Hunting off in the future

[tuckersdaddy]

Special seasons weapons and regulations:

It is possible that 50 years from now there will be no bow season. It will become something that they might call a "primitive weapons season" where bows, crossbows, and muzzle loaders, and perhaps even black powder pistols and maybe even atlatyls (sp?) and possibly even weapons that we haven't even considered will all become combined. These weapons will be allowed in an early season, right through a much longer "rifle, pistol and shotgun season" and into what we now consider the "late season".

Bag limits for all seasons will be increased significantly as the hunter numbers shrink to the point where they cannot adequately control deer populations. There will be increased experiments with alternate wildlife population control. They probably will be unsuccessful, but with the ever-increasing pace of technology .... who knows?

Pistols may have to be excluded from hunting seasons depending on how successful the anti-handgun groups and politicians are.

in 50 years my AR will be primitive! ill be able to hunt with it all season?! regardless of what ive hunted with grampas rifle, dads shotgun, my ar, long bow, compound, cross bow, it dosent matter, the deer will still be deer.

[Doc]

Actually the way things are going, you will have to do a bit more pre-planning when you go hunting ..... lol. You will have to first go down to the "village armory" and sign out your gun before you can take it hunting. A little paperwork and a couple forms of I.D. and away you go. Pick up your shotgun and five slugs and you're good to go.

Head on off to your favorite hunting preserve, pay your money and have a go at their caged herd. Just pick out the one you want, step back to what ever distance marker you chose to use, sit down at the shooting table with the supplied sand-bags and fire away until the thing goes down. Step up to the carcass for pictures, and then wait for the staff to gut it out and transport it to the butcher shop down at the end of the driveway so you can have your kill cut up packaged and wrapped while you wait, or have it processed and shipped to your home later. The mounted,trophy head will arrive at your home a few months later. Of course before any of your harvest leaves the grounds of the preserve, there will be a couple of quick tests on the meat to make sure there are none of the new diseases that will have developed across the country by then. Fill out about 6 pages of paperwork, and have the preserve clerk attest that you did indeed use the gun for hunting purposes only and then you're ready to head home.

When you get home, a quick trip back to the village armory to drop off your gun and unused ammo, and a few forms about the number of slugs shot and a report swearing to the details of the kill, and you're on your way.

Fun ... wasn't it?

[nyantler]

Actually 50 years from now, hunting will be a whole lot different than we know it today. How do I know that? .... Well, I have seen how much it has changed over the last 50 years. Other than some extended seasons, and some liberalized bag limits, I'm afraid that it hasn't really improved all that much in terms of the quality of the hunt in fact it is mostly moving in negative directions. Things seem to have gotten a lot more complicated and the social aspects of hunting have really gone severely downhill compared to years past. There now seems to be a lot of politics-of-hunting taking over hunting. And today there is more concern with hunters competing with other hunters than hunters vs. game. The measures of success have been perverted to just numbers and measurements. The lives of people are becoming so crammed full of obligations and other activities that hunting has taken on an aire of "hurry-up and go and let's get this over with". The increasing problems with access have already been mentioned. All those things are showing patterns of increasing and are being reflected in participation and the downward spiral of the quality of the hunt.

So what can one really expect from another 50 years? I suspect that if I were somehow magically returned 50 years from now, I probably wouldn't even want to be involved in hunting. Strong words, but just looking at the directions of things and the increasing rate of negative change, I don't think it will even be recognizable or offer anything that I would be interested in.

The question is will the changes be so gradual that people will slowly acclimate to all these negative changes and accept the new versions of "hunting". Well, each generation seems to be adapting and even forcing some of these changes, so I would guess that the answer might be yes. Those that have never known anything better really can't miss it and will simply accept things as they are.

Thats a gloomier view than I have about hunting... none of what you've descibed is anything that I experience .. yes.. I know much of it does exist.. but for me and the fellas I hunt with not much has changed in the last 40 years... if anything we kill more deer and have more fun doing it than when I was younger... our sons are all at camp with us now and we are watching them have the same kind of fun we had.

