doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hunters Gone

I don't know about the States and Canada but off late here in the uk there has been quite some prime tv time devoted to hunting by some quite highly regarded chefs like Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey, we had the series called River Cottage with Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall and there was a series called Wild Gourmets.

It is all pro hunting publicity, to eat healthy and be in touch with nature, to eat meat you have to kill things.
What impact it will have on young people I have no idea but it can only help.






http://www.rivercottage.net/
http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/wild-gourmets/
Jamie Oliver
We have 4od for Channel4 where you can download their player and watch some of the series after downloading them. Might be worth a watch for some.

Hunting is alive and well in Missouri - the key is private land. Deer hunting is up, turkey and ducks also.
Not so with quail.
My friends who hunt, all own their own land, or, they are members of duck clubs - that's the key to the future - got to take charge of it yourself.

[quote=AmarilloMike]Just my opinion but with the change in sexual morals those teenage boys are all out getting laid. Now lets all remember back to when we were sixteen and see what choice we would make - "Let's see, go out with my sweet thing and do the wild thing all night or get up at 3:00 tomorrow morning and go out with Dad and his fat friends and freeze my ass off in the duck blind for five hours and then spend three hours cleaning ducks?" What would you have chosen back then? Mike quote]

Best,


I'll answer as to what I DID choose back then. Grandaddy, and his wonderful hunting and fishing friends, the duck swamps and the dove fields. My Dad owned a big country store and, running it 14 hours a day, did not have the time to hunt or fish near as much as he liked. Even at sixteen I had enough sense to realize that the girls were open season the other 9 months of the year that I couldn't hunt. Stan

Truthfully, it doesn't really matter.

The point is to let today's kids make their own minds up, and the only way to do that is to offer to take a teenager [boy or girl] hunting every time you get the chance.

Exactly.

Kids who grow up hunters are more likely to become landowners, lessees, club members, etc who are willing to work to provide quality habitat for their favorite quarry.

As long as this chain isn't broken, there will be birds to pluck and hides to pull well into the future.

We can each make a contributiion to the hunting world. Take a kid hunting, even it it is the neighbor's.

I buy each of my grandchildren a lifetime hunting and fishing license for their 3d birthday. Tennessee has a great deal, $200 if purchased before the 3d birthday. Some other states have a similar program. It means nothing to them at 3, but give it to them for their first hunt and they will cherish it forever.

Jim

King, I understand your sentiments about 3 & 3-1/2" guns but can you really complain about it in the same post as declining hunters? I'm not fond of varminting or trophy (head) hunting, baiting bears, etc. but they're hunters.

"We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Recoil Bob, I don't know whether I was complaining so much about hunters as (1) providing evidence of what we've been musing about for the future and (2) if our hunting heritage is going (3) the big guns in my opinion are pushing it along. A seemingly infinite number of stakeholders will inevitably dictate where the resource, habitat and hunting opportunities go in the future---and we're a miniscule minority.

We are all creatures of our environment.

I teach Hunter Education classes as a volunteer for Arizona Game and Fish department. We see quite a few youngsters coming into the sport (I am involved with training about 650 hunters per year and 70% are kids). Arizona runs Junior dove, pheasant, deer and elk hunts annually to further encourage them along with the scholastic clays program which brings more youngsters into the shooting sports. If you want to have more hunters you have to be proactive. The old formula of Grandfathers, fathers and uncles bringing them to the sport is broken because most now live in cities. Further once trained they don't know where to go to have a decent hunt - the posted land doesn't help. Families used to go to the same hunt areas generation after generation. But they have now been relocated for jobs and lost their connection to hunting space. You need to help them get hooked up to a place to hunt or they will fall away. It isn't the gun issues, it is the change in populations tied to cities and the mobile society.

I will admit my own grandson sometimes thinks hunting is boring and doesn't want to go. Three weeks ago he thought he was going to skip out on a bull elk hunt with me and his uncle. But I still swing enough weight that when I said he was going that resolved the issue. Didn't get a bull for his tag, but he saw 17 bulls within range plus a cougar. We made a couple pretty good parallel runs to get ahead of a herd for better look and I made sure he noted all that nature had to offer. Got his little butt pretty chilly and learned about winter camping in a tent, but he hasn't stopped talking about the trip yet! Don't let them off the hook! No cell phones or game boys and a good lesson in campfires, and being made to feel an equal with men in camp and field eventually sinks in. I haven't figured out granddaughters yet.