There are countless tag lines we’ve all said around the topic of recruiting and retaining more hunters. You know, those old school DVDs with a popular hunting personality claiming we all should “take a kid hunting.” We say we want more hunters, but do we really?
Join any large hunting page on social media and you’ll see the same thing today. Countless hunters posed with their big buck, a long write-up on the story and topped off with a “time to take the kids hunting” line.
While many of us claim we want to keep the future of hunting alive and well, we will only do so after we’ve punched our own tags and logged hours to kill our target buck first.
So, do we really want more hunters in the woods? Have you driven past your local public land hunting spots on November 5th at 5:30am?
To some extent, we all inadvertently do or say things to discourage new hunters. How can we chase our own hunting dreams yet introduce new people to the sport?
Do We Want More Hunters?
It feels like every public land hunting location has jam-packed parking lots full of weekend warriors fighting for a common goal of finding and killing a highly pressured buck.
Because of high tech mapping technology, there is no secret hunting spot these days, yet no one enjoys the crowds a prime piece of public land can attract. So how do we solve that problem? We go quiet and stop sharing information that would give other hunters a leg up when it comes to big buck competition.
Good luck finding a lease because a good property at a reasonable leasing price lasts about two minutes online, literally. While buying land is a great investment, even small parcel land ownership is becoming less feasible for a couple on a decent income. The result is fewer landowners owning more ground.
While statistically there are fewer hunters than just 10-15 years ago, it feels like those who hunt are logging more hours and dedicating more time to the sport. Due to these factors impacting our own hunts, it’s hard to get excited about the thought of more hunters in the woods.
Jerry Lynch is a long-time youth hunting mentor and he told me “Honestly, I’m not sure that most people want more hunters. Many say they do as long as mentoring doesn’t inconvenience them or interfere with their own personal hunting goals.”
It’s hard to step back and realize we need to play the long game and attract more hunters into our sport in order to protect it. It’s even harder to follow through and take action.
When asked why hunters are so protective of their spots, Aaron Warbritton said “Many are trying to protect their experience, selfishly I’m guilty of it sometimes. There are folks out there who work their butts off all year just to get the chance to hunt a couple days during the season.”
So how do we protect our own hunting endeavors while still informing and educating hunters? It’s going to take a little sacrifice on our end. Wisconsin hunter Erik Barber said, “Consider the political issues we saw in Colorado in 2024.
To avoid future issues with ballot box biology, we need numbers on our side. A little competition at your favorite public land honey hole is a small price to pay for more advocates of a lifestyle we’re all passionate about and hope lives on for years to come.”
Some hunters have had terrible public land experiences, and they might never return. A Midwest public land hunter who wanted to remain anonymous recounted multiple stories of other hunters encroaching on his position, with one continuing to walk towards him even as he shined his flashlight to politely alert the other hunter of his presence.
He finished saying, “Around 10:00AM that morning, I began to pack up only to discover another 7 vehicles at the parking lot that weren’t there when I walked in.”
It’s a feel-good statement to say we want more people out there hunting and enjoying our sport but depending on what stage of hunting you find yourself in, it can be extremely frustrating. We all want to enjoy our stress-free time in the woods, but many of us are still wanting to bring home target animals.
Is Large Private Land Ownership a Problem?
To escape the melting pots of the public land rat race, common sense tells hunters to buy private land or lease in low pressure whitetail areas. It is no secret the cost of recreational properties has skyrocketed in the last decade.
Is the rising cost of private land and large private landowners monopolizing land in certain neighborhoods displacing more hunters onto pressured public ground? You know, large private landowners in the Pike, Buffalo and Decatur counties of the world.
Aaron Warbritton doesn’t think it helps. He said, “It’s a major reason why I had to start hunting public land. Hunting on permission slowly dried up as land was leased or bought for hunting from people outside the area. Trophy hunting can be a problem. To grow big bucks, a trophy hunter needs more land with less hunting pressure to ensure these deer get to older age classes. This line of thinking is not helpful to the access issue unless those landowners are willing to share in their harvest. However, some of these private landowners with wildlife in mind are doing wonders for habitat. So, there are pros and cons.”
According to a land survey from the University of Missouri, hunting and recreational land had the largest statewide increase of all land types, increasing 14% from 2022 to 2023. Georgia land values rose from $3,960 per acre in 2022 to $4,350 in 2023 per the Ag Information Network Report.
Erik Barber views large private landowners pooling together as a big opportunity. He said “A high tide raises all ships. These landowners invest a lot of time, money and energy into improving habitat and as a result, it becomes a haven for deer and turkeys. The best thing is that animals don’t read map boundaries and will inevitably cross property lines onto neighboring public or a family dairy farm that allows locals to hunt.”
Greg Glesinger of Huntworx has dedicated an enormous amount of sweat equity into a variety of different whitetail hotspots – but understands both perspectives. “I think it’s a very positive thing when someone wants to pour their personal efforts into the natural resources. The downside is it does take away from others. However, these animals will disperse onto neighboring land.”
