the other 92% bait.

Not sure if that is acurate or not. But I wouldn't doubt it to be less than that.

And the only way to change it is to get people out there. Especialy younger people. Show them the ropes and you'll get them hooked for life. I've spend the majority of my season the last two years taking kids out to hunt.
You may think you'll give up what you enjoy in the hunt, but I assure you what ever you give up is well worth it to see a young kid excited from a hunt...

I encoorage everyone to take at least one kid out every year. They are our future.

2% in new jersey

Everyone on my moms side of the family hunts. The guys anyways. only about 7-10 of my friends hunt regularly when the season is in. Around my home town lots of people hunt because most of the area is farm land and that's just how it is. But I see it changing as more people are moving in and turning fields into housing developments.

It sounds about right, and that percentage is dropping.
And the 8% is probably for who has hunted before in their life, not still going. Just my guess.

Yeah sounds about right, where i work in DC im the only one in my office that hunts. However, ido know a bunch of people that hunt outside of my work, and i just introduced my buddy this year and he is hooked. Only good thing is that when i was a kid, the hunting regs were strict and we hardly saw deer, now its the oppisite, we always see deer(35 the other night), and the game wardentells that the biologist would love us to shoot more. And now a days we dont hear as many shots.

Maybe this will help:

http://www.nssf.org/IndustryResearch/FAQ-ans.cfm?Qno=02&AoI=generic

Well lets just look at the political results from Indiana to help explain population dynamics. McCain won I think 85 of Indiana's 92 counties, yet Barry won the state (he won the 7 highest populated counties, Indy, Gary, Fort Wayne, Evansville). Urbanites typically do not hunt yet it seems the majority of people from Randolph County (rural) hunt. What I am saying is that you really must look at the population centers and see how they negatively impact the % of hunters.

You can also break down demographics (age gender etc) and see low hunter numbers. You can wack 50% of the population of right at the beginning by excluding women. Not trying to besmirch the women that do hunt, but reality is you make up a fraction of a % of US women so statistically you are irrelevent (don't take it personal). Now of the 50% remaining, you can knock off about about 20% of those men that are either too old or too young to hunt (lets say over 70 and under 8). Please realize these are generalizations, you 6 year old son or 80 year old granddad are statistical anomolies and are even more irrelevent % wise then women hunters. Now of the 30% of the population that is left which is made up of boomers, GenXers and GenYers, better then 50% (especially GneX and GenY) grew up without father figures that are crucial towards the development of lifelong hunters. So now we are down to 15% of the population that even have a fighting chance to become hunters (statistically). AsI said earlier the population dynamics based on elections is about 50/50 rural to city. As we know, city folk are generaly not hunters so wipe out those guys and now you have 7.5% of the population that can fall into the realm of being called hunters (for statistical reasons). Of that 7.5% you would be lucky if 1/2 of them are actual hunters, so now the population of hunters in the US is now down to about 4%. Now if you put in the statisical deviants like women, youngan, seniors and the occassional city feller, you would get a few more %points closer to say 7%.

Pretty sad when you look at it that way.

I know its not the general way of thinking for most of you, but as far as PA goes, I wish we had about half as many hunters as we do. This is one crowded hunting state. You guys should be careful what you wish for when it comes to wanting more hunters.