I do understand how you feel about the perversion of success... hurry up and go attitude.. and access to hunting land.. but I believe that hunters are the ones that will be the downfall of their own sport. Its all about attitude and willingness to keep tradition alive. I can't be positive but I think that for my kids and the kids of my friends at hunting camp... not much will change other than the oldtimers (us) will have passed on.. and they'll be raising a glass in memory of us when they have a successful hunt... just as we did for our fathers before us.

There will be concerns about access maybe, costs of licenses, etc... but hopefully not enough concern to keep the future generation from enjoying hunting the way I do. If I could be there 50 years from now... I would be... enjoying it just as I do now.

[Doc]

Sure, it's all a matter of perspective and longevity and maybe even a little geography thrown in. I have seen massive changes over the years, including cultural changes as the farmers of my childhood deserted the land and turned it over to the developers. I have seen ongoing changes in the way hunting moved from the cultural center to an activity that is despised by the public in many cases. I have watched large amounts of hunters leave the activity, more for social reasons than reasons of inability. Yes that may give me a more pessimistic viewpoint of where it is all heading.

[Five Seasons]

Actually the way things are going, you will have to do a bit more pre-planning when you go hunting ..... lol. You will have to first go down to the "village armory" and sign out your gun before you can take it hunting. A little paperwork and a couple forms of I.D. and away you go. Pick up your shotgun and five slugs and you're good to go.

Head on off to your favorite hunting preserve, pay your money and have a go at their caged herd. Just pick out the one you want, step back to what ever distance marker you chose to use, sit down at the shooting table with the supplied sand-bags and fire away until the thing goes down. Step up to the carcass for pictures, and then wait for the staff to gut it out and transport it to the butcher shop down at the end of the driveway so you can have your kill cut up packaged and wrapped while you wait, or have it processed and shipped to your home later. The mounted,trophy head will arrive at your home a few months later. Of course before any of your harvest leaves the grounds of the preserve, there will be a couple of quick tests on the meat to make sure there are none of the new diseases that will have developed across the country by then. Fill out about 6 pages of paperwork, and have the preserve clerk attest that you did indeed use the gun for hunting purposes only and then you're ready to head home.

When you get home, a quick trip back to the village armory to drop off your gun and unused ammo, and a few forms about the number of slugs shot and a report swearing to the details of the kill, and you're on your way.

Fun ... wasn't it?

depressing man. depressing. the local armory thing actually could come reality. the caged herd... i doubt that.

[Doc]

depressing man. depressing. the local armory thing actually could come reality. the caged herd... i doubt that.

Now again remember that this is an exercise in imagination and may or may not be based on any actual fact. But I do have to point out that some of these canned hunts of today are really not a long way from being something that could easily be considered a "caged herd" already.

And remember that this kind of hunting may not be as traumatic as it seems to us today. With the changes I've seen in the past 50 years, the next 50 years will provide a lot of time for attitudes to evolve way beyond anything that we could imagine.

[jjb4900]

yeah, but just think of the size of the bucks that will be running around some areas in 50 years thanks to the implementation of Antler Restrictions.............

[nyantler]

Sure, it's all a matter of perspective and longevity and maybe even a little geography thrown in. I have seen massive changes over the years, including cultural changes as the farmers of my childhood deserted the land and turned it over to the developers. I have seen ongoing changes in the way hunting moved from the cultural center to an activity that is despised by the public in many cases. I have watched large amounts of hunters leave the activity, more for social reasons than reasons of inability. Yes that may give me a more pessimistic viewpoint of where it is all heading.

