Aging Hunters Part 2
General Topic
Just like with church avangelism. Bow evangelism begins at home. You should be discipling young hunters that you have the most influence on. After that drag your kids friends along.
I have a young family and limited funds but I tell me wife, “I can’t afford to wait until I’m 55 when my girls are out of college and weddings are paid for to start hunting elk”. She gets it, my dad died at 52. I don’t have type one diabetes like he did but heart disease runs in the family and life’s to short to wait until I’m older to do stuff.
What you said on passing down old equipment is spot on but remember our greatest sphere of influence is at home. Take your kids hunting, they’re never to young to fan the flame.
Then there's always the sampling bias.
Humans hang out with like humans. Part of that is age. If the bowsite age is generally more mature, then the people that bowsiters know that hunt are going to generally be more mature. Does not mean the hunting population is in general more mature.
I mentioned this in another thread but hunting is alive and well and much of the panic has to do with not understanding the current generations and population trends.
Everything I am seeing indicates a trend that looks like a U curve. The decrease sits with the GenX generation who are a much smaller population than Boomers and Millennials.
So for the next 5-10 years hunting numbers will decrease but then they will bounce back in force.
So what will happen is numbers will approach the height of the Boomer era.
Start them young. Make it fun. With kids be so into technology and cell phone with a few games makes hunts last much longer.
When a person bases a premise on their personal experience, in most cases, they are using a faulty data set. That especially true when using age as a criteria. For example: Let us say there are 200,000 hunters in a data set. Now we ask hunter 1, "What are the ages of hunters?" He can only answer based on the hunters he knows. That is a small sampling and may or may not be at all representative of the overall data set. And that is exactly the problem with a sampling on this site.
Next add in the variance from state to state. You will find much younger hunters on the average in western states and some southeastern states that you will in highly populated states.
That said, regardless of what you see or know in your area in the U.S. the hunter population is aging and decreasing. Those are hard facts based on actual license information.
Bowriter, this is not a disrespectful question . I just don't have the time or tech savvy to do the research. If hunter numbers ate declining why is there point creep in every state that has a point system for big game tags? And also , are harvest numbers in Midwest and eastern states deer hunts declining? Seems to me that if hunter numbers are in decline it's only in the small game realm. Every friend of my son hunts deer and many of their wives or girlfriends hunt with them . There's more kids that have bowhunting industry stickers on their car or truck windows than I have ever noticed in past years and that's country wide not just regional. I'm asking cause I really want to understand this. Thanks in advance!
When a state and therefore the country, calculates hunter numbers, that calculation is based on the sale of hunting licenses. Now, some states in fact, many, have different ways of selling licenses. There may be lifetime licenses, sportsman licenses that cover all types of hunting, individual tags etc. Therefore, many states simply lump the sales in one category-hunting.
That means there is no way to know for sure how many individuals participate in specific hunting. A state may allocate points or tags for a specific animal for non-residents and that is a completely separate category that has nothing to do with the number of hunters since they have already been counted. However, it can and does alter the points or tags. The number of points or allocation of tags has nothing to do with hunter numbers as a whole. Too many other factors influence this.
It can get complicated and for sure, is not exact. What is a hard fact is that there are fewer hunters in the U.S. today than 10-years ago and that number is declining. Maybe not in every state, maybe not where you hunt. But across the country, the total number of hunters is aging and declining. That is a fact.
have 7 sons. They all hunt along with their wives. 18 grandkids and everyone that has come of age has hunted. Hunter has passed his hunter ed class and just drew his first jr elk tag. Life is great in AZ. Keeping the tradition alive.