Honestly, it’s not healthy for the mental state of your hunting ventures to view large private landowners as the enemy looking to sabotage your hunt. Most individuals had to work hard for the opportunity to own land.
I know countless hunters who chose a specific career path knowing it would afford them the opportunity to buy and sell land throughout their life.
The real magic happens when they share it. Lynch said, “There is a landowner I know of where because of their circumstance of their land holding a high percentage of CWD positive deer – they’ve changed their focus a bit. Rather than cry over spilled milk, these property owners sort of opened their doors to bringing in new hunters, to help them gain the experience of whitetail hunting, turning a negative situation into a positive one.”
Hunter Effort and the Future
Although public land continues to get hunted heavily, overall deer license sales are trending downward just about everywhere. Pennsylvania sold 647,242 licenses in 2010, that number dropped to 534,000 in 2022. Dig into more declining participation numbers if you wish.
Despite Kentucky deer permit sales declining steadily since 2000, the total number of deer harvested during the 2022-23 deer season was 144,493, which is the fourth highest harvest on record.
“One would be hard-pressed to find a parcel of land in the whitetail’s range without someone hunting it” said Tommy Apostolopoulos of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Hunter effort could play a role in whether or not hunters are willing to share in their experiences. Everyone is fighting for more time in the woods, and no one seems to have enough of it.
In 2021, a survey of 1,726 Iowa bowhunters showed those respondents hunted an average of 12.9 days of the hunting season. In 2023, respondents spent an average of 14 days hunting deer during the 2022-23 Iowa deer season.
In 2017, Wisconsin received hunter effort surveys from 831 hunters. Those hunters averaged 21.6 trips and saw 0.72 deer per hunting hour.
Of the 411 survey respondents from Wisconsin in 2023, hunters averaged 17.1 hunting trips and saw .62 deer per hunting hour.
Wisconsin’s results could be indicative of hunters choosing to hunt less, and only hunt quality days. These stats could also suggest hunters are relying on the use of trail cameras to specifically determine locations where they plan to see only mature deer, and not necessarily more deer in general.
When it comes to these Iowa and Wisconsin hunter effort stats, Iowa has less pressure and more mature deer which could play a role in hunter behavior. I would probably hunt more as well.
The Youth Hunter Decline
There are times where I miss out on a hunting opportunity with my kids or a friend because I am in the middle of grinding away at my own desired results during the rut. If we don’t take young or new hunters though, how are they supposed to learn?
Michigan has reported a decline in youth hunters by 37% since 2013 despite not losing more than 3-4% of youth hunters in any given year from 1996-2014.
This slow decline could suggest cultural changes and should be a wake-up call for us to reevaluate our long-term goals in getting more hunters into the sport.
Greg Glesinger told me “My biggest question is where is this sport going to be in 15, 20 or 30 years from now? I think it’s our duty and obligation as current hunters to reach out to people and introduce them to the sport as best we can.” Glesinger often shares hunting opportunities with friends and acquaintances looking to get youth into the sport.
In 2024, the National Deer Association held 48 Field to Fork events in 18 different states. Through those events, they introduced 443 adults to deer hunting. Jerry Lynch applauds wins like this because he knows full-well the commitment it takes from a mentor and a mentee.
Lynch told me “The learning curve for anyone new to deer hunting is steep. Not only all the things that lead to harvesting an animal, but all the post-harvest details as well. The best solution to overcome these obstacles is some type of mentorship. If you don’t grow up around hunting, it sometimes takes a monumental mind shift to give hunting a try—especially for the adult population.”
We Need to Step Up
If we want to protect the future of hunting in America, we need to raise hunters and teach them to advocate for the sport. Wisconsin currently has about 2,600 active hunter safety instructors, a steep decline from 2014 when there were 4,100.
The average age of those 2,600 instructors is 54. Even scarier, in 2023, the hunter education program saw an 18% decrease in student certifications from 2022.
We need to do better on social media encouraging new hunters when they post photos of their first kill. Whether you know it or not, people are learning about hunting from afar and making judgements about the people participating in hunting from what they see on social media.
A trophy is in the eye of the beholder, and we need to do everything we can to pass along information that was passed along the line to us. If we don’t, it could affect our hunting experience.
Glesinger said “I mean, hunters are really the dollars behind each state’s wildlife agency and if hunting participation numbers are going to slowly decline and we don’t recoup participation with the next generation, the state agencies are going to be handcuffed with what they can do.”
Six of the most popular western hunting states receive 60% of their overall license revenue from non-resident hunters. With participation numbers declining and the cost of everything going up, expect to start paying more for preference points and out of state license fees as a reaction to slumping license sales.
Since Covid, hunting and producing your own food without relying on the industrial food industry has grown in popularity. This is a great thing. We need to continue to push the food aspect of hunting because this relates to more people from broader backgrounds.
A call to action for you and I would be to set aside your own endeavors just a little bit, and introduce a new hunter to the game. Find a cousin or friend who shows interest in hunting but has no access or resources to make it happen.
Start small. You don’t need to give up your entire hunting season.
We should want more hunters. The future of our pastime is riding on the decisions we make.
