AJ52

If you can't find a twinkle of positive comment on this forum or at least back up your unfounded statements - you need to go else where.If you can't do that,trust me I will give you some personal attention!

doctariAFC

Thanks... We tend, as a group (sportsmen and women) to suffer from a degree of personal tunnel vision, consistently through every single topic/ issue. Hunting license sales declines consist of very readily identifiable parts. In people terms, this is called demographics. Marketing firms and specialists take the big picture and cut the heck out of it, breaking it into the pieces that make up the whole. This information (including by age group, by sex, by residence calssification (urban, suburb, rural), by income, by education level, etc. This is ALSO TRUE for hunting, fishing and wildlife watching. Although information collection methodologies may differ, and degree of detail may vary from other industries, we have a ton of information available (and believe me, it is widely used by folks like Bass Pro, Cabela's, NRA, NSSF, USSA, NWTF, etc) not too many sportsmen realize this, or cannot access it readily, and they get spoonfed stuff that satisfy the emotional responses that seem plausible.

USF&W compiles very detailed industry reports, through intesnive surveys and state agency licensing information. THey also collect information from retailers and manufacturers. You wanna know how many hours per field your state's hunters average, and compare against National? Those are the reports for you. You wanna see people hunting and fishing by age group? Like under 6, 7-8, 9-11, 12-15, 16-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65 and older? Those are the reports for you. USF&W presents their reports every 5 years, National and State specific. The next one comes out around Q2 of 2007.

eagle-chickie... You are obviously bitter about something. You believe PGC is spinning the info, when "the sky is falling". You believe things are worse than they appear, or are being reported. I'm sure PGC has earned it, but, everyone must remember PGC is really concerned about the money these sports generates and spending that money. If the overall numbers show a 1% decline from the year before (not the OMG, we're down 41% from LY! I read some articles on it...) PGC sees they will have money and they can continue doing whatever it is they spend their money on. ANd rightfully so. Government is NOT responsible for getting kids into the sport, passing along the traditions and much-needed conservation efforts. No, the government is responsible for making sure the opportunity exists, and that's it. WE are the ones responsible, and WE must rely upon ourselves to accomplish this. NOT THE GOVERNMENT.

Making certain stupid laws which stifle opportunity are changed is one thing. But the rest of it...... its all on US, not Governemnt...

eagle chickie

doc you are correct and I make no bones about it..I'm bitter that the PGC has refused to make a sincere effort to cut back anterless tags in areas where the deer herd has been reduced past their goals in herd reduction. IMHO they are relying on those anterless fees to operate in lieu of a price hike that they were rebuffed on again.
I may point out that the 2nd spring turkey tag for Res. hunters is $21..of that $21 no% is ear marked soley for turkey habitat,management. This comes from the PGC website posted by the PGC thgemselves....all it refers to how it will be used is possibly.

lead poisoner

Actually from their statistics theylost 107,047 from 98 to 05

The jr. I am unsure of it. from 98 to 05 it has a loss of 49,000
But if you look at the jr.combo tags it says they sold 52,991.
If you took the jr and the jr. combo you have an increase of 3680 from 98. Or am I doing something wrong here?

http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=511&q=159015

eagle chickie

LP I do believe they would like to see a 1 sided argument here. Have you noticed how frequently people whom expect the PGC to answer to those that fund them are banned?
I can no way read anywhere in the link that BTB posted where it sayswhat % the back tag sales have dropped in the last 5 yrs. All I see is compared to last year. Like I said earlier in this thread take the back tag sales number from5,6,7,8 yrs ago and compare them to 2006 sales.
I'm in the only group that nationally had an increase...WOMAN

doctariAFC

Breathe deep....... ahhhhhh..... ohmmmmm shanteeee...... peace......

Ok. To help out. I see the point that you don't see what the drop in license sales has been over the past 5 seasons. Only what happened this year vs last year. Right?

Some questions.... Does PGC publish the license sales information/ statistics each and every season?

If yes, do you make certain to get a copy?

If yes, how long have you been getting these reports?

If at least 5 years.... Why not do the math yourself?

I'' give you some numbers in a few minutes.. be patient... please...

doctariAFC

Ok. 2001 top line totals for PA licensed hunters Age 16 and older....

Total resident licensedhunters - 858,000
(all license sales combined, multiple license purchasers are counted as one license sale)

Total Non-residentlicensed hunters - 142,000
(all license sales combined, multiple license purchasers are counted as one license sale)

Total of 1,000,000 hunters (deer, bear, grouse, turkey, pheasant, furbearers, the whole enchillada)

Source: USF&W 2001 Survey on Fishing, Hunting & Wildlife Watching for PA.


So, if I read the first post correctly, 2006 recorded a total of 870,000 TOTAL GENERAL HUNTING LICENSE SALES, correct?

Over the past 5 years, PA has lost @ 130,000 license sales/ hunters... Or 13 % decline over 5 years. That's pretty big. Certainly, within hunting in general, with the various tags showing peaks and valleys in 2006 vs last year, some could observe that some are changing their hunting preferences. But a 13% decline in 5 years of participants is pretty big.

doctariAFC

Just to provide a comparison.... perhaps to make some feel better. Take a look at my state.... NY

I'll just focus on big game, because those are the numbers I have so far this year from the DEC (Big Game License sales)

2001 - total res & non res big game licenses 665,000
(includes big game license and sportsmen's combo license)

2006 - total big game res & non res big game licenses 520,000
(includes big game, sportsmen, sup sportsmen and non res archery only)

That's a decline on big game license sales in 5 years of nearly 22%! OUCH!

lead poisoner

What % of these sales could be from antis all so? If I was an anti and wanted to save an animals life,I would buy my license and buy up as many doe tags that I could to save some deer from harvest.I guess maybe they haven't thought of this. Maybe some read this board and just might have an increase of sales next year to help the PGC out some by saving a few deer all so.I am surprised the PGC didn't use this stradegy yet or thought of it to increase their sales.Maybe if they catch wind of this we can all benifet here with the future of better game management and programs.We could use the antis to support the PGC and wildlife of Pa. Maybe I shouldn't post this on here.It couldn't hurt any and the ones who are against the shooting of fawns and does might actually like this idea.More antis buying tags less anterlessdeer harvested.We all could win here.This could be an increase of all tags they try to purchase.From bobcats to elk.

But i am curious how many antis do buy hunt license for this purpose. I am surprised the PGC didn't put an undercover in and send them to the antis web site and suggested this.This would be a boom in sales for sure.

Mods could you delete my posting of this tomorro.This should be enough time for the regs on here to read this.

doctariAFC

There is not a whole lot of tags bought by anti's, bro. That would be sacraledge to their doctrine. The money they would spend would support the very sport they are against. Besides, they would have to take a hunter's safety course, and that would probably kill many of them dead as a depth charge.

But, certainly some who are against killing does may be buying up the tags and then eating them in tag soup. That's more plausible than anti's doing it. Far less than 1%, probably not even 0.1%, or 0.01%...