BHA on HQ

[Nameless Range]

I suppose it's been discussed ad nauseum, but I just don't by the influencers = crowding argument.Sure there are examples of spots being burned, but there's a larger picture. I think what we see on the landscape is a function of more people. Be nice to have a boogeyman though.

My local trailhead is more crowded every year. It ain't being advertised by influencers. Same goes for the dump. I never used to have to wait in line. Same goes for the Suds Hunt when I want something greasy.

Increased use of place, infrastructure, and resources in the West is everywhere, and is occurring outside of pretty pictures and lofty instagram posts.

When it comes to hunting I think @Forkyfinder is on to something. We literally have tools in the toolkit to alter the hunting experience in this state. Let's focus on those.

 

[Elky Welky]

I suppose it's been discussed ad nauseum, but I just don't by the influencers = crowding argument.Sure there are examples of spots being burned, but there's a larger picture. I think what we see on the landscape is a function of more people. Be nice to have a boogeyman though.

My local trailhead is more crowded every year. It ain't being advertised by influencers. Same goes for the dump. I never used to have to wait in line. Same goes for the Suds Hunt when I want something greasy.

Increased use of place, infrastructure, and resources in the West is everywhere, and is occurring outside of pretty pictures and lofty instagram posts.

When it comes to hunting I think @Forkyfinder is on to something. We literally have tools in the toolkit to alter the hunting experience in this state. Let's focus on those.

Oh man, now you just spot burned Suds Hut?!

 

[SAJ-99]

I just don't by the influencers = crowding argument.

Very much a Chicken/Egg question.

By Matt's definition, every RMEF Banquet is an R3 event. Ironically, he certainly isn't going to change R3 by having a podcast to discuss the downside of R3. Blaming BHA is counterproductive. He has to realize that future battles will need groups willing to influence legislation.

 

[Nameless Range]

Oh man, now you just spot burned Suds Hut?!

Suds Hut is my church, and I will aggressively proselytizethe religion of my church as long as souls need savin' and hearts need cloggin'

 

[Forkyfinder]

Very much a Chicken/Egg question.

By Matt's definition, every RMEF Banquet is an R3 event. Ironically, he certainly isn't going to change R3 by having a podcast to discuss the downside of R3. Blaming BHA is counterproductive. He has to realize that future battles will need groups willing to influence legislation.

I also think its a silly one. I hunted a long time from interest as a kid (from who knows what influence) without contributing a dollar or minute of my time to anything besides tags and/or filling them. Who the f joins a conservation org, that doesnt hunt, and suddenly is hyper interested in hunting after?

If anything - more of these orgs should be recruiting. Specifically the vast majority of hunters who are completely unengaged on things that are legitimate and tangible detriments and threats to their hunting and the future of that hunting.

 

[WapitiBob]

Any organization needs people and money. They can't exist without either. Matt can't break out of his view that anything that adds people or looks like it might add people is R3 and thereby his enemy. Matt doesn't like crowded trailheads and spends his time trying to find someone to blame for that.

Quit hunting from a trailhead, they attract people like moths to a flame. And for crowding in general, the only places there are more hunters is in unlimited OTC hunt areas and they're shrinking year by year. Crowding in localized areas, that's a spot burning issue.

 

[WyoCoalMiner]

Which is it, R3 is effective and good use of BHA $ or it doesn't do anything and BHA is wasting my money?

Is R3 the biggest issue facing hunting? Doubtful. Is it nothing? Doubtful. It just so happens to be the thing Matt likes to bitch about.

Matt is a known goofball and he got the better of Cal for the first 30. Accept it, learn from it and do better next time. I will give Cal credit for facing his detractor. Little respect for those that hide from confrontation.

 

[Elky Welky]

Suds Hut is my church, and I will aggressively proselytizethe religion of my church as long as souls need savin' and hearts need cloggin'

View attachment 412881

Fair enough, I stand corrected. This is a noble pursuit, and I have worshipped at that temple of fried chicken many a time.

