You will have to teach him how to put a slit in the back leg tendon and put a stick through for a handle when he starts shooting big numbers.

Yes, CA, WA,OR, CO and it keeps spreading. Leasing is killing it. How about this one........ Non-local land owners have farms in CRP and/or crops which is a subsidy from the govt. They then lease their tax payer funded farm land to someone to hunt . Should be you lease for hunting then no govt. payment.

Trapping will likely be illegal in heavily democrat controlled states except for government trappers and very restricted private ADC.

Hunting will likely be illegal in most heavily democrat controlled states and limited to the very rich in other democrat controlled states.

Trapping and hunting in all conservative states will be restricted to non toxic ammunition. There will be many more laws interfering with trapping and hunting.

We have lost control of the education system to liberal democrats. The liberal democrats will continue to corrupt the youth, in greater numbers, to be anti trapping, anti hunting, anti fishing anti firearms. Unless we take strong action, we have lost.

Keith

I've lived here next to this public hunting area campground for 23 years, I've seen the number of people camping during deer season steadily decline since moving here. Every economic downturn has cut the numbers and they never go back up.

I taught my kids to hunt, (all girls), just like my dad taught me. The one in college at ISU will bring friends home, all of which seem to have grown up around hunting, etc. Their not afraid of a rifle leaning in the corner or a deer hanging in the shed. Gives me a little hope for the future.

It opens with our deer archery season here in Mid Sep and runs to mid Feb. Like I said though, hard to get permission before deer season because no one wants the deer being chased around and pressured. It can be tough to get kids out in the winter when its cold and there is not as much squirrel action most of those days compared to the fall when they are collecting acorns.

Glad hunting is still alive and well in the South.
Yes we have leases and public land...and lots of it.
We have small game seasons and deer seasons that are long and liberal.
Yes we have greedy landowners (but if I owned land I don’t think I’d just let anyone hunt it for free either)
My county doesn’t have any public land, but I have umpteen places I can hunt and as the years go by, trap as well. Our fur isn’t worth anything, but Quail is King and folks will pay you to trap.
Kids hunt and it’s generally an excused absence from school (Did have to meet with the school board when I took my son out for a Kansas turkey trip) They let him work ahead and make up what he missed.
I’ve been taking a young lady and her boyfriend the last couple of weeks trying to get them there first bucks. My buddy I normally hunt with has been taking a young man for his first buck as well. We’ll get back to hunting together after we get these folks theirs.
As far as numbers, I have never heard of a kid that can’t go hunting until a certain age except up North. Sounds like y’all need to get to the polls or find some candidates with some common sense. Our kids can hunt and shoot at whatever age they can actually shoot a gun. I do remember hunting with some Yankees out in Arkansas and they were astonished my son was able to hunt and shoot ducks with adults at 10 years old. I was astonished that folks actually stuck to that law, lol. Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.
In 20 years hunting will probably be about the same down here except I’ll be taking my future grandkids and celebrating their firsts.

In Michigan wildlife based special interest groups fight each other for a piece of the outdoors pie. What is one to do when hunters of different animals and different methods of hunting the same animal fight amongst themselves. Hound hunters trespass, don't like trappers. Bow hunters want special treatment, and 100% of whitetail rut, Rifle hunters want a bit earlier longer season without the deep snow up north. Cat/predator hunters don't like trappers and have a long season, trappers get 10 days to trap a cat, Deer hunters never agree on baiting deer, Trophy deer hunters just don't like anybody. Our big wildlife group MUCC picks sides. I do worry.

DNR's and Zoo's have a closed "Good Ol' Boy" system going. You MUST have a degree to get hired and they all seem to be from Liberal schools, that brainwash the kid's to an "ANTI" mind set. The vast majority anyway. They are the ones that will be in charge of policy making someday.

Deer are Varmits. Nothing more. If nobody shot them for three or four years there would be a bounty on them.

