talk of expanding rifle season to 3 weeks, we're already at 2 now.

• I've heard talk of allowing hunters to buy all their tags and letting them fill all of them with their preferred method... Basically you could fill all 6 of your tags with your rifle, or muzzleloader, or bow. (Fine with me, I would prefer to take them all with my flinter)

Sadly, I haven't been deer hunting in probably 15 years... For years I didn't have the time or the money. Work obligations were the main obstacle. And a handful of years back, I bought my lifetime license so buying licenses and tags is taken care of... And I am financially secure now... But TIME and a decent spot to hunt are still the limiting factors.

I had planned on going this year and letting my new flintlock spill its first blood. But between work and rain every time I had a day off, I couldn't get it sighted in... And I wasn't going to be irresponsible and tote an unsighted weapon out to take a bad shot at an animal.

If things work out the way they are supposed to in the next 6 months I will have the location dilemma taken care of. So perhaps next year I will have the chance to hunt. Just gotta get the flintlock sighted in.

Hopefully.

Mike

Im afraid of all of the above but they wont miss something they never had . Its like all the drained wetlands and all the cleared woodlots ,when I was a kid the nearest fishing hole was right behind the barn and it went for miles ,trout ,bluegills ,sunnies ,redhorse ,,bass. try and get a kid to picture what we had and destroyed .Pretty sad affair. So to all you landowners that tell me a tree is just another weed . (blows raspberry)

If hunting dies out it will be because of deer leases. Those things are like a disease in my opinion.

I too hated the deer leases. Until everyone started tearing out woods, thickets and fence rows. Now no one hunts there, there isn’t anything or anywhere to hunt. It’s pretty bad around here. Faunal deserts. Again, I don’t want it to be a rich mans game, but if it saves a 40 acre thicket from the bulldozer, I’m in.