I think i'm with you on all that... I can see the decline in numbers and availibilty of land... where I live I don't really see the people depising hunting.. but where I live is a very conservative town and a big hunting community... even with all the changes that might come.. those that still hunt I think will have the passion.. maybe not like us in our younger years, but the passion none the less... It's hard to be into hunting and not get bitten by the bug... I think you said it before.. it is up to the next generation to carry on the tradition of hunting.. as for us... we will not be around to carrying it on for them.

[nyantler]

" the next 50 years will provide a lot of time for attitudes to evolve way beyond anything that we could imagine."

Very true!!

[WNYBuckHunter]

I dont think it will change too awful much, other than rule changes here and there, and the possibility of less access to land, but most of that will be due to the further development of larger parcels into 5 acre plots for that "dream house" that everyone wants.

[BizCT]

So, let your imagination run loose for a moment. What do you think hunting will be like 50 years from now? What changes do you envision as far as weapons, seasons, regulations, game availability, etc.?

Lazy, fat guys will shoot their deer from their computers at home with a click of the mouse, while watching live feeds via trail cameras.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

[Ford]

50 years from now, hmm.

Are there still people around to do the hunting? I envision a bunch of mutated game running free over my old homestead, unmolested.

[Doc]

Speaking of changes in hunting over long periods, I was reading an artical in the American Hunter yesterday that was about how state lands have changed over the years since they were first purchased. The article was about publically owned lands across the country and not just NYS. However, I can see what they were saying even here in our own state.

The article was pointing out how states take mostly a hands-off policy regarding maintenance of public lands. And so over the decades from the time they were mostly farming lands, they have matured and moved through the transitional habitat that most wildlife requires, into heavy over-story kinds of lands that are very unfriendly to deer, rabbits, grouse, etc., and are moving toward a sterile kind of habitat that cannot support a whole lot of wild critters. With only a few rare exceptions there really has not been any kind of habitat management to create the diversity needed to support a diverse population of critters. They didn't mention it, but I have seen the same thing happening in private forests as well. As the nation's lands keep getting divided up and then divided up again, over and over, the new generations of landowner think there is something good in keeping habitat forever wild. The idea of logging state forests doesn't seem to be a very popular one within the general (uneducated in the ways and needs of wildlife) public, and so the management agencies are reluctant to do what they know should be done. Also shrinking budgets eliminate a lot of the options for changing the situation.

So anyway, perhaps we will see hunting impacted by this unwise neglect of habitat. It may actually turn out that even small game hunting will be impacted, and we may find severe shortages of things to hunt because of it.

[jjb4900]

Speaking of changes in hunting over long periods, I was reading an artical in the American Hunter yesterday that was about how state lands have changed over the years since they were first purchased. The article was about publically owned lands across the country and not just NYS. However, I can see what they were saying even here in our own state.

The article was pointing out how states take mostly a hands-off policy regarding maintenance of public lands. And so over the decades from the time they were mostly farming lands, they have matured and moved through the transitional habitat that most wildlife requires, into heavy over-story kinds of lands that are very unfriendly to deer, rabbits, grouse, etc., and are moving toward a sterile kind of habitat that cannot support a whole lot of wild critters. With only a few rare exceptions there really has not been any kind of habitat management to create the diversity needed to support a diverse population of critters. They didn't mention it, but I have seen the same thing happening in private forests as well. As the nation's lands keep getting divided up and then divided up again, over and over, the new generations of landowner think there is something good in keeping habitat forever wild. The idea of logging state forests doesn't seem to be a very popular one within the general (uneducated in the ways and needs of wildlife) public, and so the management agencies are reluctant to do what they know should be done. Also shrinking budgets eliminate a lot of the options for changing the situation.

So anyway, perhaps we will see hunting impacted by this unwise neglect of habitat. It may actually turn out that even small game hunting will be impacted, and we may find severe shortages of things to hunt because of it.

that's already one of the biggest changes I've sen to out hunting land in the 30 or so years I've been hunting it..no longer very friendly to wildlife that we hunt due to the maturing process.

[blackradio]

I'll always hunt.

[Doc]

50 years from now, hmm.

