If you’ve read any hunting magazines or watched any hunting shows on TV in the past 20 years or so, it comes as no surprise to learn that there are fewer hunters in our country every year. In Pennsylvania, I understand that in 1986 there were about one million hunters. By 2008, the number was around 670,000 but dropped further to less than 647,000 in 2018.
I’ve heard all the usual explanations for this decrease: our population is more urban, kids want instant gratification and prefer video games on the couch to sitting in the woods. Parents have less time to expose the kids to outdoor sports; there are fewer places to hunt and more posted land. Unfortunately, all these factors and more have combined to make hunting more difficult for most folks, especially those who don’t have ready access to a huntable tract of land.
In addition to young people not taking up the hunting lifestyle like they used to, it seems I hear of more adults quitting the activity every year. I certainly understand that even avid hunters become unable to navigate the woods anymore because of age, injury, or illness. What disturbs me is hearing comments regarding the negative effects of “modern” hunting methods, technologies and regulations — things that should be a positive influence, but have maybe gone too far.
This is not meant to be an old man’s lament about the good old days, and I’m not even suggesting that things were better 30 or 50 years ago; but things were definitely different. Sadly, several folks I spoke to recently had stopped hunting because it “just wasn’t fun anymore.” Several reasons were cited, but some of the issues really made me think.
While most hunters I know take advantage of some current technologies, a lot of the same folks (me included) somehow regret the almost mandatory use of electronic gadgets such as cell phones, GPS devices, range finding scopes, trail cameras connected to your phone, computer, etc. Even the constant efforts by makers of hunting-related products can become annoying after a while. Seemingly endless ads and store displays of these items as well as competing brands of treestands, pop-up blinds, clothing, scent control and attractants all want our attention and dollars.
It would seem the solution is simple; just don’t utilize all the stuff that used to be extra accessories and are now regarded as necessities. We can just go into the woods with the same equipment available 50 years ago. That’s certainly an option I often consider for myself. But it doesn’t seem to be that simple.
A while back, I asked a hunter with just a few years experience how she was doing. The answer made me a bit sad. It seems she enjoys walking in the woods, but was quite convinced that in order to kill a deer or turkey, you had to have a perfectly erected ground blind or treestand, a realistically placed decoy and great sounding game calls as well — clearly a case of sales pitch overload.
Other issues I don’t hear discussed enough have to do with other complications that aren’t as obvious as the push for equipment. Sometimes when describing reasons why hunting isn’t as much fun anymore, people mention the complications that now exist in applying for licenses and keeping track of seasons and regulations.
This year, I had three hunters innocently ask me “When’s bear season this year?” My answer became “Good question.” We have a regular firearms season, three archery seasons with different dates (depending on where you’re standing in the woods), muzzleloader season, special firearms and two dates for extended seasons. Deer seasons, if anything, are even more complex (in spite of most hunters I know seeing less deer.) In the space I have here I can’t begin to discuss other issues. Let me just say that in my experience, knowledgeable hunters’ opinions are still divided about the benefits (or the necessity of) antler restrictions, current doe seasons, Sunday hunting for three arbitrary days and other management methods.
Please don’t misunderstand my intentions here. I’m using my home state as an example, but complicated regulations in other states can be even more frustrating, with application forms, preference points and game management units combining to make me a bit dizzy.
I was recently given a Pa. hunting license that had been issued to a young man back in 1948, at the old Emery Hardware store in Bradford. That was well before my time in the woods, but looking it over is really thought provoking. The license is printed on heavy paper, folded on perforations into thirds, for a finished size of about 3 ½ X 5 inches. Thus it would fit into our old back tag holders and contained about everything you needed for the season. I’m sure the details won’t be clear in the photo attached here, but the copy of the two-sided license provides all information regarding season dates, bag limits, hunter identification, big game tag, general instructions and a pre-addressed report card all in a practical format. Our current hunting/trapping digest is about 10 ½ X 8 inches and is about 62 pages long. Just an observation on my part; maybe less is sometimes more.
(Roger Sager, an Era Outdoor Columnist, can be reached at rogersager@gmail.com.)
