I don't mean to sound like a muckraker but do you ever stop and look at the prices of hunting dues and just think, man, one day deer hunting is gonna be a rich man's sport? I might be alone when I say this but does it not seem that every year it gets a little more expensive and a tiny bit harder to do? I don't think it will be too terribly long until WMAs will be bursting at the seems with people and the only people hunting private land are the ones with connections. Its a bleak look into the future, that I know but everything looks bleak these days.
I don't have an issue with money or my lease, I hunt 3 to four states per year, I never stated I did have an issue. I simply responded to the OP in regards to hunting pricing itself out of the market and how I agree with it, especially for younger hunters. I stated that it can price itself out of the market as I feel that diesel trucks and bass fishing has, both of which I have owned in the past but would not buy again, not due to the inability to afford it but because I don't feel the value for what you pay is worth it any longer. I think you're missing the point of the OP's statement as it's not about whether you can afford to hunt or not, it's a matter of whether it's worth the money to do it any longer and I am simply stating that the numbers bear out that hunters are leaving faster then they are joining our ranks and I believe part of that is due to the cost of hunting. You're still a young'un that hasn't seen hunting evolve over the last 50 years and in many different areas over that time as I have. From a time that you could go out on a friend or local farmers land and hunt the brown rat that was eating the neighbors fields for free to how it is today. Just 20 years ago property in Georgia was just known as deer leases, then landowners realized they could say trophy managed and QDM and get more money for the property and that started the escalation of lease prices. Again, I never said I couldn't afford them, I am just stating that there is a price in which the value is not there in which to continue to do it and I think young people are already at that price which is reflective on why the numbers of hunters is going down in this country and the average age of a hunter is going up. In 2010 there was over 19.25 million hunters in the US, in 2017 that number was around 16.5 to 16.9 million, losing nearly 2.5 to 3 million hunters in just 7 years.
I also never said hunting public land was a waste of time either, I simply stated they are not a similar experience to private land or leases and do not necessarily give a hunter his best opportunity to have the success he may be looking for as not everyone wants to just kill a doe or small buck and I am not saying that killing a big buck is not possible on public land, just not as likely, especially for new and inexperienced hunters in today's world. So you keep hunting your public land and maybe someday you might be able to work up enough money to afford one of those high dollar leases like I'm on and get to experience it for yourself to see what I am talking about....or maybe you'll hit the lottery.
