By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter
Sometimes, when one becomes obsessed with an issue and cannot seem to resolve it, the answer comes only when you least expect it. So it has been for me in trying to figure out what keeps our youth hunting recruitment stagnant.
In spite of the best efforts by a lot of individuals and local, state and federal government departments and hunting and fishing organizations, the effort to recruit youth into the ranks of hunters has largely failed. Special seasons, mentored hunts and special areas for youth hunting have all failed to produce any significant increase in youth participation.
It bodes badly for the future of fish and wildlife in this country. Hunters have long been the backbone for conservation. Without them, the future does not seem promising.
Some of the lack of success is fairly easy to identify. A large share of those participating in special youth hunting seasons and the like are already part of hunting families and are not new to hunting. Therefore, no increase in numbers. There are still a fair number of youth who have no hunting background who participate, but they are not being retained.
These youth show up and maybe go on one hunt with strangers in a setting that minimally represents what hunting is really about.
But then what? Maybe they loved the activity, or at least enjoyed it, so they go home and want to go again but have no avenue to accomplish that. It’s easy to see how quickly a kid is going to move on to something else. A passion for something is not going to occur in a one- or two-day-a-year event. There are mentor programs, but hunters by nature are not going to be drawn to some regimented activity. Hunting is too personal and individualized for that to really work well.
As I was soaking my old, aching back after another three-mile trek in chest waders, it came to me like a lightning bolt to the temple: Old men. The generation that provided the most prolific population of hunters we have ever seen, the baby boomers, grew up with old men.
We had a father, grandfather, uncle or friend, and sometimes all of the above, bring us along on hunting trips, showing us the traditions and extraneous things that are not learned in a classroom.
They allowed us to make the mistakes common to youth and learn from them. The time spent out of doors with our old men, hunting or just being out, was the critical factor in our development as hunters. It was a tradition passed on from the previous generation and was deeply steeped in ritual and “the way you do things.”
Old men passed on, in their individual ways, how to appreciate all of the things associated with the chase. The cold, the wet, the color of fall, the smell of hunting season, hunting dogs, firearms, the successes and the failures and the fire at the end of a hard day, all came to light under their oftentimes gruff mannerisms.
Old men taught to respect the quarry, never take more than the population could stand and never take undo advantage. Old men showed us the passion for hunting that is much deeper than the killing of a bird or animal, rather an individual freedom that puts the hunter as a participant in life itself.
Most of us who grew up with an old man at some point lost our gun for a period over doing something astonishingly stupid. To the young passionate hunter, the taking of one’s gun was a significant emotional event, a life-changing experience for some and a lesson never forgotten.
As this thought came to me, I realized that I, in fact, and a great many like myself, are now “old men.” As a generation, at least many of us have missed that fact. We were blessed with the best and the most and the gift of extended youth like no other before us. It is difficult for our generation to even contemplate being old.
But “old man” status is more a state of mind. An old man has been there and done that, and with that is more content to observe and teach and appreciate the efforts of youth.
Old men have reached a point in life where they aren’t hustling to support the family, stressed out over the next promotion or on call 24 hours a day. They are who they are and are comfortable with that and therefore can relax and enjoy the moment. Appropriately enough, old men have physically slowed down enough that going a child’s pace will be quite comfortable.
All of these things combine to make the solution to our youth recruitment problem be literally in our hands. It’s funny that when we started the Old Duck Hunters Society, a business associated with outdoor writing and promoting the traditional ways of hunting, this concept never occurred to me. Even while taking an “adopted” young aspiring hunter this fall, it never occurred to my hunting partner nor I that this was exactly what we were doing, we just didn’t have a way of conveying it.
Those who are interested in being an “old man,” and are not sure how to go about it, pick up a copy of Robert Ruark’s “The Old Man and the Boy.” The Gordon MacQuarrie trilogy, “Last Stories of the Old Duck Hunters,” is also a wonderful series of stories that show the tradition of the “old man.” Both of these, at least in my mind, should be required reading before anyone takes on the teaching of youth in the hunting field.
Before you female hunters out there get upset for not being included, let me clarify. This is in no way meant to mean only old men can take on the task of bringing a new hunter into the fold. It is just a reality that in the times when this tradition was passed on there were very few female hunters. That is changing and females are said to be the fastest-growing demographic group in the hunting and outdoor world, and the better we are for it.
My hunting partner is female and as deeply committed to this as I am. But I am not going to refer to her as an “old woman.” While we may be enlightened, I suspect I won’t live to see the day when any woman is going to find that endearing. So yes, female hunters, too, will hopefully grasp this concept and carry it forward.
Already having the experience, I can attest to how rewarding it is, even when I wasn’t aware of what it was.
Steve Meyer has been a central peninsula resident since 1971 and is an avid hunter, fisherman and trapper. He can be reached at oldduckhunter@gci.net.
