Declining gun sales in Wisconsin
General Topic
Gun deer license sales down.
How does a smaller harvest translate to fewer gun sales?
Sorry, gun hunting license sales, ie, declining gun deer hunting interest. Declining overall hunting interest is a disturbing National trend, at least to some.
Very, very poor wording on my part. Just interesting trending with potential future interest in hunting.
Deer hunting will continue to slide downward with no one to blame but ourselves.
Deer killed were down by 25%. Number of licenses sold were only down by a little over 2%. The article mentioned later than normal start to season. Would be interesting to see the weather over the 9 days in each years as well. How that has anything to do with guns sales I have no clue.
I meant gun license sales, sorry for bad wording.
From what I hear wolves are taking a toll on the deer population.
Is the decline more in resident or non-resident licenses, or is that information not broken out? Some states seem to be pricing themselves out of the NR 'market'. (jmo-ymmv)
I’m not a statistician or even very smart, but I would suspect that difference in lisc sales is not a significant variance. I personally am not interested in year over year change, I would be interested in longer term trends, say A 5 or 10 year period. Sooooo many variables in both lisc sales and harvest numbers to judge anything from that “article”.
—jim
I believe Wisconsin has one of lowest NR buck deer license at $165 and that possibly include 0-4 doe license depending on what soon you hunt. That’s over the counter no draw no preference or bonus points needed.
Don’t think there pricing themselves out of market . Quality is another issue.
this year for NR Iowa buck tag and mandatory doe tag purchase. including five bonus points I was just short of $1,000.
Wisconsin deer hunting is certainly on down hill spiral I remember years back of upward 700,000 gun deer license being sold now is under 600,000 and soon will be below 500,000 if current trend continues
there are several factors in va & in the areas I hunt declining deer #s are not the problem. less children beying introduced to hunting for various reasons. higher lease $$$ to much for lower class & elderly folks & lastly & this may seem petty to some but va liscens is 23 tags 23 bow 18 muzzleloader 18 that's $82 & well worth it to me but to someone living on an extremely fixed budget that's a lot of $ guns bullets bows arrows all cost considerably more than not that long ago. all of these things are factors in the decline of hunters
Horn porn has had a big part in the decline. From the high cost of access and tags and I think the impression that new hunters think there's a 160 behind every tree, and when they don't get one let along see one then they become disenchanted. They feel ike they failed in their hunt and it grinds on them and they eventually give up, find something else to do
BIG decline in shot gun permit sales here in CT...
Let’s see... you can hunt Shotgun where they limit hunter density by lottery to one gun per 10-20 acres and you get 1 tag to fill on deer that go nocturnal by the first weekend.... or you can hunt 3 1/2 months with a crossbow and fill 4 tags.
Duh.
Should have been a lot of good ones that made it. Now there will be more big bucks next yr.
To me, it’s only due to one thing. And, Wisconsin isn’t the only state it’s happening in.
First, whitetail deer hunting from tree stands is pretty boring. I truly enjoy it but, to most people, I think the time it takes to be rewarded, plus the money it takes to buy the gear, added in with the cost of procuring a hunting area, ends up being not sustainable. Meaning many older people have quit hunting due to these things. And, it isn’t a new development. It’s been going on for 20 plus years.
Which is why so many of our youth have a phone or video game shoved in their face versus a bow or gun in their hand hunting. If no one is willing to take them, how can we expect recruitment to be stable?
Of course there other things involved. But, I truly believe that the nature of setting for days on end, in cold weather, on a piece of ground that takes a half a years worth of mortgage payment, simply is not seen as a beneficial investment of time and resources.
That’s where the decline in hunting is coming from. And, I truly believe it is a whitetail only phenomenon. You don’t see decreased interest in elk, mule deer, sheep, goats, moose, caribou, etc...., Instead, only whitetail hunting.
And, when you think about it, wis it more fun to hunt these other things where it takes proactive involvement or, is it more fun to set for hours on end freezing your butt off to hopefully catch a glimpse of an animal that is so weary in comparison, that it often ends up as a fail?
I know for me, I’ll take ground pounding for any of those other species not found in the East, versus two weeks vacation of numb feet, butts, stiff legs from setting all day, in likely very cold climates, for a whitetail deer. And, in my personal opinion, the stats show most other people would agree.
I’m with you, Brother! I hunt whitetails when I can because it’s about the only game in town, and traveling takes a really big bite out of the budget. But if I could hunt Elk for a week or whitetails every weekend for 4 1/2 months?
And I should say… Are used to buy licenses for archery, private land rifle, and private land muzzleloader every year. But our tag prices went up, and I haven’t bought a firearms tag since probably 2011. No need; no point.
This thread has been pounded on the Wisc. state board. Phony DNR herd estimates don`t help either. Every year there is a "record herd" and liberal tag allotments. Then the people that live there and hunt tell a completely different story.
The Wisc. DNR herd estimates have been the running joke for the last decade. Earn a Buck....T Zone....and antlerless only policies ruined the herd years ago.