Are there still people around to do the hunting? I envision a bunch of mutated game running free over my old homestead, unmolested.

This is something that I have wondered about. It seems to me that each season gets quieter and quieter, and the number of cars in the state parking lots and along the road get fewer and fewer. It's just a localized observation, but it does seem to me that opening day primarily consists of "opening morning" as now the afternoon shots seem to trail off to nothing. It also seems that hunters are 1 or 2 day hunters. There eventually comes a time in the season where it seems there are only a few guys in the whole valley. That's not at all what I remember from years ago when guys used to be up on their feet hunting throughout the season. When standing or still hunting got unproductive, the big drives would start. There was always something going on. Now it looks like hunters show up on opening day, plunk their rump somewhere in the woods for the morning, go out for lunch and never come back. The rest of the season for them seems to consist of an occasional Saturday here and there. So it would appear that we are now populated by pretty good hunter numbers, but they are all part-time hunters that don't log a whole lot of hours afield. And of those few hours afield, they don't seem to hunt in a way that moves a whole lot of deer (a lot of sitting).

The good news is that even with all this reduced activity, the deer take seems to be as high as ever. So either we are getting a whole lot more efficient or the deer herd is being maintained at an uncontrolled level such that fewer man-hours of hunting are required to harvest the same number of deer.

I do realize that these observations are based on a lot of years but a very tiny percentage of the state's hunting lands. Of course people in other areas may be experiencing a whole different scenario, and I am only talking about my own local area.

Anyway, I don't know how much these changes in hunter behavior will continue to become more and more exaggerated in 50 years, but it seems there could come a time when hunters actually controlling deer populations comes up far short of being successful. That could wind up kind of interesting.

[Five Seasons]

This is something that I have wondered about. It seems to me that each season gets quieter and quieter, and the number of cars in the state parking lots and along the road get fewer and fewer.

pros and cons to that. 1. the more hunters we have the better we stand with legislation. 2. the less hunters we have the higher chance of success and less encounters you may have.

it's a win/lose.

[tuckersdaddy]

Doc it's not isolated to your neck of the woods. even as recent as 5 years ago if you hunted in state land you better be there early every day of the first week or you may not get your favorite spot. having other hunters wonder by on state land or near by private was a daily if not hourly event. the past couple of years however have been very quiet. the number of hunters may be high but time afield is declining. the good to this is the piece and quiet of bow season during regular season. the bad is unless the weather cooperates the deer stay put, and deep. 

[Doc]

I think that today there is a whole lot more competition for time, and that hunting is taking a hit as hunters wrestle with the conflicts of balancing activities and responsibilities with the more demanding hours required to hunt effectively. Also, technology and inventions in the hunting clothing industry has enabled guys to just plunk down at the base of a tree and stay there all day. Unfortunately the deer do the same thing so you don't see deer on the move throughout the day as you did years back when guys would quickly freeze out and be forced to get up and still-hunt.

 

There .... now there is a whole bunch of generalizations based on observations from one little spot ... lol. But these are observations that I have made locally that seem to indicate trends for the future in hunting .... in my area at least.

[nyantler]

I think that today there is a whole lot more competition for time, and that hunting is taking a hit as hunters wrestle with the conflicts of balancing activities and responsibilities with the more demanding hours required to hunt effectively. Also, technology and inventions in the hunting clothing industry has enabled guys to just plunk down at the base of a tree and stay there all day. Unfortunately the deer do the same thing so you don't see deer on the move throughout the day as you did years back when guys would quickly freeze out and be forced to get up and still-hunt.

 

There .... now there is a whole bunch of generalizations based on observations from one little spot ... lol. But these are observations that I have made locally that seem to indicate trends for the future in hunting .... in my area at least.

I think you're right about the lack of movement by hunters today... there are more treestand and blind hunters than ever before... which, as you stated, means less people moving deer... which equals less deer moving and less deer being seen.. and when hunters aren't seeing deer.. they lose interest quickly.. which results in less time in the woods.

