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Beo
08-14-2008, 09:38 AM
I am a member of several other boards, Muzzleloader forum, hunting and fishing and archery forums, and of course historical trekking. All deal with issues on hunting and one thing I always see when reading the interesting things and thoughtful thigs from hunters who are traditional archers, compound archers, or gun hunters is that most anti-hunter concerns are focused in the east, where there is precious little public land and populations are high. To me a clear pattern here is that where we have little or no public hunting land and most private land is leased to the silver spooners, we blue collar hunters are increasingly herded together at points of limited access, and then become easy targets for those who would harass us or disrupt our hunts.
Also big cities are where most anti-hunters live and are made since without public hunting lands to raom in the non-hunting majority become easily detached from the workings of the wilderness and nature, ignorant of the absolute necessities of predation and death, and they grow more offended by hunting. Once again here in Ohio the antis are acting up, saying that our season is too long and we need not kill the animals since stores have everything we need. Seeing these facts helps me as a cop and hunter understand why so many hunters get alarmed and are so quick to take action when they think the anti-hunters and gunners are coming.
These fears are similar to the hunters worrying about the "liberals" coming to take away our guns.
Out west I have noticed they have this problem too but not as bad as us here in the east and south and neither worry about what goes on until its in there area. It seems to be an out of sight out of mind kinda thing. To me both sides of hunting America need to come together no matter where it is in the United States.
Problem is what do we about this?

Ole WV Coot
08-14-2008, 10:20 AM
I don't hunt anymore, but I am probably the only person in the county that doesn't. I don't care to hunt from a stand and like still hunting & stalking. The old joints don't move as well now, with the abundance of game, especially deer they aren't in any danger of depletion.

BraggSurvivor
08-14-2008, 10:25 AM
Since I raise my own beef and pork, I no longer hunt big game. I do take a few spring rabbits and in the fall 6 of us head out to Pheasant hunt for 5 days. It's more about BS'ing with friends and drinking a bunch of rum.

trax
08-14-2008, 10:47 AM
Plenty to hunt here, Beo.

Riverrat
08-14-2008, 11:13 AM
I hunt and love doing it, it is not the getting of the game, although that is nice, it is the getting out and away. I have tried to talk to anti hunters, but they will not talk most times. All they do is shout the same stuff, and if anyone checked out what they are talking about, most is crap. It is hard gtting out with my hip, but is still worth it, and may even be better, I now move slower and can see more game in the woods....

DOGMAN
08-14-2008, 11:19 AM
I remember reading an article in the news last year about current hunting license statistics. The amount of people that hunt in the USA has gone down like 30% in the past two generations. If I recall correctly less than 10% of the American population bought hunting licenses last year.

Beo
08-14-2008, 11:21 AM
Yet all anti-hunters complain about the over-population of deer, at least here in the mid-west, kentucky and Tennessee where i hunt. Have heard it in the eastern and southern states as well.

nell67
08-14-2008, 11:42 AM
They do it here too Beo,don't want anyone hunting ,but mad as heck when it's their car damaged by deer in the road.....:rolleyes:

Rick
08-14-2008, 12:22 PM
Interesting. I thought I read recently that the number of licenses had gone up. I'll have to see if I can find the source. Perhaps my memory is wrong.

crashdive123
08-14-2008, 12:40 PM
I had read that hunting licenses were on the rise as well. The article speculated that because of rising food prices, more were going out to get their own. Makes sense.

DOGMAN
08-14-2008, 12:50 PM
Reread my post....I said in an article I read LAST YEAR. It was in early Sept, in USA Today. I remember it vividly because a friend and I discussed it a we drove to a trailhead to horse pack-in our hunting camp for the season. We always do that the week after Labor Day.

This year- it does seem like more people will be hunting for table fare. We all get a little more primal when you take away our cash!

crashdive123
08-14-2008, 01:46 PM
Jason - sorry if I wasn't clear on my post. It was a recent article that I read. I meant to say that the trend of less hunting may be reversing itself due to the higher food prices. Sorry for the mix up.

Rick
08-14-2008, 03:05 PM
Ditto. That was my thoughts as well. Wasn't trying to contradict you. They probably have been going down. I just hadn't read that and, coupled with the article I had read, thought it was interesting.

Beo
08-14-2008, 03:44 PM
Here in Ohio hunting licenses are down, I know I went from the couple hundred acre farm I have hunted for years to about 80 acres this year because the farmer sold the property to the Township and now its a softball complex.

VampireRanger676
08-14-2008, 05:42 PM
Up here turkeys have started to po up everywhere deers are on the increase and the think here is that we only one buck and one doe tag and two turkey tags think is we have alot of hunters not enough tags

flandersander
08-14-2008, 06:55 PM
Around here, there are SO many deer, its not even funny. You can go to any bush and flush a couple out. You can end up getting 8 (i think) whitetailed tags. Crazy easy to hunt aswell.