doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Not hunting anymore you say?

I believe Chuck came closest to it, but stopped a little short.

It's a loss of cultural identity = tradition. With the growing and merging world population it's inevitable and irreversible. Cultures only survive in isolation and ours is well on it's way to disappearing. We annihilated a bunch of cultures in a couple of centuries past; ours will be absorbed and diluted beyond recognition in a few decades hence.

National Geographic discovers an isolated tribe of naked hunter gatherers....the next generation is seen wearing Nikes and drinking Pepsi.... the third generation has forgotten how to hunt for grubs in rotten logs.

His brother stays and works the farm, but John Boy marries Tiffany from the city and moves to the burbs. Tiffany doesn't like guns the two of them raise the kids on video games, etc, etc.

Subsitence hunting became unnecessary and was replaced by market hunting which became unsustainable/unjustifiable and was succeeded by sport hunting which is becoming unfathomable and will become reprehensible and soon extinct.

In the meantime, we killers of animals like to point fingers at our brethren, saying MY way of killing is OK, YOUR way of killing is unethical......when in fact, shooting a pheasant is no more "justifiable" than killing a whale.

Funny, but, in my humble experience, the complaint about lack of land on which to pursue game is not the problem at all, at least not here. Minnesota has such an abundance of WMAs (they add more every year) state forests, tax forfeited lands, school trust lands and what have you, that land isn't the issue.
But, one fact is, and it is ugly. Single parent families are the norm here, and the truth is simply that single parent family is a nice, politically correct way to say kids being raised by a single woman. My Mom and Dad are still married, but, my Mom never hunted, and had it not been for my Dad, I wouldn't have, either.
I don't know what the percentage of single moms that try to get their kids out hunting is, but, my money says that it is less than one percentage point of the total. I know Dads that have sold hunting and fishing gear to make ends meet after a divorce. So goes another opportunity.
I know kids that hunt today. Their mothers had nothing to do with it. I haven't the slightest idea how to change that fact.
Best,
Ted

Cultural change, land use change, poitical change, demographic shifts, the dilution of 18th Century values about citizenship, or the general decline of personal liberty in exchange for economic or social securities or religo-political-fanatic causes, are all quick glosses on the subject.

However, humans vastly overpopulate, wear things out, overuse them, neglect stewardship in exchange for quick fixes and so...I suspect that the next REALLY good hunting is awaiting somewhere out in the solar system, provided we don't get hunted here.;~`)

In the meantime I'll take a good laugh when the opportunity presents, and hunt with my dogs till the paramedics haul my wornout carcass from a canoe or blind or tree stump or a swale of grass on a sunny hillside with a view.

Wish I had a fix or cure for the ills of us sportsman and society in general, but don't feel like founding another danged religion or fostering a POS cluster of politicians in an attempt to remedy the future.

Que sera, sera...

That's an interesting observation, Ted. Never thought of it that way. Married couples are in the minority in Canada, according to Statistics Canada 2006 census data, and there are more childless couples than ones with youngsters.

Forty-four per cent of young adults aged 20 to 29 are still living in the comfortable parental home. The kids won't leave, then they won't get married, and the in-laws are moving in in droves. Not my family profile, thank Zeus.

The American Spirit is, and always has been - own and you shall be free.
Bitching is so European, wouldn't you say.
Land is out there, be it a small woodlot, or vast acreage.
If you are worried about the future of hunting - get your cash out.
If not, you'll be at the mercy of whatever comes along.
Make your own rules for a change.

Lowell, I am lucky and blessed to have been able to do just what you've suggested and normally hunt on my own dirt. However, growing up I hunted almost anywhere I wanted around here, traveling by bicycle with a .22 or a shotgun or a Brit .303 jungle carbine across the handle bars. That is what is not possible anymore.

Was I more free then or now? I think then. And I don't know how to go back...Geo

Universities have a significant impact.

My three kids all starting shooting early in life. In their teens, they hunted and worked rifle matches at our club, scoring and changing targets. Growing up, they ate wild game on our dinner table.

All three went to large midwestern state universities, and got degrees in engineering or finance. At college, they were all turned into lefties and liberals. While not anti-gun (at least around me) none of them want any of the guns I have offered to them, they don't shoot anymore, and never hunt. To humor me, they will sometime accompany me to the skeet range, and shoot a round or so - but minimal interest.

Two of them extensively hike, camp, canoe, etc. but without any firearms.

They are still very good people, and I'm proud of their many accomplishments -- but no more hunting!

JERRY

I have to disagree about land. Yes, land is still out there that has habitat. The difficulty is for a urban/suburban dweller to find either public land to hunt or getting permission to hunt the every increasing private lands. How many landowners do you suppose will allow a person they've never seen before to hunt their land? As a kid in MT, it was a very high percentage chance that if you knocked on a rancher's door, you'd get access to hunt. Today, it's much different IMO.

Jerry, generally speaking, I think our younger generation is comprised of better people, lefties, liberals or conservatives.

It's true that more young adults than in our time are more interested in recreational pursuits other than hunting.

I don't think we've set good examples. Many of my friends simply gave up because they no longer felt safe in the woods---and for good reasons.

Our lives are not the worse for it. Our sons and daughters made their choices without allowing us to do their thinking for them.

I think they made good choices. It's pretty near over, Jerry. We saw the best of it.

I used to walk down to the Andover (CT) Elementary School with a .22-250 around 7AM, before buses arrived in the AM. I'd lay down on the playground steps and shoot woodchucks while the principal watched. I'd also walk up and down the road, sometimes carrying chucks (trophies) home from local hayfields. Bringing my Dad's A5 to school on the bus, I'd later go home with a friend on a different bus for after-school grousing. This was completely normal. The A5 stayed in the principal's office, of course, during school hours.

I sometimes imagine the repercussions should some kid try to pull that off in that locale today.

I was more free then, too. And I don't see a way back, either. I've moved my family to the outer edges of the empire, as determined by economic feasibility for my occupation. I can't see where I can go when this area is eventually ruined and wussified.

Sam