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Solution To Declining Hunters??? (interesting)

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5465

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I HOPE YA'LL TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS(i know it's a little long). WE ALL KNOW THAT OUR HUNTER NUMBERS ARE MUCH LOWER THEN THAY WERE 15-20 YEARS AGO, FOR PROBABLY MOST OF US THAT IS, AND I DON'T REALLY SEE HOW ANYONE COULD THINK OTHERWISE. TO ME THIS IS A MAJOR ISSUE IN "OUR SPORT" TODAY, DECLINING HUNTERS. IT'S NOT JUST HERE IT'S EVEYWHERE. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT OUR DNR HAS ADOPTED HERE AND MAYBE IT WOULD TAKE OFF IN IOWA OR WHATEVER STATE YOU MAY LIVE IN(i think there are a few other states who also do this)..........

here in ohio for quite sometime our # of hunters had been declining, tremendously for years. still today our hunter #'s, IMO is not the greatest but we are definetly getting there. it almost seems like when it comes to youngsters(you hunters with kids can probably attest) it is near impossible to find 12 hours in there schedule for them to take the hunters safety course, and since it's almost like going to school for an extra 3 days it's completely out of the question. between sports, school, and other extra-cirricular activities you yourself probably have a hard time spending time with them. also we all have a friend who loves deer meat but doesn't hunt. he says to you one day "boy i would like to give hunting a try" then you say i'd love to take you next fall, all you have to do is schedule and pass the hunters safety course, it's only takes 3 nights and a total of 12 hour. this will more then likely turn this person off, simply because they don't know enough about "us" and "our sport" to sit thru 3 nights of a 4 hour class.

well i believe the ohio DNR has adopted what i think is a very good solution to this problem. last year they started making the hunters safety course avaliable on-line. our numbers have skyrocketed, and 3 years ago i couldn't even give you a list of 20 people my age that hunted and there definetly wasn't many hunters that were younger then me that hunted. now i could probably give you a list of ahundred or more. the DNR adopted this last year and i believe it is the sole reason for the huge increase in every category.

THESE ARE OUR STATS SINCE THE ADOPTION OF THE ON-LINE HUNTERS SAFETY COURSE.

25,000 HUNTER EDUCATION STUDENTS WERE TRAINED LAST YEAR.............. MOST SINCE 1983

LAST FALL WE HELD OUR FIRST EVER YOUTH DEER GUN SEASON(ONLY 2 DAYS LONG) AND MORE THEN 5,000 DEER WERE TAKEN

SALES OF OUR HUNTING LISCENSE INCREASED ACROSSED THE BOARD; YOUTH LISCENCE WAS UP 16%, NONRESIDENTS LISCENCE WAS UP 16%, AND RESIDENT LISCENCE WAS UP 2%

ALSO WE HAD A RECORD KILL FOR MUZZLELOADING SEASON, 24,000 DEER KILLED


OHIO BOWHUNTERS KILLED MORE THEN 50,000 DEER FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. AND TOTAL KILL LAST YEAR WAS SOMEWHERE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF 204,000(i think)

i personally feel that our DNR has figured out a solution to the declining hunters problem. i am a firm believer that the decline in hunter numbers is the cause of many things such as: the price of most hunting gear and equipment being so high(i know a lot of people who quit hunting because they can't afford it or just refuse to buy the overpriced gear or equip., it's hard to find good cheap stuff that works or operates correctly), over population of deer, of course, and not all but some kids being so bored they have nothing else to do but watch T.V. or get in trouble.

let me know what you think.
Pete

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I think I would like to see it stay OFF LINE. If someone does not have time to take a 12 hour hunting course then they proably don't have enough time to hunt. Too many things are becoming non-personal. Too many video games too much t.v., instead of calling someone the thing now is tex messageing. I can't see learning about gun saftey and gun handling on-line.....what next hunting on-line. We don't need more hunters in Iowa, our population is not as big as other states and most people I know around the state hunt in some form or fashion. I vistit over 100 high schools a year and believe me ALOT of kids hunt.
 
I personally think they oughta just do away with hunter ed courses. Most of the things that I value out in the woods is not what I learned from the four hunter ed courses I have taken, I sat there bored the whole time and didnt even listen. I had been hunting many many years before I had to take it, and from what I had learned from my dad had surpassed what they could ever teach a person in that class. I would like to see it kind of like how you have to get a intermediate driving class now. Have the hunter have to log so many hours out in the field with someone let's say 21 years or older. Then turn those hours into the dnr or whatever, and maybe have some sort of test that they can take. In all those hunters ed courses, I've never seen one where the final test, if you get so many wrong you don't get your safety card. I feel this would be a better way to go about it, most 12 year olds won't go hunting without some kind of inspiration of father/ mother figure to show them ropes. I also think time in the field is better then time in a class, when its time in the class some kids would get embarassed about answering things wrongly and it may push them away from hunting, if it is a friend or relative etc, they would be more comfortable in doing it. Im sure its another great dumb idea by me but when i look back on hunters ed I always thought are you kidding me, they are making me listen to this stuff when i knew about it years ago. Online doesn't sound too bad, but I bet someone could just have anybody take the test for them and they really wouldn't learn the ropes of hunting, or hunter safety All you guys remember when you were a young pup and your ole man was harping on you saying, "you got your safety on" I find myself doing it to the youngsters I take today now
 
I don’t think they should do away with the classes Liv. As you said, you and people who grew up around hunting probably didn’t get much out of it because you had heard it all before, but it was all new to me. I enjoyed the whole 12 hours. I also think that you could never have the impact online of showing props compared to live in a class, like the hole in a board which had been shot with a dove load from seven yards away, which could have been your buddy. Or the shotgun barrel that was split from an obstruction. I agree with QDMer that if someone can’t give up 12 hours for a class then they don’t really have time to hunt. If you want something bad enough, you’ll find the time to do it.
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I'm with you Liv, personally I also think they should get rid of the program. I'd rather have the parents' teach it than some dude. I don't even remember my safety course, but I DO remember everything my grandpa and dad taught me, not only about safety but about ethics. Government's got too many fingers in our business as it is, IMHO.
 
