Let me ask you guys a serious question. And I'm not being a smartass.
Do you truly enjoy hunting and being outdoors? I mean is it more than a passtime for you?
If the answer is yes, than what does it matter what everyone else around you does? Why wouldn't you be happy for people that can turn it into a living? I know there are many things on the hunting networks that I don't like or agree with, but never once has it actually effected the way I hunt or the the sport that I love so much.
Yes I truly enjoy hunting and being in the out doors and have for more years than you have been on earth, I am guessing! I shot my first squirrel in 1958 and have been hunting ever since.
I do disagree with your overly simplified solution about the TV show issue. I already don't watch them partly because I don't have cable or dish so I only receive a couple of channels from Des Moines and local Fox and ABC from Kirksville and they don't carry any of these programs. Also about 20 years ago I decided that these types of shows were just too much to endure any more. Whether we watch them or not they would not be on air if large numbers of people didn't watch them. They do all of us harm in many ways from the increase price of hunting equipment, to land access, to over harvest of the deer herd, to over crowding of hunters.
These hunting shows have really driven the antler greed and poaching that we currently endure. 25 years ago no one ever refered to a big buck as 170" buck, they were always a 10 or 12 pointer. These shows made lots of hunters classify bucks this way and gave the impression that if you couldn't kill at least a 150" buck then you weren't much of a deer hunter or more importantly you were not using the proper new equipment or technology. 25 years ago you didn't have neighbors fighting over THEIR deer or doing things to keep their deer from crossing the fence to the neighbors and at the same time trying very hard to draw the neighbors deer onto their property. Almost never did we find a deer in a field with the head cut off and a rifle bullet in the shoulder. I am not saying that there weren't poachers then, but the deer were killed more for food than for horns. Back then you couldn't sell deer horns and the poachers didn't have a monetary reaon for killing until we got into the "my deer is way bigger than your deer" thing. Now they can even sell the horns on E-Bay for heavens sake!
Another way that these shows hurt me even though I haven't watched them in 20 plus years is the massive increase in deer hunters and the greatly reduced harvest numbers and success ratios. From the IDNR site in 2011 there were 392,930 license issued to 335,450 hunters who only killed a total of 121,407 deer in Iowa. To focus down a little more there were 92728 archery licenses issued to 79,021 bow hunters who only managed, even with all the knowledge and high tech equipment and extra hours in the stand, to harvest 21,983 deer.
Now let's travel back in time a little. In 2000 there were only 229,800 total licenses issued, but I can't find the total number of hunters, but with a total harvest of 126,535 deer. This was actually a little higher than total in 2011, but with 163,130 FEWER licenses. The archery numbers were 44,685 licenses issued and a total archery harvest of 17,727 deer. That is a difference of only 4,256 deer killed but there were almost double the licenses issued, 44,685 in 2000 and 88,526 in 2011. This drove the success ratio from 40% in 2000 to only 25% in 2011. I know that some of you will call this selfish thinking that I don't want more hunters, but that is not true. Even though there are way fewer deer to hunt, I do own my own farm so I at least have a place to hunt. The hurt falls on those who don't have their own or family land to hunt and must compete with twice as many bow hunters just for a place to hunt, much less the much lower chance to kill a deer.
How can any one explain why deer hunter numbers have exploded where as other types of hunters have fallen to an all time low. My explanation is the direct promotion of deer hunting for those 11 years on TV. The shows also have pushed most of these hunters to want or expect a trophy buck and almost gives them permissin to use almost any means to attain that goal. How many hunters planted food plots before seeing it on TV? How many put out mineral blocks or bait to draw deer to an area so that they can get trail cam pictures before the TV shows? How many of these TV hunters have been discredited when it has been proven that they were hunting behind high fences and shooting fed and drugged deer? How many new hunters saw this and learned that this was an acceptable way to hunt, especially if the were able to shoot "the buck of a life time" on camera? I believe that I do see the big picture and what I see is a picture of greatly diminishing returns and far less satifaction for a sport that I do love. There is less enjoyment when a person must constantly be on the look out for illegal hunters and tresspassers and less than eithical practises because more uninformed new hunters get their methods and ethics from the celebtries on TV. During the deer seasons, nearly every day there will be a post on here about poaching or trespassers, or stolen stands, or stands placed on a fence line or lots of other transgressions. I honestly believe that almost all of the woes and violations of laws and hunting ethics can be layed directly at the feet of the TV shows and the celebrities and climate that these shows have generated over the years.:thrwrck:Maybe some one can show me a different big picture but I believe that mine is much closer to the truth than what some of you see. None of this is meant as a shot to anyone who has posted on this topic, but only as an explanition of how I have arrived at my current beliefs. :way:
Good luck and good hunting!!!
