Hunting is a sport, not a necessity (with very rare exceptions). It is a sport that is based on the traditions of what once was a necessity. It used to be a sport primarily indulged in by rural families and some urbanites. With the shifting demographics it has become largely a sport of wealthy urbanites. Wealthy in that it does take significant dollars to hunt, in the way most urbanites go about hunting these sad and sorry days.
With the shifting demography has come a shifting hunter/consumer passion for gadgets and things to use for hunting and showing off to other consumers - a lot of keeping up with the Jones'. Does your neighbor really need that 4 wheel ATV to hunt on a 500 acre lease? Does he really need to pay $2,000 a year for that lease? Does he really need a $500 set of camo clothes to hunt from a box blind over a corn feeder? Does he really need to have a $350 corn feeder? Does he really need that $2,500 rifle to shoot white tail deer? Does he really need all of those cameras to do his scouting for him? Does he really need that $400 GPS unit? Does he really need that $600 pair of binoculars? Does he really need that $400 laser range finder? Does he really really need to carry a cell phone in the woods? Does he really need a walkie talkie? Hunting has become more about the buying of things, than the doing of things.
With the emergence of this multi-million (billions?) dollar a year consumer market have come specialized corporations that cash in on the gadget frenzy - and it is a self feeding, maniacal frenzy, of more better and cooler every hunting season. Which is, to me, always discouraging and quite often disgusting :barf: .
Used to be that you would see a couple of hunters walking out into the woods armed with inexpensive rifles or shotguns, dressed in inexpenisve clothes, and that was it. That was all there was to it. They might have had compasses and canteens, but not expensive ones. Now you see hunters driving huge 4 wheel drive trucks, pulling trailers loaded with tower stands, ATVs, Feeders, box blinds, everyting including the truck in camo pattern and all kinds of just plain useless, needless, brainless, crap.
The primitive weapon seasons were intended to allow hunters a short period of time to hunt primitively, protected from all the gadgets and gadget morons out there. But, the corporations saw another market - and the technology creep was on. Look at the evolution of bows - from long bows and recurves, to these incredibly over-engineered machines that are not really bows anymore, but qualify anyway for bow season. Muzzle loaders that are so sophisticated that comparing them with traditional muzzloaders isn't possible. And the buffoons that want to take advantage of the primitive seasons without hunting primitively are gobbling these abominations up like kids eating candy. If you are hunting with a modern muzzle loader or compound bow during primitive seasons, and do not realize that you are a loop hole hunter, then take another long hard look at yourself and prepare to be disgusted by the sight. If, on the other hand, you are using these modern primitive contraptions only during regular season because they provide a limit on your capabilities over what is otherwise legal during that season, then more power to you and glad to meet you.
Incredibly the people who are the most caught up in this consumer buzz don't even recognize that they have become infected with a disease. Too bad what is happening to hunting. Too bad for the people who don't know what they are doing wrong, and are not capable of understanding what they are missing. Too bad that hunting in America has become a corporate enterprise and that so many hunters have become the prize fools of the hunting industry profit machine.
Rant off, flame suit on