The US population is aging as a whole, baby boomers, boomer echoes-there just aren't that many people around. So statistically take an activity judge it by the overall number of people being reduced wala a trend w/o looking at the confounders. Game Depts. do this all the time. What is needed is common sense dialogue Game Depts. actually working WITH the hunters as a user group not against them like they consistently do in my state. Seems there is always a hidden agenda, public input, meetings etc. but when it comes down to it they do just what they want (or a few dept leaders want) and no accountability. Even after an audit. That pisses off the old timers like us who get fed up with it. So many friends, family members have quit in disgust due to politics or the lack of hunter access. I am lucky I got started late with my kids but in many ways feels like we are just picking up scraps. Some game depts. throw anything at the issue, youth hunts with firearms, crossbows, on-line instead of field training, extra tags, etc. instead of focusing on the fundamentals. Time, a place to hunt and game to hunt.
I see no reason to panic unless you see hunters as customers or clients. As a whole bowhunting (including traditional archery) is healthier than ever and will continue to grow as a percentage of overall hunters.
The first attachment is the histogram put another Bowsiter put together after I did a thread on the age of Bowsiters. The second is the numbers of hunters relative to the overall population in the U.S. over the past 18 years. Tracks consistently.
Nobody anywhere who has access to the facts is predicting any increase in hunter numbers in the future. Quite the opposite - all game departments are predicting a major dropoff. Bowhunters are increasing in some areas, but let's not forget that a "bowhunter" is also a "rifle hunter" in many places so that doesn't mean it's two hunters , simply one hunter hunting with multiple weapons.
For some reason it's not letting me attach the second graph to the post above.
Jaqoumo has it exactly right as does Tonybears. Is it a reason to panic? No,it is fact we have to accept. I see not one thing we can do about it. Sure, we can encourage the young etc. But what do we do when they have no place to hunt? How do we afford it when hunting becomes too costly? How do we counter the fact, so few youngsters play outside any more? Now that may not be the case where you live. But taken as a whole, it sure is becoming just that. It is not just bow hunting or deer hunting. It is all of it.
Now. Consider this: Hunter Jim says, "All my kids hunt and so do their friends." That is great. How many humans we talking about? A dozen? Maybe 18? Now. How many older hunters did we lose in just your county last year...for whatever reason? Think about it on a nationwide basis. Do you think as many young folk are starting to hunt as the number of hunters we lost? I have been writing about this for several years. I am still trying to find a way to convey, in language, easily understood, exactly what is happening. It is almost impossible to get people to read, think and comprehend outside the realm of their own circumstances. Hunter Jim sees that it is now harder to get drawn to hunt in his favorite spot. He quickly assumes it is because more people apply to hunt there. Maybe it is. But it may well be something else entirely. It may simply be because there is a downtick in wildlife. It may because there is less land available. But to Hunter Jim, there is only one explanation...must be more hunters. That is just one example. Here is an example to ponder. In my state, TN, in the last 14-years, despite a burgeoning deer herd, our annual kill has gone from 179,000 and change to 143,000 and change. It dropped 36,000 animals in 14-years. That is a drop of over 2,500 animals a year. Anyone want to guess why? Could it be because we lost about 70,000 hunters?
Most state game and fish departments are looking heavily into 3R programs. Recruit,Retain,and Re-activate programs because they are seeing the hunter numbers declining and are absolutely concerned about the future.
You've got to get them started somewhere they are going to see/get an opportunity at the target animal. I am 21 years old. At the age of 12 my father started bringing me to PA (I'm from MA) to bow hunt. I saw deer almost every sit. Shot at a bunch, killed a few. I was hooked. As I got older I started to see that hunting wasn't as easy as hanging a stand in Pennsylvania, and shooting the deer that came by. But at a young age that's what you expect it to be, and what's got me absolutely hooked. I am now addicted to the sport of bow hunting.
Myself and several guys I know didn't hunt at all as kids and we do now. I feel like that bump around middle age may continue to remain static instead of move to the right. I think we should focus far more on introducing men and women in their 20s and 30s to hunting that have never hunted. That's where our biggest potential for growth lies. It's difficult to introduce kids beyond your own children to hunting due to parents and the fears of the 21st century. I have several friends and relatives that are yearly hunters now for no reason other than the fact that I took an interest in hunting and recruited them. You just have to get people started and the passion will take them from there.
