Couple of 20-something boys I’m familiar with are out there…2 siblings with stickbows and one with a rifle.

Couple others doing archery, but the DAd’s don’t want to make it too tough on them so they have compounds.

Not like when I was young…we all wanted to go hunting.

Do know a couple young, young gals who are just starting out hunting… Friend’s grandaughter at 13 is one. He’s not sure if she gets the chance, she can ‘pull the trigger’… (X-bow or gun) but she’s up and out there!

Lots of young hunters where I live, but I realize that’s probably not representative of the situation in most places.

Buddies kids in NY hunt, rifle and wheelies… Their wives used to hunt, now they can’t wait for deerseason so they can go shopping or get dressed in camo and go to local gin-mill for lunch and a drink hehehe…

I got to point some teenagers to some Coues this august early bow season, were very up-standing young guys, one got a nice Coues,they really liked my recurve so there is hope they will change over to trad….

I think if the parents hunt, the kids will for the most part at least think about trying it… But out of 7kids in my family, I’m the only one that still hunts now…

A good reason to take a kid under your wing and teach ’em the ropes.

I try to help at least one “kid” a year get into hunting/archery. It’s a good way to clean out all those buckets of extra arrows at least.

One of my “kids” shot a really big buck this year, and I just gave another a field dressing/skinning/butchering lesson last Sunday.

It’s a lot of extra work and cuts into my hunting, but it has to be done.

Sad for me, but it looks like neither of my kids are really interested in hunting. My boy has shot 3 deer over the last few years with the smoke pole, but not with much enthusiasm. My daughter likes to shoot her bow, but not interested in hunting.

My son has followed me around since he was 3. Now he is 26 graduated from college. But with the job market in his field he is holding down 3 jobs trying to pay for school loans and eat. He has not bought a bow tag for 3 years. I do not think he is the only one in that bind. I know he will come back to it when life gives him the room, but others never do.

Gentlemen,

What a joy to read your posts about helping youngsters get involved. Kudos!

Question: Does it really matter what weapon a youth chooses to pursue the storied woods in pursuit of game—any game?

That isn’t meant as a challenge, but a true question: I would think that it would serves us all well to have young people find solace, challenge, the thrill of any encounter with wildlife and peace in the outdoors pursing our age-old tradition of hunting, whatever the season, game or weapon???

Let’s face it…sitting long hours in cold, damp conditions, or the opposite for some of you blessed with more temperate climate, (then perhaps being pestered by bugs and such…) is not for the faint of heart! I’m hearing reports from all over varied states that large and small game sightings are down. Perhaps those intent on culling hunter numbers have finally found a method to negatively impact hunting…limit the critters we hunt? What youth wishes today to be uncomfortable when the home fires provide easy entertainment via computer, cell phones, X-box and the like while comfy in their PJ’s???

I’ve been with kids of friends, who like us, seldom if ever saw game, big or small, and quickly lost interest. Many states limit a youth from hunting till age 12 or so, by then, other interests have blossomed.

We have met the enemy… perhaps?

Yes, I’m a young hunter.

In regard to my rather long-winded post above, low deer #’s I’m told were standard in my grandfather’s day…and what gave vent to the traditions of “deer camp” in the ‘high line’ of PA woods… where a bunch of guys would gather, play cards, rebel rouse one another, spend a solid week up there isolated from the world… and re-kindle their inner being.

Getting deer. Seeing deer, was an isolated thing, I’m told. Then the explosion of numbers started, and well-meaning groups decided they knew best and bought up doe tags and burned them ceremoniously, believing they were preserving the herd.

Today, those north woods are so over-browsed, with reports 10 yrs ago of 20:1 ratio of doe-buck, such that extreme measures have resulted state wide reducing the deer herds drastically.

My and the younger generation speak of the lack of desire to go when no deer are sighted. Are we back to a time when the camp life should/needs to become the focal point… where youth long to become involved in the “right of passage” to join their elders and become part of the camaraderie?

