As a "youngster" in the traditional community (27 y.o.), raising a youngster myself, perhaps I can offer a different perspective:
These days it seems kids are raised differently and hunters are treated differently.
My dad wasn't much of a hunter. He did some gun hunting before I can remember. When I started hunting with an interest in bowhunting I got the old "I don't want all my deer running around with arrows sticking out of them" comments from day one. He spent most of his time working himself ragged and then trying to rest on weekends, which didn't leave much time to hunt. For many of my friends, that was the same for their fathers. There was almost no mentoring in woodsmanship. Making money took priority, and no matter how much everyone seemed to make there were always more bills to pay. Add in primarily female teaching staff at the school with similar Disney outlooks on animals, and there was never much guidance in how to be a natural predator. They made sure we learned the Pythagorean theorem, though... which I have forgotten. Nine hours at a desk being told to sit down, shut up, and fill out paperwork to make it in this world followed by another two to five hours doing homework at night didn't leave much time to hunt, and most of my free time was spent just trying to build a selfbow and wooden arrows that worked so I COULD hunt.
I tried to "guarantee" success by shooting extremely heavy selfbows and arrows and doing so in the manner of the most successful traditional bowhunters I'd read about (Hill, Asbell, etc.). The difference was, those legends had devoted years to mastering their styles and methods and I was just a scrawny, uncoordinated, near-sighted high school kid trying to shoot a moderately sized whitetail under some oak trees. There were no mentors. I didn't have the money for a compound, and crossbows weren't legal, so I just kept trudging along hoping, more than anything, to get a chance at an animal where I DIDN'T WOUND IT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD. No one hunted with traditional bows in the area and I certainly didn't want to be the lunatic sticking them in the rear ends with feathered arrows. That recipe for anxiety took its toll on my hunting for years.
It took six years before I connected on a deer, and even then it didn't go perfectly (liver hit) which lead to a lot of self-admonishment over whether I should even be hunting at all. That was in addition to the numerous negative comments about my pursuits from family and friends. At the moment I've taken around a dozen whitetail with stickbows. Some out of stands, some on the ground, however outside of the traditional bowhunting community and a few close friends those accomplishments aren't always treated as such. I still have family turn their noses up whenever hunting is even mentioned, and there are still comments from the older compound bowhunting crowd that make me feel like I'm just "getting in the way of real hunters" because I don't use more modern weapons. Doesn't just come from those using compounds. I've had traditional folks comment that my current hunting bows are of barely adequate poundage, that the deer I shoot are too small, or that my aiming style is for paper, not fur. Even when I try to make the right choices for myself and the game I pursue, someone has to chime in with what's wrong with it and why I'm still wrong.
It's not hard to see why there are so few youngsters taking up traditional bowhunting now. There's no room anymore for mistakes or learning. Now it seems like you have to step into this as a successful super-hunter or otherwise you're just a murderous goon or an ignorant wounder-to-be. There are bills to pay, too, and time is more valuable than ever. Sitting in the woods with a low-probability weapon, where even if your skill and determination pay off with a kill you'll be ridiculed and mocked by hunters and non-hunters alike... well, it doesn't always feel worth it for some meat in the freezer.
While the desire to earn my meat through self-discipline and determination runs deep, I don't push my stepson into hunting for these reasons. I talk to him about it and try to teach him what woodsmanship I know, but hunting can make you a target for hate-fueled attacks by others, even those supposedly on your side. The level of ridicule and the types of bile spewed at hunters anymore, even from other hunters, is overwhelming at times. I've made it clear to him that I'd support him with whatever weapon he wanted to use, if he wants to hunt at all, because of the pushback I'd received when I started hunting with a longbow. He gets plenty of the Disney nonsense from school and other family members, though, so I don't know if he'll even hunt. I'm just here to help him with a traditional hunting bow if he wants to pursue that path.
Topic: Concern for direction of hunting (Read 18732 times)