 

I have noticed an increase as of late in the amount of hunters near me, still not nearly as many as years ago, but more than in recent years. I have also seen a big increase in the amount of big woods hunters in my adirondack spots... seems as though tracking big bucks in the big woods has become popular with many hunters. What I don't see is the amount of young hunters that will need to come up to take the place of us old hunters... that I think will be the problem for future hunting.

[Doc]

... seems as though tracking big bucks in the big woods has become popular with many hunters.

I think you're probably pretty safe there. These guys don't have the time it takes to put in that kind of hunt. After all, they have to drop the kids off at the babysitters, log a couple hours hunting and get back to pick the kids back up and then do some shopping and then drop back off at the babysitters so they can make to the afternoon bridge game and then head over to  bowling so that they can get home in time to watch American Idol. In a few more years they'll just drop the hunting part of the day so they can get involved in a lot more stuff.

[Five Seasons]

I think you're right about the lack of movement by hunters today... there are more treestand and blind hunters than ever before... which, as you stated, means less people moving deer... which equals less deer moving and less deer being seen.. and when hunters aren't seeing deer.. they lose interest quickly.. which results in less time in the woods.

 

I have noticed an increase as of late in the amount of hunters near me, still not nearly as many as years ago, but more than in recent years. I have also seen a big increase in the amount of big woods hunters in my adirondack spots... seems as though tracking big bucks in the big woods has become popular with many hunters. What I don't see is the amount of young hunters that will need to come up to take the place of us old hunters... that I think will be the problem for future hunting.

 

this really only applies to gun hunting though, and perhaps that's why I love archery so much. The deer are moving natural.

[Doc]

this really only applies to gun hunting though, and perhaps that's why I love archery so much. The deer are moving natural.

That too is changing, depending on where you hunt. I have a section of state land that I hunt that is now interlaced with a maze of mountain bike trails. And of course the trails also make excellent hiking trails for literally mobs of people. I don't want to get into a discussion about who has what rights when it comes to state land, but I will say that these trails are very well used during bow season. There are many areas that used to be excellent hunting spots that are now so filled in with trails that it is very difficult to get out of sight or sound of the gangs of bikers and hikers that use them. In those areas, the deer are absolutely nocturnal. There no longer is any practical daytime deer movement throughout the early Fall. Now that the season is open even earlier, that problem will be even worse.

 

I don't know whether this is just the beginning of the multi-use public facilities that our state lands are evolving into, but when this happens on hunting land, the only natural movement of deer is well after dark.

[Five Seasons]

state land is state land Doc. Not much you can do about that.

[tuckersdaddy]

That too is changing, depending on where you hunt. I have a section of state land that I hunt that is now interlaced with a maze of mountain bike trails. And of course the trails also make excellent hiking trails for literally mobs of people. I don't want to get into a discussion about who has what rights when it comes to state land, but I will say that these trails are very well used during bow season. There are many areas that used to be excellent hunting spots that are now so filled in with trails that it is very difficult to get out of sight or sound of the gangs of bikers and hikers that use them. In those areas, the deer are absolutely nocturnal. There no longer is any practical daytime deer movement throughout the early Fall. Now that the season is open even earlier, that problem will be even worse.

 

I don't know whether this is just the beginning of the multi-use public facilities that our state lands are evolving into, but when this happens on hunting land, the only natural movement of deer is well after dark.

 

With that many people around unaware of what your doing would make me think twice about pulling the release/trigger. Cornell does something smart (odd for cornell), the state land they manage near ithaca is off limits to non-hunters during deer season. makes for a much safer hunting area. The few times ive hunted it the deer still seem content moving at night. in my part of chenango, the state lands are getting allot of 'night pressure' and im finding that the deer find a hole  and stay put unless it snows or they are stepped on. day or night.

Edited March 19, 2013 by tuckersdaddy