RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

It sounds like we' re doing a poor job promoting our sport to the youth. I' ve been an avid fisherman and hunter since I was big enough to walk. I tried my darndest to influence my 3 kids but they could care less about hunting. I took my son hunting for 3 years before I figured out he had no desire to kill anything for any reason. There not anti' s, I did do that right, but there certainly not woodsmen either. I love em though, there great kids.
Anyone got any ideas on how to reverse this trend?

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

That' s too bad. Honestly most people that are my age(21) don' t have the time to hunt dedicatedly. I think that is the main reason for the decline. Kids who once hunted and went to school in rural areas are now on Urban areas and don' t have to time it take to go back and hunt.

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

My two sons are 9 & 11. They like the outdoors but don' t seem to have a strong desire to hunt. I think most kids today want instant gratification. If it takes more than an hour to accomplish, they just don' t want to do it.

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

OK here is my 28 year old take on everything.

I started pheasant hunting with my dad at the age of 15. To be honest I didn' t like it too much then. Waking up early, walking all over creation, hunting with no dogs was not a lot of fun. We would go out a few times over the next few years.

My interest actually picked up again when I entered college. We decided to stop fooling around and get a springer spaniel. Also being away at school and not seeing my family made coming home to hunt even more fun.

Pheasant hunting has become a passion of mine now and I love the time spent with my father and our now 2 springers and a lab.

As for Deer hunting, my old man never did it. I didn' t know the first thing about it. I few years ago I went out at the end of shotgun season with my dad and a co-worker, we were ALL newbies. Needless to say we didn' t see anything!

My wife then introduced me to a co-workers husband who is a big bow hunter and he took me under his wing. He taught me about bows, hunting, deer, the woods, treestands, everything. Bow hunting is VERY intimidating and shall I say almost impossible to just " pick-up" . You need someone to teach you.

I have now managed to get my wifes father, my sister inlaws boyfriend, and 2 close friends into pheasant hunting. Two of them have taken up deer hunting but aren' t serious about it.

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

Geoff - you made a great point I' ve never thought about - kid' s being impatient wanting instant gratification. I don' t know about your neck of the woods, but here in MI public schools, the trend is to not teach failure to kids. For example, they' ve taken away 1st - 3rd place ribbons in field day and give each kid a " participation ribbon" so there' s no hard feelings. Big deal, why compete. This must some how translate into hunting - everyone and everything are equal, so don' t hurt it. I don' t know, just a guess. (Or is it called " brain-washing" ?)

When I first passed hunter' s safety, my dad let me take the day off school for opening day pheasant. I was hot about hunting back then, but that was the coolest thing - to tell my friends my dad let me skip school to hunt.

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

All of the above are good points, and its only going to get worse, here in Pa, the reduction of game, plus the posted ground, hell most kids dont have a chance, when i was 12 yrs old i could hunt anywhere in my area, it was really great, now all of the land i used to hunt was bought up and posted. What are the kids gonna do, i hunt with a group of guys and we have 3 kids with us, they are all getting disgusted because we are hardly seeing any deer, and where there are deer its posted, i wouldnt be afraid to bet within the next 5 yrs 2 out of the 3 kids that hunt with us wont be hunting anymore...ITs sad and it will get worse, so all of these people that post there ground better understand when there isnt many new hunters buying up license and the anti' s gain all of the power they to will loose there hunting priviledges!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really hope this doesnt happen but it dont look good. Im 43 yrs and lived for hunting, but you hardly see that anymore with the younger generation!!!!

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

I wonder if that statistic includes us older guys? It sounds like it does. I wonder what percentage of males between 16 and 25 hunt? I' ll bet it is much lower then 25%. The problem is, very few non-hunters raise kids that end up hunting. Add to that the fact that many hunters raise kids that do not hunt, and you can see why this percentage gets worse all the time. To change it around, we have to find kids from non-hunting families and somehow get them interested. Getting them into target archery or 3D is a great place to start. The local shop I cater to, allows kids to shoot free. They' ll even loan them a bow, so they can learn.

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

20 years old here. Been bowhunting for two years deer hunting since i can remember. Good luck on a 16 year old kid getting permission to hunt private land around here. I lost a hunting spot this year b/c the farmer let a 17 year old hunt his land and the kid wound up taking all his friends out there and drinking at the quarry causing all kinds of hell. Ruined it for all of us. Although i now have gotten permission through the farmer once again this week. Proplem: too many bad apples for the farmers to weed through the good ones.

When bow season comes around every bone in my body aches to be in a deer stand. I absolutely live and breath it. Out of the three friends i have that bow hunt. Only one has been out more than twice all year. Him and I both have the itch. We have seen our fair share of deer and actually took two does 10 minutes apart and 100 yds away from one another this year. We are still waiting on the big boy to show. IT TAKES COMMITMENT!!!!

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

I' m 22 and I started hunting three years ago. And I honestly only know one guy my age who hunts. I am involved heavily in Bass fishing and am the President of my club. In my club there is one guy who is 20, everyone else is 35 or older. I have tried recruiting my peers, but they arent interested. To combat this my club is inthe process of starting a youth fishing club, but its still tought to get kids into it.

I think the biggest problem hunting faces is availability. When I wanted to start bowhunting I went down the street and introduced myself to my neighbor that had a deer target in his backyard. Fortunately he was as excited to teach me to hunt, as I was to learn ( he has only daughters who arent interested). But many kids my age and younger dont have those oportunities. If you are part of a hunt club, why dont you look into starting a youth club. Make them real members of a youth organization, give them a hat and a membership card and you would be very surprised at how much more excited they are about it.

Scott

RE: Heard a sad statistic on young hunters
 

I agree with the instant gratification theory. I also think land access is a huge problem. Not many young people can pony up the money for a lease. I hunt less than a mile from a subdivision where $1 million homes are being built. I hunt 160 acres for free. It doesn' t take a rocket scientist to figure out that in a few years the landowner will get a lucrative offer for his land so more million dollar homes can be built. I don' t blame him, it will set him and his kids for life but there goes another area full of deer that won' t be there for the future.

TJ