I bet that 10 years from now, that both of those graphs Lou put up will look much the same - and they will if us hunters take an active roll in recruiting the people we know who used to hunt or have never hunted. You just have to cook them some game meat and then fire up their imagination with hunting stories, and then take them hunting once.
Thanks for the insight Mr. Sloan! From my perspective overcrowding is an issue. One thing I do know is that if new hunters have to battle for a place to hunt on public land they will give it up. In my home state of Michigan , public land in the lower peninsula is stressed by hunter numbers . In the past it was mostly a problem in the first couple days of gun season . Now it's all of archery season and all of gun season. Hunting private is a luxury that few urban raised newcomers to hunting get. Leases are getting more expensive by the season if one can be found at all. Getting permission is also difficult because the competition for a place to hunt is fierce and almost without fail the landowner has a relative , work associate or neighbor who will lay claim. So called " horn porn " is a disease that has spread like fire and has been very detrimental to land access and etiquette. A neighbor of mine , during a whining episode after E.H.D. decimated our local deer herd confessed that he won't allow his kids in their woods to hunt small game until after firearm deer season is over. His own kids??? And we wonder why there's fewer hunters? Seeing the t.v.guys taking 6 and seven year old kids to a shooting house on a food plot , shooting a rifle they couldn't hold on their own to save their life and having a dozen bucks in the field to choose from? That's the example new hunters are getting from the " industry". Sorry , that's not reality for the majority. My own children have grown up to understand woodsmanship and appreciation for wild places. I am fortunate to have been exposed to fishing and hunting at a young age myself. I fear that, for many of the younger generation, a place to have a good hunting experience is becoming a tough hunt in itself.
My state has indicated that hunter recruitment is not a concern for big game (let's include turkeys here). Of course, knowing the sad state of much of the state's small game population (I would say exempting squirrels), lack of recruitment of those types of hunters is a foregone conclusion.
I don't really have any out-of-the-box suggestions for recruiting and retaining hunters otherwise. Knowing the difficulties in obtaining productive hunting land even for ourselves, we need to do what we can to make it easy for the youngsters to have access, and I tend to think that doesn't mean some public land areas where chances of even seeing a deer are low.
I can't speak for other states, but here in CO the access and public land crowding issues have been exacerbated in many areas by leasing/closing/developing land that was formerly huntable. Where I used to have permission on 7 semi-contiguous ranches for elk hunting, now all are leased or locked. Everyone else gets crammed into the public, which though substantial in acreage often lacks the best habitat due to beetle kill or overgrazing in summer, or is physically inaccessible to the average hunter.
Virtually every place I hunted birds and small game in my youth is now closed "natural areas" or developed.
On the eastern plains where almost everything is private and leased, even the local farm kids don't hunt anymore because they can't find a place.
Yes, there is still very good hunting on public land in some places but you have to "want to" pretty badly to physically insert yourself in there. It's not like going hunting after school or on Saturday morning like we did not so long ago. There are lots of fun things for youths to closer to home, which are socially acceptable by their peers and don't require an adult or specialized, expensive equipment, or destination travel.
One of the major factors for sure, Jaquomo, is just what you described. Habitat, wilife and ours, is shrinking drastically each year.
You have hit the nail on the head Jaquomo. Wished all this "get the kids hunting" bunch would focus on the what you mentioned, all the rest is superficial talk. Bowriter, a lot of that deer kill decrease could be do to more loss of open hunting land. Come hunt public land in much of Wisconsin, I can assure you there is no shortage of hunters in any age.
In CO the only access the CPW is concerned about is fishing access. We all pay for "habitat stamps" that were supposed to fund access for hunting too. Somewhere along the line that got lost in the weeds.
CPW folks moan about lack of recruitment but they sure don't make it easy for a youth to hunt.
