ORIGINAL: mauser06
old timers quitting........not many new people starting.......lack of deer last year in many areas.........ya i can see sales being down.........noone gets kids interested in hunting anymore........its kind of a dying sport slowly.........kinda sad to say.....but it slowly is.........so theres oldtimers quitting and not any newcomers to replace them.........and the guys that hunt areas where the deer herd is smaller then it used to be...so after last year that figured why bother to spend 30 bucks to sit in the woods one day and look at a few trees all day and freeze??..........my thoughts on it..........id say its very possible.....but no real numbers.........i can just see it being true
Dang, Mauser06....
That's what I have been noticing, not just around here, or up in your area, or down around AL somewhere... I mean, it's slowly happening ALL OVER THE PLACE! [
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I guess I could be looked at as a relative newcomer (this is my 4th year hunting coming up). And I am 44 years old! Let's flash back 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago....
1965
I was 4 yrs old.
Dad went hunting, uncles went hunting,
everybody went hunting.
Land was open and game was readily available.
1975
I was 14 and didn't go hunting. I went fishing a lot but not hunting.
Dad gave up hunting, a few younger uncles still hunted.
Oldest brother in law went outhunting a few times.
I had the interest, but nobody would show me how and/or take me.
Land was still open in places but due to developing you had to drive further to find the good spots.
1985
I was 24, in the Coast Guard, and recently married.
Nobody I knew hunted, all relatives have given up hunting.
Dad tried to get back into it back in 1982 but grew tired quickly.
Open land was rapidly shrinking and suburbs were expanding outwards at an alarming rate.
Game was not as available as it once was.
Prices of hunting licenses and tags were rising also.
Dozens and dozens of the "old school" hunters gave it up.
See a downward trend here?
It is sadly getting that way.... I talk to a lot of the older guys at my company, and they talk about hunting in Virginia in the 70's and so on. They no longer hunt now due to lack of time, lack of land, increased prices, etc.....
I'm not sure about PA, but I know in VA, there were only 250,000 resident deer hunters last year (according to VDGIF). 30 years ago, that figure was probably 650,000.
How was PA about 20 years ago or 30 years ago? I remember traveling through PA way back then and again, it was almost
required of any Pennsylvanian kid to go out and go hunting!
