Are hunting and fishing truly on the way out?

[Sk8man]

Interesting article.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hunting-is-slowly-dying-off-and-that-has-created-a-crisis-for-the-nations-many-endangered-species/ar-BBZA5Pc?ocid=bingoverlayoff2

 

[whaler1]

Saw that as well. Should be a wake up call for many. I remember taking my kids out of school to hunt and being told it wasn’t an excused absence. I told the school that maybe it should be. Sent my son to school the next day with venison snack sticks for his classmates and the teacher cried and told my son that hunting was cruel.


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[Sk8man]

Yeah Bill American's have gotten too far away from our roots. It is a mistake that will come back to bite us in the butt too.

[Frogger]

Saw that as well. Should be a wake up call for many. I remember taking my kids out of school to hunt and being told it wasn’t an excused absence. I told the school that maybe it should be. Sent my son to school the next day with venison snack sticks for his classmates and the teacher cried and told my son that hunting was cruel.


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Strange where we have come. We used to bring our shotguns to school and show them off to our rifle club classmates. So many times we would be telling the principle in his office how was our opening morning in the creeks......or did you get a deer...


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[Sk8man]

It's true Mike. When I was in Junior School (now Middle school) they had a target range in the basement of the school where we held our Rifle Club events and even when I was in a Youth Group at the Episcopal Church we regularly did archery practice and competed among us in the basement (think I was in 7th grade then). Now kids spend their time alone or with one or two others doing video games, watching pxoxrxnxo, or hacking into computers while in their own finished basements or bedrooms without any parenting going on or supervision of any type and probably little to no awareness of what was going on..... until something terrible happens. Kids and adults don't know how to sooth themselves, entertain themselves with outdoor activities requiring effort or with productive activity. Does it sound like "Grumpy Old Men".?..Yep (but that doesn't mean it isn't true)

Edited February 4, 2020 by Sk8man

[whaler1]

Thankful my kids came up the way they did. Confident the next generations will as well.


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[Sk8man]

We sure hope so and you did it right Bill and from the pics you routinely display are continuing to do so By the way your daughter is a lot braver than me Much of it is about proper parenting and  exposure to the "right stuff".

Edited February 4, 2020 by Sk8man

[Dusty]

My kids aren’t snake wrestlers, but they love their time in the outdoors.

[Kingfisher06]

I had my little girl out on the ice fishing when she was two. Regrettably, I only have one child. There in lies the real issue. The tradition of large families, in particular Catholic, have declined and with that so will their traditions. Forget PETA and their anti-hunting tripe. The far bigger issue at hand is the attack on traditional family values.  

Edited February 4, 2020 by Kingfisher06

[orangediablo]

Sounds like there should be a 11% excise tax on cameras to go along with the guns.  A drop in the bucket, but more $ is more $.

[jimski2]

The Seaway destroyed pheasant hunting in New York State as the trains leaking grain along the railroad tracks disappeared with their winter food stocks. The anti fur people destroyed the fur market so trapping ceased to exist and the fox and coyote populations improved. All the "cityits" built homes with a 1,000 yard no shooting allowed around them in rural areas. Parents have failed to instruct their children in fish and game processing so they had no want to hunt and fish, These are some of our reasons for the decline in outdoor sports.

[Lucky13]

Actually, according to a well vetted study conducted over 20 years ago by Bruce Penrod of NYSDEC, the change in mowing practice from 2 cuttings per season to 3 cuttings per season was the greatest negative for the (introduced, not native) Ring Necked Pheasant populations of NYS.  The Hens could get a clutch of eggs hatched, but the mower would come through and break up the nest and kill the baby birds before they were old enough to get out of the field with Momma, and even though she would start another nest each time the mower would return until there was not enough good weather remaining to have the young able to survive the winter.  Habitat loss was also a great contributor; the birds needed corn or other grain for a food source, Timothy or sawgrass for nesting, and cattail for winter shelter all in close proximity, but a lot of rural land in " Gentleman" farmsteads just sits and grows Queen Anne's Lace and Goldenrod anymore.

[BSmaster]

My belief is predators were a bigger factor to pheasant loss.  Birds of Prey made a strong recovery from DDT and fox from fur trade collapse.  Grouse are affected too and they are native. 

[GAMBLER]

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[whaler1]

Great stuff Brian and all!


