A sad comment from my son. My 11 year old got his first deer yesterday while playing hookey from school with me. I asked him if he was going to take the pictures to school to show his friends. His reply was very disturbing, he said he didn't know anyone at school who like hunting. Granted we do live in a Atlanta suburb but Dang when I was 11 growing up in North Mississippi hunting was bigger than college football is now. I remember huge pancake breakfasts at the National Guard Armory at 5am on opening morning and bragging about my first deer for weeks to anyone who would listen. Please someone tell me its still like that in the smaller rural areas. If this is not just a product of living in the "big city" where is hunting headed in the future where will the next generation of hunters come from and will the growing non-hunting population support hunting the future?????

I know what you mean! My son use to look foward to opening season and go hunting with me, but now he rather be Bass fishing, cause his friends are not interested in hunting!

Well Georgia, My daughter has started Kindergarten this year and has repeatedly told the class of my hunting exploits. During her parent/teacher confrence, her teacher made mention of how much my daughter treasures the exposure to hunting.I hope my daughter's interest continues as she approaches your son's age. I always take her out to help me track and she loves a good bloodtrail. We live in Western PA and the club I belong to always has a waiting list for our hunter safety classes, so hopefully the trend continues.

Do you think the abscense of a male figure in a lot of households, has an effect on thehunting tradition?

My Dad never was a hunter but one of his best friends was always down hunting on the family farm. This and the strong interest in hunting my friends had led me to want to bad enough to get into hunting.Where I live hunting is still one of the most treasured past times and will continue to be as long as people make their own wine and butcher their own beef.

My daughters middle school had a 62% attendance rate on opening day of gun season last year

Where I grew up and where I hunt are bothsmall rural areas in WV and Deer season is like a holiday. Schools is out and everyone is hunting. Trucks and campers are all over the roadways and the little mom and pop stores come alive!
I live right outside of Lexington KY and although it's not a huge city, deer season does not seem to be that big of a deal around here.

Here in MA, there area few young hunters. A lot more than expected considering the liberal state I live in and how everyone is pro-life and all for animal rights generally speaking.

Join a hunting club andmeet new people, share your stories. That is how we do it here in MA. That is how loners find hunting buddies. Get the kids involved there too.

theres no shortage of young hunters here in nc....fall baseball ends right before the gun opener here

No shortage here in Texas. I have lots of students that miss school so that they can go hunting, heck once football is over I call in sick myself. I think if anything here in Texas it has grown in popularity.

You might suggest to your son that even if his friends do not in fact hunt, they might enjoy seeing his pictures of his deer. They may not be able to hunt because they don't know where to hunt, their parents are not themselves hunters, their parents don't have time to take them hunting. Just have him take his photos in . . . and show them to the boys. Even if they don't hunt, boys aren't likely, I think, to have strong negative reactions to hunting. Girls, on the otherhand, could be a different story. They might look on it as killing Bambi or Bambi's mom.