I'm old enough that I didn't need it by law but it was offered during school hours through the PE instructor. I had quite a bit of experience hunting with family and did my year of carrying an empty gun before being able to hunt with the group. I completed the course at that time along side many kids who had never hunted, I still enjoyed the class and know that several of those kids are hunters today even though they had no family support. I haven't seen the props used in the new classes but I have made an impression on my boys 8 & 10 by letting them squeeze the trigger on a pop can at 10 yards.
 
Doemaster,not sure what you mean by "some dude" teaching it but my Dad tought it for about 8 years and he was no "dude".He knew what he was doing when it came to hunting as I learned everything I know from him.You have to remember like Kat said not every kid has a parent to teach them or show them so these courses are good........
 
What it all comes down to is priorities. Find a way to spend the 12 hours for this training. Is it more important to teach a kid proper firearms handling and hunter safety ... things they can use over a lifetime ... or get them to the soccer game ... a sport they probably won't play beyond junior high at best?
We're all so busy (myself included) but what are we doing it all for? We'd all be better off (and probably live longer) if we cut our activities in half and focused on the ones that matter.

Okay, I'm stepping down off the soapbox now ...

threebeards
 
I am a chief instructor in Iowa, I think that the class is absolutely the best thing for kids. I usually have around 40 kids in my class, out of the 40 only 8-10 have ever handled a gun. I hope that when they leave my class they have some sort of understanding that hunting is not just shooting. If these kids are spending time in the same woods with you or me, I hope to hell that they remember every little thing that I tried to instill in them for 10 hours. Something else that many people forget, half of the kids showing up for class come from a single parent family, the kid lives with mom...mom does not hunt but the kid wants to learn, dad does not seam to have time to teach the basics to the kid...but he wants jr. to hunt with him.Someone with patience<font color="red"> </font> has to teach jr. how to hunt safely and legally. I will get off of my soapbox now but just remeber things are different now then when we grew up.
 
I think IADEERHUNTER makes a great case. It would be great if everyone had a hunting dad to teach them but that is not the situation for most youth today. I think we all owe a big thanks to IADEERHUNTER and all the other sportsmen and women who donate their valuable time to this great cause. Without them there would be a lot fewer people enjoying the sport of hunting and it would be a lot less safe out there for all of us.

Thanks again!
Old Buck
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...I have to add my 2 cents...I too am an instructor...

...I am surprised to hear some of these comments about Hunter Ed...I definitely see the need for these courses...before the courses were mandated the state would have over 100 hunting-related accidents each year with numerous deaths...now we have around 30 with only 1 or 2 deaths a year (still too many)...and we are in the glory days of hunting (deer, turkey and decent pheasant hunting)...I too want to echo what IADEERHUNTER stated...I am seeing more and more kids come into these programs who have no experience being around firearms...as for the "boring" courses I realize that there are great instructors and not-so-great instructors...my challenge to you is to become an instructor and make things better...we get all sorts of comments about how much fun are courses are...I have had parents sit in on the course more than once (with their other kids) because they enjoyed it so much...it is by no means as much fun or as exciting as actual hunting but what is?...

...as for the original post the Iowa DNR already has an online course option as well as a home-study course...they haven't gone over quite as well as the traditional courses have...I think what will really help recruit new hunters is to take them hunting...our local chapters of DU &amp; PF sponsor youth hunts each year...over the years we have taken numerous young hunters out who would have likely never have gone hunting if it were not for these two groups...
 
to do away with the courses would be down right ridiculous. i will agree with the ones who said it was boring, yes i heard most of it before, butnot all of it.

i have been hunting since i was 4 years old(a long time like most like 95% of the people on this site), so yeah, most of the class was boring to me and most of what they taught me was already old news. there was a lot of stuff i did learn, and a lot of stuff that when my dad taught me didn't make sense and then the instructors put it all in respective and as it turns out some of that stuff dad taught me did make sense(and i thought he was crazy).

i have no doubt, for the ones that were fortunate enough to have a teacher before they took the course, there teacher taught them well and taught them just about everything you learned in the class, but there are things they weren't taught. not all but most were probably taught just enough to get started hunting and then the father or mintor let them learn on there own(it's hard to get youngsters to pay attention to more then just the basics, for there attention span is pretty short, especially a young boy, i know mine was short). once again my dad definetly taught me more then enough to get started but he didn't teach me all of it, like, telling me what each every of a bullet is and does. why didn't he teach me this because he knew all i cared about was that you put it in the gun and pull the trigger it goes off. i bet your dad didn't teach you how important the kinetic energy in that bullet is either, mine didn't, i don't really know to many fathers or mintors that would think of such a small detail like this to teach, but turns out this is a pretty important thing.

anyways i am going to quit rambling now because i could go on and on. but i feel we absolutely can't do away with these course because of the attention they pay to small detail. so therefore I CHALLENGE ANYONE WHO SAYS THAT THEY TOOK THIS COURSE(saying it was good course with a good teacher) THAT THEY WALKED AWAY WITHOUT LEARNING A THING AND THAT IT WAS USELESS!!!

i'll bet you atleast learned one thing during the course. although i do realize that some courses out there are not taught well or just not taught by the right people, but there is a lot out there that are great courses and taught by great people!

just a couple of my scents
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