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[ri rory]

Folks--it's the cell phones and technology

 

i have been a HS teacher for 27 years, & I am 56.. I've watched this occur.   Kids play madden games instead of the real games. Notice how many athletic fields are empty

 

One of Northern Maine's premier salmon lakes was studied.  In the mid 1990's, the lake averaged 2000 angler hours.  In 2016 it averaged less than 500.

 

When i was younger and thru my 30's, driving from RI to Maine in May or June--every other vehicle had a boat attached to it for Ice out fishing.

 

The last few years, in 5 hours of driving to Rangeley Lake, we might see 1, or 2 fishing boats in tow.

 

My kids and grandkids love the outdoors, however wifi is a must at the cabin due to their careers.  Time on the water unplugged is fine as long as wifi is at the rental home to

catch up.

 

On the positive side, Rangeley lake and Moosehead get less fishing pressure and the fishing has gotten better.  All of the strings of cottages i stayed in as a young man, are out of business or sold as condos

as no one patronized them.  

 

Lets count our blessings that we were raised without the technology these kids have. Also Lets be thankful that our kids have a deep appreciation of the outdoors

(even if they need wifi when they get off the water)

 

lol

 

good fishing

coach

[whaler1]

Facebook and video games never made it into my house. Thankfully my kids never had any interest.


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[jimski2]

Contact time with a child and parent has diminished since automobile/boat contact time when commuting with the child in not taking to hunting/fishing activities. No wonder the child is lost with his video foolishness as the parent can not communicate to his child any knowledge of the real world. School teachers have the contact time but real world education is lost as they are instructed to instruct  subjects according to foolishness that wastes their time.

[ri rory]

I teach Driver's ED so I have a little freedom in what i teach.  The core subject teachers are mandated to teach to their tests- so out are the real stories in history that made this country great.  Out are the stories from the cold war and the real life stories of living in a socialist country and who has the power. This is why we have so many socialists in power today.  

 

Anyway, if we all kind of forcefully encourage family vacations that are intertwined with the outdoors, our next generations will be OK. 

I rent a house for a week in March big enough for everyone to stay.

We fish the reservoirs around Murphy ,NC for Trout, Walleye and Stripers.

I rent a house for a week in July in Rangeley, Maine for the same reason and fish for Landlocks and Brookies.  The two kids and their families come in for at least a few days.

(Heck, I even rebuilt a 16' tiller sea nymph for my son, who is a GM at a Kia dealership in Massachusetts, to take his family out. 

Last summer my 1.5 year old grandson was out on every evening trolling trip having a ball)

 

We can not control everything, but we can kind of  push our families in the direction we want them to go

 

Good Luck

Coach

 

 

[Sk8man]

17 minutes ago, ri rory said:

 

We can not control everything, but we can kind of  push our families in the direction we want them to go

 

Good Luck

Coach

 

 

[Lucky13]

42 minutes ago, ri rory said:

I teach Driver's ED so I have a little freedom in what i teach. 

 

 

So, are you at least in part responsible for the apparently prevailing attitude that red lights, stop signs, and double yellow lines are mere suggestions?

 

Sorry, I could not resist! 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Lucky13

[ri rory]

LOL

 

 

[jimski2]

We hunted the Wilson, NY area for pheasants with a normal flushing of 200 pheasants. The Seaway opened and the bird count dropped  to seventy five flushes. The next year the count dropped to twelve. Hay mowing had nothing to do with it, the winter feed grain loss along the railroad tracks was it. Buffalo, NY had a ship call every hour and the grain was shipped to the Atlantic coast on box cars that dripped grain along the upstate railroad right of way which were the feed source for pheasants year round. Today grain is shipped in covered sealed hopper cars that do not leak. Buffalo, NY is lucky to have one ship a week call and the grain is used by General Mills to make cereal such as Cheerios. The Archer Daniels, Pillsbury, mill has its grain delivered in covered sealed hopper cars. As a youth I hunted the Tifft Farm rail yard area and flushed pheasants with flocks by the hundreds. 

[Lucky13]

So based on your analysis, all the pheasants in NYS were along RR tracks.   One of the best Pheasant areas in NYS was (and still is) around Livonia, New York, and south on both sides of Conesus Lake and down into the WMA at the South end.  There is a RR spur that goes to Lakeville, that's about it.  You were basically shooting opportunistic birds that were concentrated by the artificial feed situation, when it went so did they.  But the overall decline of the pheasant in NY is laid by the SCIENTISTS at the feet of changed agricultural practices. 

 

It must be something to do with drinking GL water, this total rejection of anything that originates with a DEC Biologist.  

[fisherman21]

I’m doing my best to keep it alive!


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