No question upland game hunting is in trouble in quite a few places. Hunting as a whole, however, isn't really. More of a case of a transition to deer and turkey hunting. But if you want to see hunting that's in trouble compared to the past, look at the number of people who hunt rabbits and squirrels. Serious decline there.

One thing that's happened is that upland hunters have become significantly more mobile. Ever since 2002, for example, there have been more nonresident pheasant hunters in SD than residents--even though resident pheasant hunter numbers have not changed much in the last 25 years. Back in the late 50's-early 60's, when even more pheasants were being killed in SD than they are today, there were only half as many nonresident pheasant hunters. And there were more pheasant hunters in SD, total, in 2008 than there had been in any year since 1963. So in some cases, hunters are compensating for a lack of local birds by traveling to where there are birds. Unfortunately, that does not work well in the case of bobwhites in recent years, because there just haven't been very many anywhere.

As for not seeing young hunters . . . Ted, maybe you ought to volunteer as a hunter education instructor. We taught 3 classes a year at the local Izaak Walton facility in Story County when I lived in Iowa. A class numbering in the 40's was small. And ours were not the only classes in the area.

Last edited by L. Brown; 06/06/11 07:36 AM.