Some thoughts about hunting trend

Some thoughts about hunting trend I was curious how the hunting trend was going up or down here in West Virginia. As we all know, hunting has been on a downward slide over the last 10 years or so in the United States. West Virginia hasn't been hit as hard with declining hunters as other states have been. It1s interesting to me because it seems the more we tend to manage out our own deer herds, we eliminate hunters from hunting areas they used to hunt. It's not because hunters that are landowners are any less friendly. It's because some are spending large sums of money trying to grow larger deer. Planting food plots and some just feeding their deer herd. Some people are spending thousands of dollars to grow larger-antlered deer and healthy deer as well. Most of these challenges have to include some type of a management program, and some hunters just don1t or won1t abide them. It's not too hard to understand if a landowner is dropping thousands of dollars on the deer herd, he1s not going to let just anyone hunt there. So with the increase of self-deer management, landowners get tougher on who they let hunt therefore eliminating possible young hunters stepping in and getting hooked. Not saying it1s a good or bad thing. If you own and pay taxes on your property, you can do as you please. But the more this trend continues, the more people will give up hunting, and their kids will never be introduced to it. My opinion is that people will see food plots only help if the deer live long enough to get nice racks. Planting and maintaining food plots is a costly and time-consuming adventure, and I think it will fall by the wayside soon. You can plant all the protein you can afford. If the deer don1t live, they don1t grow. My favorite saying is dead deer don't grow. If hunters would let two- and three-year-old bucks walk, they would see the benefits the next year. You can try and manage 10,000 acres plant all kinds of food plots, but if all the hunters don1t have the same idea of what a big buck is, you1re wasting your time. You cannot have 20 guys hunting and killing all of the two- and three-year-old bucks. It will not work. Everyone has to be on the same page for the idea to work. This, too, will be the demise of hunting leases for the serious hunter. Not very many individuals have the money to do it alone, so they recruit more hunters, and this is when the problem starts. More hunters with different ideas on what a big deer is. You cannot get big deer bucks unless they live. You have to everyone on the same page. Let the young bucks walk and the nice two- and three-years-olds. It1s hard to do, but you have to do it to get what you1re after. Here is some of the information on deer hunting participation in West Virginia. Overall participation rate of West Virginia, 13 percent of all residents aged 15 years and older have either deer hunted in the past 12 months or have a household member who has deer hunted in the past 12 months. NUMBER OF HUNTERS IN HOUSEHOLD Statewide, the mean number of deer hunters in households in which somebody hunted deer is 1.53 people. The mean ranges from a high of 1.74 in Region 9 (Clay, Nicholas, Webster) to a low of 1.42 in Region 5 (Jefferson, Berkeley) and Region 16 (Mason, Putnam). LICENSE PURCHASING The most common source for hunting license purchases for the 2006 season was an electronic purchase at a store or business, referred to as a 3point-of-sale at license agent,2 the source for 37 percent of 2006 license holders. Lifetime licenses accounted for 17 percent of 2006 license holders, and paper licenses from a license agent. The mean number of days that hunters spent hunting deer is 11.0 days, for a total of 1,977,000 hunter-days. The most avidity for deer hunting, as measured by the mean number of days hunting, was in Region 5 (Jefferson and Berkeley counties) at 14.8 mean days and Region 15 (McDowell and Wyoming counties) at 14.3 mean days. Participation in the first day of buck firearms season was quite high: 80 percent hunted on the first day of the buck firearm season. Indeed, at least 86 percent of those who hunted deer with a firearm did so within one of more of the first three days of the season. Preliminary figures for the 2008 fall turkey hunting season indicate that 1,128 birds were harvested this fall. This represents a 25 percent decline from last year1s fall harvest of 1,511. The largest harvest declines were reported in the western counties of District 6 (down 62 percent) and the southeastern counties of District 4 (down 61 percent). More moderate harvest declines were reported in the central and eastern counties of District 3 (down 20 percent) and the eastern-panhandle counties of District 2 (down 10 percent). District 1, located in the North Central and Northern Panhandle regions of the state, reported an overall harvest increase of 15 percent. Mason County, the only county open to fall turkey hunting in District 5, reported a 48 percent harvest increase. The counties reporting the highest turkey harvests this fall include: Randolph (108), Mason (99), Preston (89), Greenbrier (79) and Pocahontas (74). Wildlife Biologists had forecast a lower fall turkey harvest based upon poor poult production in the spring and abundant food sources this fall, which tend to scatter flocks and make them less accessible to hunters. Prior to the season, it was predicted the fall wild turkey harvest might drop as much as 15 percent, noted Paul Johansen, assistant chief in charge of game management. Wet, windy weather during the first week of the season, particularly in our southeastern counties, probably reduced hunter turnout and hampered those who did venture forth, causing a larger than expected decrease in our fall turkey harvest.