I have been providing hunting opportunities for kids and adults on U.S. Fish & Wildlife lands for the better part of 3 decades, and each year I see the continuing decline in the number of Youth hunters. I know this is not the same world that I grew up in, and that kids have so many more activities clamoring for their participation than I ever dreamed of when I was raising young’uns – but that doesn’t mean that I’m ok with throwing in the towel and abandoning the future of the sport of hunting or surrendering to soccer, Faceplant, and video games.

On the National Wildlife Refuge that I work on, we have fewer applicants each year, and more no-shows on hunting days. I suspect it stems from parents who can’t (or won’t) find the time or make the opportunity. It probably isn’t because of the cost ($10 application fee for a 2 1/2 day hunt). It probably isn’t because of the application process (takes about 10 minutes online). It probably isn’t due to ignorance (we get hundreds of applicants for our adult hunts).

And it probably isn’t due to lack of success. The hunt last weekend produced three does, two spikes, three 8-points, a 9-point, and a 10-point for the dozen or so kids that hunted. We had slots for 40+.

A few pictures from last weekend:







This is the Texas Hill Country – where leases go for thousands of dollars and public hunting land for deer is practically nonexistent.

We have got to get the next generation engaged. I’m open to suggestions. Feel free to post here or pm me. I know it is a popular pastime on this site to badmouth government and government employees in general, and the Fish & Wildlife Service specifically – and I relate to a lot of those comments at times, but this should be something everybody on this site can relate to and support. If you have any questions about who I am, feel free to check out my many posts on the many different forums here.

And if you feel led to make a contribution of time, talents or resources towards this effort, I would love to hear from you. We have over 170 volunteers at the Refuge. Most are bird watchers. Few are hunters. That’s upside down – hunters have always been first in supporting wildlife in America.

For more information, go to http://www.fws.gov/refuge/balcones_canyonlands/

Dave

I see a lot of hunting parents spend a lot of money on ball sports and push their kids in that direction but ate unwilling to push them to hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
I see a lot of hunting parents spend a lot of money on ball sports and push their kids in that direction but are unwilling to push them to hunting.

That's so true!
I "pushed" my kids into hunting and now my adult kids (Son and 4 married daughters) are all accomplished hunters. My wife and I have been on the same page for 4 decades and that certainly helps but my family is the exception rather than the rule.

God help us all and our dear sport,
Zeke

The NRA is working on this issue.

Acer, thank you for your efforts and for posting this. I love the Texas Hill Country and was unaware of an opportunity like this. I can't believe your youth hunts are undersubscribed there! Youth hunts in NM have become some of the hardest to draw, despite the Game and Fish significantly increasing opportunities. My two older kids put in for three hunts each this year and didn't draw any tags. I would happily put them in for a hunt like this if available to non-residents. They loved hunting in Texas! I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to return.

Dave, I appreciate what you are doing. I would also like to get more youth involved.

The only comment I have, is I looked over the link you provided about the refuge and I did not find a single reference to hunting. If I didn't miss it, that would be a place to start.

Acer:

Your heart is certainly in the right place but I firmly believe the urge to hunt is either in a person or it isn't. You are doing the best thing that you can possibly do by providing an opportunity to those who might have the desire to hunt. If the "spark" is there you helped launch a hunting career. If it isn't, there's nothing you can do to put it there.

I was born and raised in the heart of a large city. Neither my Dad, nor any of my friends, were hunters. That didn't stop me, nor did having to go through 10 fruitless years of hunting before killing my first game animal at the age of 24. Over the years I've heard of others like me and, in fact, there's a name for it - "Adult Onset Hunting." Conversely, I never had any interest in ball sports and still can't see the attraction: "You want the damn ball so bad? Here, you can have it."

There are many kids who were raised by fathers who were avid outdoorsmen or who were raised on farms or ranches. Yet, despite having such great opportunities, they don't care much about hunting other than it being something to do with the family.

