Hipsters, the next generation of hunters.

[Jack Ryan]

I think it is great.

Coming in with crossbows probably helps the danger factor (errant rifle shots) and gets new people into te sport.

What is not to like?

If you are worried that more hunters will kill “your” deer, rest easy. The sport is losing more hunters than it is gaining.

Baby boomers are aging out of the sport. I know because I am one. I ain’t dead yet but I know that somewhere, some time the last hunt is on the horizon.

It’s all good.

If they want skinny camo, let ‘em wear it.

If you've gained one of those dork knobbed snow flakes in to hunting, you've LOST two hunters.

 

[Jim Boyd]

If you've gained one of those dork knobbed snow flakes in to hunting, you've LOST two hunters.

Not 100% sure how to interpret your post, but I can share this.

19 year old kid just phased out of my club, son of a member. He is now serving in the US Marines. He is a man now but was a young man of the finest kind and loved hunting.

We have a 12 year old now. Kills deer with crossbow and also popped a great one in Ohio in 2017. I don’t think you could look and find finer examples of young men to bring into the sport.

My buddy’s 20 year son was injured in motocross race, broken neck. I broke my collarbone in same race. Two years later, he hunted an entire season with me - out of a wheelchair. Used ground blinds that I set up exclusively for him.

I don’t even know what dork knobbed means but I don’t think either of these young men are.

I am glad to have been exposed to them but like with most things, we all have choices.

I choose and you choose and hopefully, we are both the better for it.

Pretty sure I got the better end of the deal with the three I mentioned.

And yes, I will help covert a snowflake.


Best of luck.

 

[treadwell]

Don't fret, CWD, EHD, 12 deer/hunter limits, poaching......=no deer to hunt in the future anyway.

 

[Ruger roo]

Isn't a hipster hunter a oxymoron?

 

[Throwback]

funny to hear older generations talk about younger generations the way their parents and grandparents generations talked about them when they were kids.

reckon what the "greatest generation's" parents thought about their grandchildren when they were protesting in the 60's? probably pretty close to this.

 

[PappyHoel]

Nothing wrong with getting young people into hunting, but labeling it as a sustainable food source is false advertising. 1 million deer vs 10 million Georgia’s. Not sure how that would be sustainable.

We don’t need to recruit any new hunters that’s false. There’s already not enough land to hunt or hunting leases are over crowded. Heck there’s a guy advertising a 400 acre hunt club for 10 people.

We don’t need any new hunters.

 

[ProAngler]

We don’t need to recruit any new hunters that’s false. There’s already not enough land to hunt or hunting leases are over crowded. Heck there’s a guy advertising a 400 acre hunt club for 10 people.

We don’t need any new hunters.

I don’t disagree with you. I’m not sure where this fear of hunting going extinct actuall comes from. Laws of supply and demand argue otherwise as you pointed out with lease prices.

 

[nrh0011]

One generation killed them out so bad the state had to restock, and now we have this thread. Funny how time changes things. 30 years from now I hope I can look back and remember most of these discussions...

 

[Jeff C.]

I just don't see the decline in hunter numbers. I don't know of a single piece of huntable property that doesn't have somebody hunting it, several more wanting to hunt it, and a few more sneaking around and hunting it. You can't even hardly get away from other hunters on millions of acres of national forest land. You can't sling a housecat twenty feet without hitting a hunter with it.

 

[Joe Brandon]

I have a little one due on July 4th of this year. I cannot wait to teach him/her about The Great Outdoors. I am really thankful to people like Steven Rinella who keep hunting relevant, fresh, and intelligent. This generation is thinking conservation and purpose. I think anyone interested in hunting is good for the tradition and future. With that said few will have the passion to stick it out so for every 20 that give it a go maybe 1 will stick with it through the long haul.

 

[shawnrice]

if ya'll want to bore new hunters to death take them deer hunting and tell them they can only shoot a buck X size or a doe without fawns, or not a small buck or a big buck etc etc.

I agree ,I tell young hunters and men alike that come hunt with us to shoot what makes them happy DONT MATTER TO ME ...everyone needs to enjoy hunting or they quit .My grandson and nephew proud of there kill ! Priceless to me to be there with them !

 

[NCHillbilly]

funny to hear older generations talk about younger generations the way their parents and grandparents generations talked about them when they were kids.

reckon what the "greatest generation's" parents thought about their grandchildren when they were protesting in the 60's? probably pretty close to this.

Old Jim Bridger there would have thought we were all a bunch of snowflakes.

 

[jiminbogart]

I know a know a hipster that just started hunting. He told me he saw a yearling and wasn't sure if he should shoot it so he googled it.

I'm surprised a hipster knew what a yearling was. I could see them knowing what a fawn is, but that year and a half old looks a lot like a two and a half year old.

 

[sea trout]

If hunter numbers are declining then the amount of hunting acreage must be declining as well. That would explain the increasing cost of private leases and the lack of available private property available to lease.

I think you're right here.
I've heard for a while of hunter numbers on the decline. Yet hunting land get more and more crowded!

 

[NCHillbilly]

I'm surprised a hipster knew what a yearling was. I could see them knowing what a fawn is, but that year and a half old looks a lot like a two and a half year old.

In general usage by 99% of us, a "yearling" is a fall fawn deer born that year. Out of spots, but not full-sized. A deer of the year, a yearling. You can say all you want about how a yearling is a year and a half old deer, but pretty much nobody uses the term that way, and when anybody says "yearling," everybody knows what they mean. A 1 1/2 year old deer is just a "deer." Kind of like the folks in the gun forum who chastise people for saying "clip," but everybody on God's green earth knows exactly what you mean, whether you say "clip" or "magazine."

 

[NCHillbilly]

I actually helped get a hipster that I work with get started deer hunting. The organic free-range meat sealed the deal. He asked ten million questions and spent a year or two learning, but he's killed a couple deer now on hard-hunted public mountain land. He's a pretty good guy, even if he does lean a bit to the Bernie side.

My favorite part was the first time he saw a legal buck in the woods, and he tried to shoot it.

He said, "I had the strangest thing happen. I saw this buck coming, so I slowly got my gun up and got ready to shoot. When I got my sights on it, my heart rate cranked up really fast, and I started shaking really badly. I couldn't hold steady on it. I tried to shoot it, but I completely missed the whole deer! I don't know what in the world happened to me, and I don't understand it! I've never experienced a loss of control like that before?"

 

[northgeorgiasportsman]

In general usage by 99% of us, a "yearling" is a fall fawn deer born that year. Out of spots, but not full-sized. A deer of the year, a yearling. You can say all you want about how a yearling is a year and a half old deer, but pretty much nobody uses the term that way, and when anybody says "yearling," everybody knows what they mean. A 1 1/2 year old deer is just a "deer." Kind of like the folks in the gun forum who chastise people for saying "clip," but everybody on God's green earth knows exactly what you mean, whether you say "clip" or "magazine."

"Hillbilly emptied his clip at that yearling 'fore he touched it."

 

[NCHillbilly]

"Hillbilly emptied his clip at that yearling 'fore he touched it."

True story. It was tender and tasty, though.

 

[swamp hunter]

I see more young hunters down far South here than ever before.
They all seem to tote AR,s and look at you thru their scopes while they wander around..

 

[DSGB]

I believe that the explosion in hunter numbers in the 90s was so great that the so-called “decline” we are seeing now is more of a regression to the mean.

The reason for lease and land price increases can also be somewhat attributed to this, but it is also a result of less available land. How many places that you or someone you know hunted that are now subdivisions?