I tend to “read between the lines” and assume that most of us who pursue game with bent stick, do so more solitary?

Is that a fair perception? IF SO, where is the draw to youth? I couldn’t wait to sit and listen to the banter, the teasing, the pranks and such… and to eventually be accepted into that ilk. Alas, those camps became bastions of drinking, gambling and trips to local “clubs” for all that ensues, and I eschewed to continue among my peers.

Now I admit, I lament hunting entirely alone without the joy of camaraderie. Is that a factor for youth????

grumpy wrote: Yes, I’m a young hunter.

Now, Grumpy… I think the poster meant are there hunters out there who are YOUNG! NOT young at heart! 😆

Bummer on the 220 Line giving you fits, Paleo… when one’s back hurts, everything hurts…

But we only need be surgery free a year??? Danged Uncle Arty Ritis may not have me in surgery (diagnostics in process though) but he surely does keep a damper on the fun times!

I LOVE when people say, “You don’t LOOK your age”. I suggest if they were there in the AM watchin me try to get all the parts headed in the same direction, they might change their minds! 😯

Good luck with the back… sometimes, it’s just a muscle pull, sometimes, there is a reason the muscle freaked!

Gentlemen,

This is a very good and important topic to discuss and holds the key to the survival of our hunting traditions a possibly even more for our “traditional and primitive” traditions! I greatly appreciate this magazine and forum for the people and the content shared here so freely. I often wonder about the median age of contributors here and get the feeling I am one of the “young guys” at a mere 37 grand years of age. I worry for how this sport and tradition will change within my lifetime. I have regular contact on many levels through my work with the younger generations and am not seeing much interest for anything which takes them away from their electronics and the “easy life” they are living indoors. I know from experience that part of our passions start from what is mentored to us from a very young age, while the rest is just part of who we are. I wouldn’t be passionate about hunting without all of the wonderful old Winchesters, Ithacas, and old Bears left behind by my Grandfather, used by my father while taking me out from a very young age (my first pair of Bean Boots are about a size 1:), and passed down to me when I was brought along on those wonderful adventures to share in the hunt and the hunting camp experience. I grew up with a group of “The Greatest Generation” men who were the “Old Guys” while my Dad was my age, and I was a squirt. The old ones are all gone now, but they forever changed my destiny by having the patience to put up with a young, smart mouthed kid. They were willing to share their sacred time away with each other in wonderful places with a youngster who ended up looking up to them in so many ways. This left such a strong impression that it became part of who I am and my foundation for a love of the outdoors and how I want to experience it. I heard it said above and will echo it here; it is very, very important to take young people with you on hunting and fishing trips. It is also very important not to spend all of our time as solitaire tradhunting hermits, protecting our secret spots and only socializing our experiences in places like the forums. We are loosing the wonderful tradition of “the hunting camp”. Liked minded people who share common passions should get together more often and share the camp fire and stories of the days hunt. While doing so, bring a kid. You will change his/her life for the better. Let them see it all, as I did. There was cigar smoking, whiskey drinking, and cussing. There were also many in the group who were wonderful story tellers, who shared hard earned and sound advice about how to live a good and meaningful life. I am at a point where I have twin little ones of my own. Although they will only be 2 soon, I have already started to share my passions for the outdoors. Like a mentor told me, “take them out early. If you wait until they start school, they are told it is wrong to kill animals or fish and they will loose their interest”.

My first tradhunt was at the ripe age of 8 or 9 with a back quiver full of old cedar shafts with field tips and my grandpa’s old Bear Kodiak Magnum which I could hardly pull back far enough to fling and arrow. I did get it back in the adrenaline infused pursuit of cotton tails through shelter belts and managed to stick one to the ground and bring it home for dinner:)

Jans

What a heart-warming and adorable picture!!! 😀 That made my day!