It would be interesting to do a followup study to see if the youth hunting programs that are so popular these days will pay off in the long run. Will that kid who bagged a big buck at age 10 still be an active hunter 6, 10, 12 or more years later? Only time will tell.

Issue 1
Most children are so plugged in to games and the internet that they have become oblivious to the natural world around them. I know some who play hunting or fishing games and give them equal perceived value to real world experiences.

Issue 2
Parents who are too busey with their own lives to put the time in with their kids.

Issue 3
Most communities have lost their cultural connection to hunting. In the urban & suburban world hunting is just not on the radar for most kids any more. I know of many kids who have been offered the opportunity and simply had no desire. For this group, the "cool factor" just isn't there.

quote:

The only comment I have, is I looked over the link you provided about the refuge and I did not find a single reference to hunting. If I didn't miss it, that would be a place to start.

You have to dig a little, but it's there.

http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Balc...ivities/hunting.html

Thanks for the comment about the web site (er, ah, excuse me, our Content Management System...). I'm sure that is one impediment we can work on!

Big - I wish I knew what makes a hunter. My folks were on the spectrum between non-hunters and anti-hunters, but I feel a biological imperative to hunt. Some studies I have read say "it takes a hunter to make a hunter" - in that a parent or mentor is almost a necessity to facilitate youngsters interests. But I know several folks who came to hunting later in life when they found friends and opportunities that introduced them to the sport.

I took my daughter to a free youth pheasant hunt last weekend. It was put on by the DNR, pheasants forever and a local kennel that breeds hunting dogs. There were probably twenty kids there. It was a good time, even though we never even saw a pheasant. I was a little surprised there weren't more kids there.

If these programs aren't used they will go away.

Acer, is this hunt open to non-residents?

Lapidary - sure! Land is owned by the citizens of the United States - the drawing is open to anybody with a license.

In a way I disagree with the premise.

If the hunting is good, there is a group of people who will get out and enjoy it.

The problem with hunting retention is that most hunters once they are no longer kids get worse and worse opportunities. I see targeting kids for the best opportunities is not an effective way of going.

As an example, I have a bunch of friends and aquaintences who were taken hunting on our "youth" waterfowl day. They loved it. As they got older, they gave up duck hunting as it wasn't worth the hassle. Now I am seeing our regular duck opener getting worse and worse because the kids are out there 2 weeks before it shooting the birds off. The regular adult duck hunters don't enjoy it anymore because the hunting stinks, partially due to the kids only opportunity.

If the adults don't go, who takes the kids on their youth hunts? Who goes out and hunts at all?

To some extent I expect you are seeing the same thing there in Texas. The guys who have hunting leases take their kids there. The guys who hunt public land are getting no good opportunities and get out of hunting, and will not bother taking their kids to opportunities because they are not interested in it at all.

You are losing the opportunity to recruit a large group of adults who have some interest, but are not going to bother to go out and join the orange army and see more hunters than game.

I don't have a good idea on how to fix the percentage decline in hunting population, as I think it's a matter of lack of space, not desire, but I don't think this kid first method is going to give the results you are after, either.

Look at the percent hunting in a low population density area like Alaska, and then compare it to high population density states like NY or California, and I think you will get the gist of my argument.

quote:

As an example, I have a bunch of friends and aquaintences who were taken hunting on our "youth" waterfowl day. They loved it. As they got older, they gave up duck hunting as it wasn't worth the hassle. Now I am seeing our regular duck opener getting worse and worse because the kids are out there 2 weeks before it shooting the birds off. The regular adult duck hunters don't enjoy it anymore because the hunting stinks, partially due to the kids only opportunity.


You are losing the opportunity to recruit a large group of adults who have some interest, but are not going to bother to go out and join the orange army and see more hunters than game.

One weekend of kids runs the ducks off all season?

Not all season, but the opening weekend, the day that most of the state's duck hunters are out.

This year it pretty much meant it for the season as well. The weather has been so warm that the birds are still mostly north of us.

