doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Economics and hunting

We can always count on Sunshine for being an optimist

I have friends and clients from a wide variety of backgrounds, some hunt, some just target shoot, some are mainly collectors. I was born with a passion for hunting, my father and uncles hunted but from a young age I was obsessed with guns, hunting and the outdoors in a way none of them were.

It is becoming harder and more costly to stay in the hunting game, I'm in for the duration and make adjustments as needed in order to maintain a high level of participation. The world is changing but plenty of young folks are interested in outdoor activities, I assume that will continue.

One 14 year old girl on my son’s school trap league shot gramma’s SKB 150 20 gauge, short barrels, open chokes. 14 year old is misleading, this kid was 5’11”, and easily mistaken as being a young adult. She shot my sons Mossberg 500 12 gauge better, but, loved shooting her grandma’s double. Grandma was the one who got her involved, and cheered her on from the stands, along with a bunch of the rest of the parents.

Haven’t seen her since my son graduated, but, feel good about where she was.

Best,
Ted

i think that there's a great deal to do with location, and as referenced here, that interacts with economics - as sharps4590 mentions, it's a lot easier when you can walk out your back door to hunt and shoot. when you grow up in that kind of place, there will automatically be a lot more opportunities and a lot more cultural acceptance and support for those activities.

when hunting/shooting opportunities require more deliberate and elaborate preparations and involve driving distances, economics really begin to enter the equation.

and ted's comment reminds me of an old friend who was involved in scouting for many years. he said that young guys who were keen to advance to eagle rank, needed to be encouraged, and needed to be guided to do so "before the fumes got to them".

gasoline fumes, and perfumes.

😁

Lloyd, thanks for putting your theory regarding “outdoor predatory behavior” out here for discussion. For me it landed in the context of having all five of my grandsons here for a week and stimulated a lot of forward thinking regarding them. Once before I thought quite a bit about this question. Both our sons were ”into” hunting and fishing growing up and I did all I could to enjoy and encourage these endeavors with them. One leaned more toward hunting and the other more toward fishing but by the time they were in their 20’s any desire for either was gone. Seemingly, for good.

Thinking further back both my grandfathers were farmers and bird hunters. Among their grandkids they encouraged all the hunting you wanted but not with them. You were on your own. Out of ten grandkids between them I was the only one who lasted. My father and two uncles barely had a pulse when it came to hunting.

I’m only a couple of moons from 77 and so these precious days with the grandsons had me looking for signs of interest among the four oldest (7-12) that I could “fan”. (The fifth is a toddler.) I “seeded the field” all that I could particularly where I saw interest and all of them responded enthusiastically. Will the effort produce lasting rootage? I don’t think I can know. And if it does in any of them, why?

From my life experience neither apathy (from the men in my early life) nor encouragement (from me with our sons) nor economic strain (of which there was never any lack) produced adults who enjoyed and pursued hunting and fishing. So then what do I think will? Passion. In the individual.

And whether that passion flames up early or later in life, that, it seems, is what keeps the fire of “outdoor predatory behavior” burning.

About the only hunting I can do around here is released pheasant hunting. But it totally depends on what the weather is like. If it is cold and nasty out- maybe snowing, I won't go. I hate being outside in the winter when it is cold. If it is a nice fall day, I will give it a try. All depends how I feel. But then again, I can't eat wild game or red meat. I could maybe eat a little pheasant meat, but that is about it. But good luck to those who can.

Metoo.

Just yesterday, I spent a few hours helping with maintenance chores for a landowner. Nope, I don't think knocking on that door and waiving cash around, like a rich-n-busy fellow such as yourself would work. But, a little off season commitment pays off in the fall. No one else hunts it, not my primary place, but two or three times a season it's a fun pheasant stop with a nice stretch of river that'll draw in some ducks.

Did you have something to say Sunshine or were you just echoing my comments?

Busy but hardly rich thanks to the illegal actions of your President.

The private land that I hunt is owned by my neighbor, he knocked on my door and offered me access to his property. Other people hunt his place and I always tell him that I am happy to hunt when he does not have hunters in town. The vast mojority of my hunting takes place on public ground.

You presume an awful lot Craig, and you are usually wrong when doing so.

What is that gives you the right to judge how others chose to recreate? You seem to take special interest in where and how that I hunt. This is my life and your opinion of what I do means nothing to me.

Randy: Passion works for me.

Congrats on having 5 fine grandsons btw.

Sitting on an airliner yesterday gave me some more time to think about all of this.

"Opportunity and then Inclination" is what I finally came up with. It also somehow all gets balled-up with "food-gathering" as well (as a now somewhat-weak justification) for what would otherwise be just another classic "male escapist pastime".

Another theory I've heard is that after you marry you need an outlet for your finely-tuned but now completely unuseable "pursuit" energies...

All cynicism aside...each hunt is yet another "adventure " with a (hopefully) beautiful weapon, afield on a gorgeous Fall day and in pursuit of spectacular game.

I do hope to keep doing this for a very long time,

God willing .