MidTennFisher
Well-Known Member
Matt Rinella discusses the most recent USFWS Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife Associated Recreation survey. I didn't link the podcast because about 50% of it is just rambling about other stuff. They didn't do a good job at sticking to the topic. Near the end it got much more informative.
I did look at the survey myself as I was listening to them go on and off topic randomly throughout the episode.
A couple of spoiler alerts:
Hunter numbers ARE NOT declining.
Hunter numbers ARE NOT mostly boomers with no young hunters replacing them.
Both are completely false.
I do give USFWS credit for the sneakiness of breaking down age brackets in smaller numbers for the two youngest groups (2 years and 7 years) vs all the other brackets (10 years then 65+) so that at first glance it appears there is a drastic decrease in numbers of younger hunters.
The percentage breakdown paints a better picture.
Adding up the numbers of 16-17 year old hunters and 18-24 year old hunters, still only a total age bracket of 9 years instead of the 10 years as seen on other age brackets, gives a total of 2.2 million hunters.
That's hardly a significant decrease from the other age brackets.
Over the last 5 years, total hunter and angler numbers seem to have fluctuated, but not decreased. 2021 numbers are higher than 2017, that's all that is shown in that report. We can all certainly agree that the number of huntable acres in 2021 is less than whatever it was in 2017. As is that number today from what it was in 2021.
I figure it's good discussion as there have been a few threads recently about hunter access, crowding, privatization of access, and R3. The latter I have said is a complete sham and really stands for "Revenue, Revenue, Revenue". My position on that still stands.
Hey if you support R3, fine, we can still be friends, but you'll have to come up with another reason for it than saying that hunter numbers are declining or that the hunters are all old boomers that aren't being replaced by yutes.
I did look at the survey myself as I was listening to them go on and off topic randomly throughout the episode.
A couple of spoiler alerts:
Hunter numbers ARE NOT declining.
Hunter numbers ARE NOT mostly boomers with no young hunters replacing them.
Both are completely false.
I do give USFWS credit for the sneakiness of breaking down age brackets in smaller numbers for the two youngest groups (2 years and 7 years) vs all the other brackets (10 years then 65+) so that at first glance it appears there is a drastic decrease in numbers of younger hunters.
The percentage breakdown paints a better picture.
Adding up the numbers of 16-17 year old hunters and 18-24 year old hunters, still only a total age bracket of 9 years instead of the 10 years as seen on other age brackets, gives a total of 2.2 million hunters.
That's hardly a significant decrease from the other age brackets.
Over the last 5 years, total hunter and angler numbers seem to have fluctuated, but not decreased. 2021 numbers are higher than 2017, that's all that is shown in that report. We can all certainly agree that the number of huntable acres in 2021 is less than whatever it was in 2017. As is that number today from what it was in 2021.
I figure it's good discussion as there have been a few threads recently about hunter access, crowding, privatization of access, and R3. The latter I have said is a complete sham and really stands for "Revenue, Revenue, Revenue". My position on that still stands.
Hey if you support R3, fine, we can still be friends, but you'll have to come up with another reason for it than saying that hunter numbers are declining or that the hunters are all old boomers that aren't being replaced by yutes.
. 