The above article rambled on full length avoiding the word “crossgun” until the very end when it finally mentioned “increased accessibility and improved archery technology”. There’s your answer. The public property managers here in Indiana I spoke with this fall told me there’s been an eight year trend of gun hunters shifting over from guns to xguns to get in on the long season and peak rut. This is still ongoing, trashing the buck quality along the way. This article is really annoying with their liberal usage of the term “archery” over and over. It’s not archery. And I’ve seen enough of the results. This will be my last year hunting public here. View Wisconsin gun sale trend and xgun sale trend last few years. Put 2 and 2 together.
a little off topic but somewhat related I was on a fishing forum & a local (younger) guy posted a pic of a field full of does & said he hadn't seen any horns in 2 days. I replied way.way.way to many doe's on the eastern shore. & to the younger folks a big set of horns is more important than a freezer full of venison. he replied back that he did meat hunt & hadn't been seeing many deer this season. ???huh this guy is not hunting for food he's hunting for sport. very similar to guys that fish for billfish for that picture prestige & eego. & to them that carries far more value than a box full of meat fish. times are changing
I think CWD is partially to blame. I think all the negative press about it, people don't want to deal with the hassle. They don't want to deal with the risks of eating it. The guys that were lukewarm deer hunters are dropping out. That and young people not being recruited and not having interest. JMVHO.
I’d definitely say crossguns factor heavily in any downward trend Wisconsin gun tag sales are experiencing.
Less hunters in the woods is a good thing....every state could use a "thinning of the herd". What is Colorado`s number 1 gripe....too many hunters and a diminished experience and game quality.
Trust me....Wisc. NEEDED a reduction in gun hunters. The season was way past it`s carrying capacity for decades and the herd quality suffered.
Pray for a "hunter reduction" in your own state.
When are these departments going to figure out that they’ve cut their own funding out from under themselves?
I’m starting to think that crossbows are just part of a sinister, left-wing plan to get hunters to give up on guns so that they can claim that there is no longer a legitimate sporting purpose for gun ownership by the general public!
I’m joking, of course, but around here the difference between getting a card that allows you to purchase bird-hunting shells and a carry permit is trifling. Owning a deer rifle or slug gun is really no longer worth the hassle, especially not when you get 4X the tags and 8-10 the hunting days with a crossbow. Plus, if you want to hunt firearms/ML here, you need one tag for public and another for Private. For each season.
Hmmmm.... Do I buy 4 firearms tags + a general firearms hunting license, or 1 archery permit that gives me all of the same options plus a lot more hunting days plus the Rut?
Terrible management is Wisco. Wolves aren't helping any. When I started hunting back in the late 80's, if you didn't see 5-10 deer a day you were doing something wrong. There are entire weekends I go and only see a couple does...sometimes not a single deer. This past gun season, I saw 3 does Opening morning. That was it thru Monday Noon.
Cwd for sure. I used to hunt wi but now have no interest with how prevalent cwd is
We had an incredibly wet year. Lots of standing corn left that farmers couldn't get in to pick. Areas are beginning to get picked more now as we move into colder temps so hoping that translates into a better late season. I also wonder how many deer are actually registered with our states "call in" registration system.
I keep hearing how there's less and less interest and declining numbers of outdoorsmen in the field, but you couldn't proove it by me! I see more and more guys in the field every season. If they are trying to correlate declining gun sales with hunter numbers then maybe more guys are simply hunting with the same gun year after year rather than buying a new one every season. I haven't bought a new deer rifle in 15 years, maybe there's more guys like me??
South Farm, they are stating gun licenses are down, not gun purchases.
I know where I hunted in WI you didn't see nearly the number of hunters out as in other years.
Aging population probably has a lot to do with it also. Baby boomers are starting to age out of hunting.
The world is getting a lot busier, and the younger kids/ adults don't have nearly the same amount of free time. I know I could never spend the same amount of time in the woods that my father did.
Why in the world would you want more gun hunters? Raise the NR tag fees and lower the deer allotments….not mention get some herd managers that can do simple math.
in the areas of va that I hunt. to many hunters is not the problem not enough deer is not a problem. the x bow is not the problem. horn hunting is the problem. you can buy all the bonus doe tags you want @ 18$ for 6 antlerless deer tags & there is entirely to many doe's & a 3 year old 18" 6 point or bigger don't stand a chance
You guys crack me up complaining about not enough deer... and then you talk about how many does there are.
If Horn-hunger is the problem, maybe you should shoot more does?
the hunting population is getting old They are not being replaced
Bull, there are plenty of hunters and in many areas too many!!. Forget the aging propaganda line,when I started in the 60's most of the hunters were older way older and yet we still have plenty of hunters today and crowded conditions on the public. I wonder where these folks are hunting being superficially worried or concerned about the decline in hunter numbers sheesh, they must work for some hunting "industry" or DNR dept/agency. There ain't no shortage of hunters just rapid decline of accessible hunting land!!!!!! All this other talk of hunter decline is just smoke and mirrors jive.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/why-we-are-losing-hunters-and-how-to-fix-it/
I personally feel that the situation varies greatly depending on your proximity to big city's. large land tract farm country etc. where I live & iv lived here19 years I see less older hunters more leasing of the larger tracts of land & on the family farm land & smaller tracts that I'm fortunate to have several to hunt on mostly because I have a reputation for killing a lot of does. I can't say it enough in the rural coastal farm country I live in the majority of the hunters are younger. and the majority of them emulate the hunting shows.
I started a thread last year on the leather wall I can't remember the title I think : an interesting conversation with a farmer. or something like that but it got a lot of attention. I ran into a farmer I know between family & leased land he farms maybe 1500 acres his son & my son went to school together so iv known Wayne for a long time. he proudly showed me some pictures of buck's his son & grandson had killed but then started complaining about all the does eating him up !!! I said I'd be happy kill some doe's for him & he replied he'd have to ask his son first & of course I never heard back from him. this thread got a lot of attention from land owners complaining about all the negatives of allowing non family to hunt.
Plenty of guys where I hunt. I wouldn't miss a few dropping off the radar or finding a new spot at all. Truth is it's a dying sport...as is everything else guys our age are into. Fact of life, so get used to it and enjoy it while it's here.