Having said that I was checking coyote sets on a new property a week or so ago and some guy stops to ask me what I'm doing. I told him and he asks if I know who owns the property. So I tell him well aware he is just likely looking out for a neighbor as has never seen me before. We talk a bit and he asks if I want to trap some ground he and his brother bought to deer hunt. It was a property I wanted on but hadn't tried to find out who owned it. Looks real catty. When our deer rifle season is over those cats will be getting good.

Playstation, year round sports, divorce, de-masculinity, urbanization and social media are killing recruitment of the next generation. This is not new.

Sure leasing and bureaucracy are factors but we are losing at a numbers game. That translates to anti-hunting, anti--trapping and anti-gun laws. Such becomes the political will, or at least politically safe, without numbers.

Cool stories about kids on this thread.

I agree with this and also include local land owners. Some land owners here claim ag damage then won't let anyone hunt but their family and friends. If they're required to keep a log to show who hunts on their land it's filled out in advance by their certain few. I get a little tired of hearing about the damage deer do to crops but then they won't let a non relative or friend hunt.

I'm lucky I've got 1 private land to hunt because getting permission is not easy. Most of the public land here is a circus to hunt with Madison hunters over here.

I appreciate it Blaine and I'd love to say I would be there on X day to do it... But as sure as I'm born a transformer or switch gear would blow up at 3:00 am in one of our customer's facilities, or something else like that... The last year and a half all spare time was spent taking care of my in-laws... And since they've passed it's been settling their estate...

I just need to schedule a 3 day weekend when I'm reasonably sure the weather will cooperate. Notify everyone that I am falling off the planet, chuck my phone in a creek and just go.

Mike

I hear you. We are slaves to our clients/customers/job now and the chain is our cell phone.

I know this thread is about hunting, but the same applies to trapping. Lately I have been bombarded with people coming on my videos, claiming that I'm giving the antis more ammo by merely showing an animal in a trap. This foolishness' has to stop. Antis will always be antis, but me showing every catch completely uninjured is not aiding them, it aids us, and showing how enjoyable trapping is has brought more people into it. We can make it popular again. Hunt and trap responsibly please.

It's actually not TOO bad... It's just one of those Murphy's law deals... The phone never rings unless I have something concrete planned. LOL

I had plans to attend the NTA in Springfield this year... Sure enough, we wound up having to work. I told the boss I already had plans for Saturday and he gave me Saturday off. But I had to cut the day short so I could be back to work on Sunday. But at least I got to go... And Sunday was double time.

I can't complain too much. I work for a great company. But life is about choices and you have to sacrifice sometimes...

Paycheck or hunting? I'm pretty secure money-wise but not independently wealthy, yet. Lol

Mike

Yeah,

But a half a million man P.A. militia is still a force to be reckoned with.

We could still take Canada in less than a week but then..........

What would we do with it ?

We'd have to pay the bill to feed and clothe J.P. and BOCO !!!!

w

I wonder my self what it will be like 20 years from now. My daughter is 12 and she goes to a small rural school when deer season opens thats all the kids talk about. Out of the 20 kids that are in her class 15 hunt. She is the only trapper. All kids are started young here. She has been with me hunting and fishing since she was in a carseat. Everyone told me I was talking her to young. She shot her first coyote in a trap at 3 went in the river boat at 2. If people in big cities did that they would go to jail for child endangerment. This life is all she knows. When she get out on her own. She will not no what to thing about all the backwards city folk and their ways. I worry she will not fit in this world later in life.

When I hunted the northern “big woods” country in PA back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the woods on the first day of the rifle season, especially in the morning sounded like a war zone with all the shots being fired. The camps were all filled with hunters. The last time I hunted there was in 2002 and I would only hear a shot now and then and the camps were mostly empty. I imagine it is even worse now.

My 12 year old shot a doe tonight. Nice buck last weekend. We do what we can do. I hope he does the same for his kids in 20 years (or 33 in my case).