Game Departments and 'their politics' have ruined much "Bow Hunting" and land availability. Then in the last 15+ years or so, you have those 'bow hunting' that consider 'that'a "Sport"! Something one just does because that is 'the season'! When there are actually those that 'bow hunted' because it was a Tradition & a Heritage & a Challenge. We lived to bow hunt and 'nothing' much else mattered! .... in some cases even work & family time was 2nd in choice.
I bow hunted everyday of season (I even took my kids at times) and I took off work without pay also many weeks a season ..... (my family never suffered from that) .... I was shooting a bow since age 5 and never had a 'mentor' and it was just something that I had a passion for early on. I've been lucky to have hunted with a bow & arrow for several decades. Usually by myself and because others were not as dedicated to it as I was. I did take a few friends (one at a time) through the years, but their heart wasn't in it and their family (wife / girl friends) didn't understand and threw a fit! ...so they QUIT and some also just wanted to "Drink" and "Chase Women" so I dumped them!
Anyway, Politics and Game Departments and then 'greed' from them and promoting 'hunting' thru land owners changed the dynamics of "all hunting" .... but bow hunting is all I cared about. As that changed and our Illinois deer herd suffered in Quantity and most of all Maturity of bucks it affected me personally. At one time in my life I even 'promoted' bow hunting for a few years .... and then I saw the error of my ways by how that was affecting me personally! (Industry $$$ was NOT something I was interested in). The cost of 'that' was to high a price for something so sacred to me personally! The last big deer I shot (at 4 feet no less from a ground blind) was 2006 and that rack, even though big and my biggest, lays on our living room floor with many others. To many 'heads' mounted already and I wasn't going to spend one dime more doing 'that' ....
So now 'people' are complaining about access and 'cost' and "no animals" ..... we / they brought that on ourselves! ( John .....Bowriter knows me and I think he knows where I am coming from) ...... at 69 soon and I could still bow hunt and shoot my bows (by hand) and stick bows or compounds, but the passion died because of all the above mentioned. I never ever thought I'd quit till they buried me! In a way "they" did bury me I guess, before my time. ..... RIP -}}}}}}}}}}--------------->
It's my hypothesis that men lose their drive to kill and hunt as they age due to decreasing testosterone that comes naturally with aging. I've talked with lots of old-timers who still like to get out there, but don't have the drive to kill an animal anymore. I think part of it is a normal progression of many hunters, but I have to wonder. From a biological standpoint, older people have to eat too so the predatory drive should still be there unless the idea was that hunting was a young man's endeavor and older men, if they survived, took on a new roll.
Personally, I'll just juice when that time comes and see what happens. I don't plan on giving my pecker up either. All my arrows will keep flying till I'm pushing daisies.
65 here , the passion has gone. This year would be my 50th yr. I passed the torch to them at the end of 2017 season. They are sad but fully understand that once you lose the passion it’s time to just enjoy life of what makes you most happiest. I hope everyone that continues the passion of bowhunting live and enjoy it as long as possible and encourage your children and grandchildren like i did so they will also some day pass the torch. it sure was good for me.
I feel that hunting is at risk from social and political factors which of course is connected to recruitment. However, I also think that if there were decent hunting opportunities readily available more than enough people would take up hunting. I hunt private land in Ohio and there are a significant number of people that hunt by trespassing. I hope that that is not their first choice but clearly there are not enough opportunities in the area to meet demand. It got so bad that for 2 years during all of Ohio's gun seasons I patrolled private land and asked people to leave. One guy with a very mouthy 15 year old said that a local, non-hunting landowner had given 20 guys permission to hunt 100 acres. He showed me the signed permission slip. Unfortunately they were now trespassing due to the hunting pressure on the land they had permission to hunt on. After an encounter or two at least some of the trespassers moved on. Some may have given up hunting. It was not just the 20 guys from one property. It seemed had any property that was not being patrolled was being hunted by trespassers. I live in northern Ohio and there are three hunting shows in the area. All three are shoulder to shoulder with hunters during the busy times with the Deer and Turkey Expo in Columbus being the busiest. There are usually a lot of guys with young gals at the shows and kids. I think that the interest is there if there were the opportunities.