If you are hunting in an area with little pressure, it probably isn't a big deal. Unfortunately, youth day sounds like a war zone on the WMA's near me. Also, for kicks and giggles I found about a half box of 10 Ga empty hulls next to where I shot on opening day (since we hunt in the water from boats here, they had to be from the youth hunt) along with the usual bunch of 20 ga shells. I don't know too many under 16 year olds who can shoot a 10Ga 3.5" mag.

But that gets away from the point-

The youth season is not really recruiting any new duck hunters, and is actually driving the established group away.

This is one of the most interesting threads I have read here on AR in a while.

I agree that some states are overdoing the "youth participation" thing to the point that it is hurting established hunters. In Colorado for example it seems that some units are giving 1 out of 8 trophy tags to youth hunters. I see this as unnecessary. These hunts will require an adult for transportation/mentoring which means that these youth hunters will be those who have parents who hunt and are already likely to be being steered towards hunting.

From my own experience, youth hunters are not looking for trophies but rather for opportunities. Giving doe and spike tags to youth hunters makes great sense IMO.

Growing up in CA I had little encouragement to hunt and even less opportunity. My father(a hunter) passed away when I was 5 years old and my mom and step-father were somewhat anti-hunting.

Like many of us, I was born a hunter and I had no choice in the matter. Through my youth I did a bit of hunting with the rifle and shotgun my father left me(a win M88 and a Rem 870). I believed I was hunting although some might have called it poaching. I took turkeys and other small game out of season and often on "questionable"(private?) land.

When I became an adult(18yo) and began to see that I needed to find legal hunting opportunities I ran into a wall. Many of the people who had hunting land were anti-hunting and others only allowed their friends and family to hunt. I received many promises of "I'll take you hunting" from established hunters but none ever materialized when the season rolled around.

I asked every landowner I knew for access and I was always given some excuse. I was willing to pay or trade work but it didn't matter.

I organized out-of-state hunts with groups of friends(usually ok success-wise) and hunted Ca public lands(universally poor hunting). I even joined Ca's biggest hunting club and paid high annual dues only to find out that their properties were marginal at best.

I finally got smart and started spending my money to hunt Africa. I was able to make 4 very successful hunts. Three of these hunts were to Namibia at total costs that were so low that you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

By the time I reached my mid 30s I was able to make one more hunt to Africa(Cameroon) and I finally realized that I was never going to be able to do the hunting I wanted to do in the US as long as I lived in California. The bottom line was that I didn't have the family connections that were required to hunt in Ca.

I got sick of pissing-and-moaning to myself and pulled-up stakes and moved to Wyoming. I am in my third season here and as a single dad and school teacher I am able to hunt 30 to 40 days a year. Most of the time I have my 6 year old daughter in tow. She and I enjoy the time we spend together and she seems to have everything it takes to become a hunter.

We spent a week last June fishing for king salmon in Alaska. This week she asked me if I knew why she was looking forward to next Summer. I answered that I did not know and she replied, "I can't wait to go back to Alaska to catch more king salmon!"

I don't have an answer to increasing youth participation but I think the reason that most current programs fall short is the fact that they seem to require a hunting adult(let's be honest, a dad) to take all the steps to sign their son or daughter up for these opportunities. Not only that but these programs often are only available to those under 16 or 18.

I would like to see a big-brother/big-sister program for hunters as well as expanding the youth hunter opportunities to young adults(up to 21 yo).

The youth hunter programs never did squat for me(yes I am a bit bitter....) but I went to school with a bunch of kids who had hunting fathers who made sure to take advantage of these programs to add to the hunting opportunities they were already offering to their kids.

Most of those kids no longer hunt BTW(once daddy stopped pushing their interest died).

I guess the point of my whiny post is this: if a 16 year old kid shows up for a hunters safety-course alone someone should steer them into a mentor program that will give them some type of opportunity to hunt. The kids who are lucky enough to have a parent pushing them to hunt don't really need many extra opportunities.

