November 2017 American Rifleman, President's column:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nra/ar_201711/index.php#/16
The article entails what groups have enlisted to help save hunting .... big money groups .... impressive, right?
That won't save hunting. It's a numbers game: The only thing that will keep hunting going is new hunters, preferably young ones.... and Big Money is, in my opinion and experience, is what is killing the hunting tradition..... as I opined in this thread https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=472409, 1/2 a dozen years ago now.........
..... it's a numbers game, and with the cost of permits going through the roof, access to places to hunt vanishing , and the ever present marketing selling (very successfully, I think) the idea that if you don't have the latest and greatest boomstick, ATV, 4X4 truck to tow the trailer for the ATV, the right camo pattern on your scentlock suit and a plethora of other paraphanalia, you might as well stay home ...... at the point it costs hundreds of dollars to hunt locally, fewer people will do that..... far fewer still will make the effort to take their kids, or their nieces and nephews ..... without recruiting and training new hunters, in a generation, it will come down to a few old guys paying for canned hunts behind high fences ...... an easy target for the Antis.....
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nra/ar_201711/index.php#/16
The article entails what groups have enlisted to help save hunting .... big money groups .... impressive, right?
That won't save hunting. It's a numbers game: The only thing that will keep hunting going is new hunters, preferably young ones.... and Big Money is, in my opinion and experience, is what is killing the hunting tradition..... as I opined in this thread https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=472409, 1/2 a dozen years ago now.........
Money is killing the hunting heritage in my state.
Some cube dweller from suburbia pays a couple grand for a hunt, another grand for gas, food and lodging to drive out for opening weekend of deer season and shoot a deer that is not afraid of people....... and then pays somebody else to package his meat, which he than gives away to a food pantry...... all so he can say he's a "hunter". He could not find a deer on his own if he had to, and is not interested in learning how..... and processing his own meat is too much work, and he does not eat the stuff anyhow....
Once upon a time, I hunted that ground ...... It's posted because it's leased by a big guide operation now.....
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..... it's a numbers game, and with the cost of permits going through the roof, access to places to hunt vanishing , and the ever present marketing selling (very successfully, I think) the idea that if you don't have the latest and greatest boomstick, ATV, 4X4 truck to tow the trailer for the ATV, the right camo pattern on your scentlock suit and a plethora of other paraphanalia, you might as well stay home ...... at the point it costs hundreds of dollars to hunt locally, fewer people will do that..... far fewer still will make the effort to take their kids, or their nieces and nephews ..... without recruiting and training new hunters, in a generation, it will come down to a few old guys paying for canned hunts behind high fences ...... an easy target for the Antis.....