RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

BusterT I do agree most kids that work for something will take care of it. I do get pissed with how money affects how we hunt or where we can hunt. The man with big money can buy or lease what most of us can't afford. Our club has lost prime land we worked 20 plus years getting sweet, when the Doctor offered 10 times more for the land than we were paying, we had leasted this land for 20 years. Loyilty does not mean a hill of beans to most these days, money talks you know what I mean. I also hunt with a compound , but I want a change and try my reflex, just to try it??? I love to hunt and talking to others who share that passion. Bigdaddy

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

RIGHT THERE, bigdaddy. You just put your finger right down in the big middle of the real problem. That's just one of thousands of similar stories, where people with long term leases have had the property jerked out from under them by big bankrolls.

We're beginning the process to go European, where the wealthy elite are the only ones who can afford to go hunting. I don't care how hard a bluecollar fella saves, how many jobs he works, how much support he gets from his loved ones, there will eventually come a point where he simply cannot come up with the cash that a multi-millionaire can flop down for hunting, without so much as batting an eye.

Take the high lease prices, combine that with urban sprawl and Mr Bluecollar is, or SHOULD be, increasingly disturbed about his ever increasing LOSS OF OPPORTUNITY.

In fact, the entire hunting industry better wake up. Bluecollars make up all but a tiny fraction of their sales every year. What happens to their sales and profits when bluecollars don't have anywhere to go and use their products? People who don't own a yacht sure as the devil don't buy yachting supplies. If they don't golf, they don't go buy a new set of clubs every few years. By the same token, if they can't go hunting, they won't be buying hunting gear.

Are there enough people with deep pockets to support the entire hunting industry, as it stands today? So doubtful that it's probably impossible. How many companies will survive when bluecollars are finally driven out of the woods?

That's the problem with this class distinction stuff, as I see it.

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

Just to add to the topic, let's though the Government into the mix. Property tax on land is increasingly rediculous.

Here is just an example, on the land that own, but not reside on, I would have to charge around $40 an acre for a lease just to recoup my property taxes (I don't lease the land). All I really use the land for is hunting and a few getaway weekends during the summer with the family. In some ways I feel the $10 an acre lease (that's what they get around here)isa real bargain.

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

So is it bad to be a millionaire, or bad to be sponsored by an archery company, bad to make a living off of the thing you love to do the most? I started out as the only person in my family who ever graduated high school. (parents & 6 siblings). Went to work as a machinist, joined the Air Force and got a degree in accounting. Got a degree in Quality Engineering, got a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Worked as a Quality Engineer, Engineering manager, V.P. of Administration and now own the largest contract inspection facility in North America. I've never been on a guided hunt but I hunted and killed bull elk, black bear, mulies and tons of whitetails in 3 states. The most I ever spent on any of those hunts was my license cost and gas. I'm considered a millionaire, I ran my own archery shop & sporting goods store so I made my living off the thing I love to do the most. If an archery company came up to me and said they would pay me to hunt and use their equipment...get out of my way. I just happen to know that there's years of personal sacrifice that has to be done up front before anybody wants you and I'm not willing to make that kind of sacrifice like the rest of them. As for the guy who said Chuck Adams is blue collar? Think about it for a minute. What kind of job does he have that working only 9 months allows him to go to Alaska on a $20,000+ hunt, $15,000+ africa hunt and $5,000+ western hunt in one year?

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

The difference between us and Europe, is that many states have vast ammounts of public lands (state and federal) - maybe not PRIME hunting like RealTree leases, but its hunting.

Nobody said that. Ever.

That sounds like you EARNED those animals.



Chuck Adams started out VERY Blue Collar, he paid for a lot of his Super Slam himself. He chose hunting over everything else in his life, very sad to me, but he chose.


longbowman2 I would hazard a guess that nowdays, a large percentage of the really big bucks killed and shown around, are grown deer. And by that, I mean they are either high fenced farm animals, or they are on such a big parcel of leased lands (supplementally fed to the extreme) that they're not even comparable to public lands animals or non-grown deer.

You can go to EBAY and buy a 240" whitetail, no problems. You want a 400" bull elk ? I can buy one this week. You want 1,000 acres in central KS ? Done. Money will get you all those things, and many, many more.

Money will not buy respect from your peers. Money will not by self-satisfaction and it won't by a sense of accomplishment. All those big bucks taken on high fenced places and intensely managed ones are hollow trophies that equate to shooting an Angus Bull in old farmer McDonald's pasture.

You sound like you have the same convictions and beliefs longbowman2- I bring home $60,000 a year, you bring home $1,000,000 a year, yet neither of us go on guided hunts, high fenced hunts, or any of the such. Why ?

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

BusterT, First of all go abck and read my answer to your post on the ehtics thing. Secondly, I already like you and would love to meet you at a Trad event somewhere.

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

That's at least 10 times cheaper than you'll find any lease for in Texas, and then you're probably limited on how many people you're allowed to bring in and hunt with you, without paying extra. Many places charge by the hunter, say $1000-3000 each. Kinda hard to take your kids along with you when you have to ante up another grand or three per each.

Many of the guys in my club go out of state to hunt because it's cheaper than trying to get a lease here at home.

And, longbowman, not every state has vast tracts of public hunting land. Texas land is 98% privately owned. Much of the public land is park area and not open to hunting. A bunch more is classified 'multi-use' and is practically worthless for deer hunting. It's easier to find equestrians, campers, trash and litter than deer tracks. Very little is left over just for hunting. Not to mention, the way the federal gov't is trying to sell off public land, many states will wind up with much less in the near future.

Don't disregard the problem just because it doesn't affect you.... yet. Some of us are closer to it than you are, but you're standing in the middle of the tracks and the train is coming.

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

Yep, we are still one of the cheaper states. And landowners are actually just starting to due leases, we are more in an infant stage around here. My (2 of them) friends lease around 200 acres (all wooded)for $1800. And that's annual. I let them hunt my property in exchange for hunting on their lease. I don't know about any limits imposed.

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

Texas is a poor man's nightmare to try and hunt, I lived all over that state from Corpus Chrisit to Belton to Dallas. I like the state, hate that it doesn't have public lands like AR does. Great fishing though, lots of lakes, go figure that. The Texas Parks and Wildlife should try and secure a lot of WMA's or something ........ they gotta have some $$$$$$$

RE: The Blue Collar Bowhunter !
 

Daddy Warbucks M. Rockafeller here, Alpha's not in...

All you peasants dont deserve to hunt....you are just here formy amusment becauseI allow it !!!! All of you low end bottom feeders should be caged up....your lucky to have anything at all, let alone hunting privledges...dont you have some slop to cook, or toilets toscrub....get back to work, i hightly doubt that you havepermission to be viewing this forum!!!!so just shut up, bow down and lick my BOOT!!!!!!

Peasants hunting:eek:pfffffff, what a joke this country has become.