And if you as a hunter see a kid who wants to hunt but lacks a mentor you should do whatever you can to help them become a hunter.

Thanks for your thoughts Jason.

Some random observations:

1) I wish we had an army of folks to mentor anybody who has an interest. I had the good fortune to have an adult mentor who invested his time and knowledge in me. My folks were clueless about hunting - though they encouraged and facilitated my participation, but I would be a poorer man had I not hunted with someone with skills.

2)I tried to put together a hunt years ago on a National Wildlife Refuge for children of single-parent households/disadvantaged/etc. and the lawyers objected saying I was discriminating against all other potential users - that everyone had to have the same equal opportunity.

3) My kids were inundated with hunting while they were growing up. My son was lukewarm about it. Just didn't share my passion. Now he is an avid hunter. I wouldn't have predicted that. Maybe it's a "time release" thing.

4) I have read that "what one generation does in moderation, the next does to excess." It seems like the reverse is true as well. What one generation does infrequently, the next doesn't do at all? Shrinking participation begets shrinking participation.

5) I think that if you don't work for it - it doesn't mean anything. I hunted for years before I killed my first deer with a bow. That was before leases, trophy fees, feeders, compound bows, and a host of other accepted practices and technology. I'm not denigrating any of those things, but I think all of them have made success a higher percentage proposition. I see pictures all the time of kids who can't even lift a rifle posed next to a record book deer. It has to be all downhill from there...

Dave

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
I guess the point of my whiny post is this: if a 16 year old kid shows up for a hunters safety-course alone someone should steer them into a mentor program that will give them some type of opportunity to hunt. The kids who are lucky enough to have a parent pushing them to hunt don't really need many extra opportunities.

And if you as a hunter see a kid who wants to hunt but lacks a mentor you should do whatever you can to help them become a hunter.

Well said Jason.

I fell in to this category of a mostly non hunting family, with the exception of 2 uncles, one who lived 350 miles away and introduced me to fur trapping and another who lived 3000 miles away and was no influence at all.
I did have a mentor of sorts. My neighbor Frank Doig took me coon hunting Dec 26, 1978 and hired me part time in his nuisance wildlife removal business. I credit (blame) Frank for my career in animal damage control as well as my mispent youth (and beyond) chasing hounds, chasing game.

I have taken several kids hunting over the years including my three. Some love it, some like it, some never go again. All walk away with a different view of the world around them.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
I guess the point of my whiny post is this: if a 16 year old kid shows up for a hunters safety-course alone someone should steer them into a mentor program that will give them some type of opportunity to hunt. The kids who are lucky enough to have a parent pushing them to hunt don't really need many extra opportunities.

And if you as a hunter see a kid who wants to hunt but lacks a mentor you should do whatever you can to help them become a hunter.

Agreed. In my opinion, the best way to promote youth participation is to do so on a personal, one on one scenario.

I don't think it has to be a big deal. If you're going duck hunting for the day and the neighbor kid is interested, take them. If your going to the range for the afternoon and your niece is interested, take them.

Friends, I have found that kids and even little ones can frequently be easier to outdoor recreate with than adults. Jason and I fished with Rene, (his daughter,) this year and it couldn't have been easier. Rene enjoyed the adventure, never complained and did what she was told to do by the host, (me,) every single time. Now how many times do adult guests act that good?

I have hunted and fished with 4 year olds, 10 year olds, and teenagers, I think the older they get the harder it is.

Come to think of it, I did fish with a five year old for a weekend that made me want to wash his hair about two feet under water for ten minutes, but I can only think of that one.

I think "programs", "Initiatives" and "sponsorships" are a good idea, but if the kid is having to act on their own before and after the hunting or fishing trip, there'll be little success. A girl or boy that returns home with a dead deer or mess of catfish to a home that doesn't want it or ain't interested in fooling with it likely won't continue.

We all have juveniles living on the same street we do, when is your next scheduled hunt with them?