Great points, JP. I hear of guys taking grand kids to their camps…and they sit in a corner thumbing their cell phones and such… 🙁

Individually infusing the love of the lore of the outdoor world has to be key, I’d think. 1:1. I’ve read and watched clips stating that till a youth actually PARTICIPATES in taking game, they don’t build that desire…

I hope that isn’t true… My lust for the woods came from within somehow…but surely desiring to be a part of my grandfather, father and Uncle’s hunts for small game opening day had to be part of it.

When they’d come in for lunch, they’d give me their spent shells. I was given an old shell vest which I filled with empties and grandma cut down to fit my 5 yr old self.

I’d sneak out behind the tool shed and sit and sniff the freshly fired shells just to FEEL like I was part of it all.

No clue how to engender that into the young folks of today. My ex’s son relished hunting together with me for a few years, but never got a shot and drifted to other things and away eventually… I watched older cousins growing up find cars and girls….and left their guns rust up… Some came back later, others didn’t. But there was enough access then and enough good and local places to hunt any/every thing, that it was EASIER to get involved in the lore of hunting…and see it, hear it, have it be a part of everyone’s normal cultural thing to “go huntin”.

With the suburban and urban direction… is that part of what’s let youth diverge from this hallowed pursuit???

Right NOW is the time to strike. The news was full this past week of reports like this one: Interest in archery has surged thanks to characters such as Katniss Everdeen.

Yes, a lot of these kids will be handed a compound bow initially. As someone who qualified as a NASP instructor and did my level best to get it started in local schools, I am all in favor of making archery fun and easy for kids when they first start out. The NASP approach has a documented history of getting thousands of kids involved in archery. Whether it’s a stick or pulleys that get a kid interested is immaterial to me. There’s all kinds of time for introducing them to the challenge of hunting with traditional tackle.

And take a kid hunting when you can. There are all kinds of ways to get that done, whether among your family or through Big Brothers/Big Sisters, etc.

I helped the Boy Scouts have shoots at our range the last couple of years. I was having fun and so were they it seemed with our stick bows and arrows. Of course the boys bows and arrows were a mix match of what we could scrounge but they worked and it made them no mas. All was good then some father showed up with his two boys and they were all sporting nice shiny new compounds, carbon arrows and sights. Whoa, I lost my popularity standing in a heartbeat, except for one lad. He hung on to his wood bow and handful of arrows like they were going to run away from him. He looked up at me, smiled and said “Let’s go shoot”. Made my heart feel good. He went home with that bow and one less than that fistful of arrows. That one less we spent forever trying to find. He’d lost a best friend in that gone missing arrow methinks.

So maybe there’s one for the future out there for our side. And at least there were some boys out and about and not playing with electronics for awhile no matter what the equipment they preferred. That’s the hard part for me and my grandsons, getting them out. 18, 17 year olds got girls on the brain. The 12 year old, he thinks he’s as big as his brothers but he has an Ipod super glued to his brain.

R2 wrote: I helped the Boy Scouts have shoots at our range the last couple of years. I was having fun and so were they it seemed with our stick bows and arrows. Of course the boys bows and arrows were a mix match of what we could scrounge but they worked and it made them no mas. All was good then some father showed up with his two boys and they were all sporting nice shiny new compounds, carbon arrows and sights. Whoa, I lost my popularity standing in a heartbeat, except for one lad. He hung on to his wood bow and handful of arrows like they were going to run away from him. He looked up at me, smiled and said “Let’s go shoot”. Made my heart feel good. He went home with that bow and one less than that fistful of arrows. That one less we spent forever trying to find. He’d lost a best friend in that gone missing arrow methinks.

So maybe there’s one for the future out there for our side.

There is, and likely will always be. We don’t need all of them to want to shoot traditional or hunt the old ways. Just a few are needed, and the right few will be plenty.

NASP???

grumpy wrote: NASP???

National Archery in the Schools Program