 

[Point Creep]

 

[TheTone]

Quit hunting from a trailhead, they attract people like moths to a flame. And for crowding in general, the only places there are more hunters is in unlimited OTC hunt areas and they're shrinking year by year. Crowding in localized areas, that's a spot burning issue.

How many unlimited OTC hunts have died in the last few years? AZ archery deer, Colorado non res elk, Idaho no res has went to a draw.

Leftover tag numbers on easy to draw tags are shrinking or all gone


Point creep is jumping at a rate that will see lots of people never participate in hunts they hoped to.

 

[SAJ-99]

Quit hunting from a trailhead, they attract people like moths to a flame. And for crowding in general, the only places there are more hunters is in unlimited OTC hunt areas and they're shrinking year by year. Crowding in localized areas, that's a spot burning issue.

Agree. Spot burning complaints seems to be more focused on drawing a tag. I haven’t had much of a problem getting away from crowds in the field, even on general tags. And we all know the guy that tells you a spot if you promise not to tell anyone else, only he told 15 other guys the same thing and within a few years it’s “burned” to the ground.

 

[TOGIE]

How many unlimited OTC hunts have died in the last few years? AZ archery deer, Colorado non res elk, Idaho no res has went to a draw.

Leftover tag numbers on easy to draw tags are shrinking or all gone


Point creep is jumping at a rate that will see lots of people never participate in hunts they hoped to.

Last I checked many river permits and even coveted backpacking permits have seen application spikes that mirror what we see in western hunting applications.

I haven't seen Steve Rinella pimping the Selway

So what's going on?

It's everything. Social media, ease of applying, technology, etc etc etc, and it's happening in every outdoor pursuit.

Matt isn't off the rails, hunting quietly is sound philosophy. But it's sound philosophy moreso because we're always one more dumb fuqs video away from new anti hunting legislation receiving a governors signature or one more petition finding its approval on a game commission than because it's attracting people to the activity.

Spot burning is a tale as old as time and pissing and moaning about R3 accomplishes nothing. Matt is simultaneously off the rails. He is an old man yelling at clouds. The cats not going back in the bag. So, we (Matt) should try to steer reality in a better direction, rather than wishing reality was different.

Forky is massively right. With limited time and energy I think Matt could do more for the resource by encouraging folks to get involved instead of being this unhinged cheerleader for heckling; heckling many people who are pouring immense time, energy, and money into the resource.

 

[atlas]

Just because your trailhead isn't being promoted.. (a specific one rarely is) doesn't mean it wasn't impacted. People get into hunting and find somewhere to hunt.

Saying that influencers don't get people into hunting is insane. Whether you think that they are problem for hunting or not is the real discussion.

Joe Rogan for example. This brings a lot of exposure to hunting. The question is about whether that is good or bad - not whether this gets people into hunting (It almost certainly does). These are guests that I would categorize as hunting influencers. These episodes probably reached around 30 million unique people.
Cameron Hanes -19 appearances
Steven Rinella - 16
Remi Warren - 6
John Dudley -6
Adam Greentree - 5
Ben O’Brien - 3
Ryan Callaghan - 2
Valentine Thomas - 2

 

[Irrelevant]

I suppose it's been discussed ad nauseum, but I just don't by the influencers = crowding argument.Sure there are examples of spots being burned, but there's a larger picture. I think what we see on the landscape is a function of more people. Be nice to have a boogeyman though.

My local trailhead is more crowded every year. It ain't being advertised by influencers. Same goes for the dump. I never used to have to wait in line. Same goes for the Suds Hunt when I want something greasy.

Increased use of place, infrastructure, and resources in the West is everywhere, and is occurring outside of pretty pictures and lofty instagram posts.

When it comes to hunting I think @Forkyfinder is on to something. We literally have tools in the toolkit to alter the hunting experience in this state. Let's focus on those.

At a very high level, this growth is a requirement of our entire economic system.

@Forkyfinder I had a Teams call today that I logged in a little early to, one other guy was in there, small talk immediately turned to hunting. He commented, "the only place I've seen more people at than WA was MT."

 

[Nameless Range]

Just because your trailhead isn't being promoted.. (a specific one rarely is) doesn't mean it wasn't impacted. People get into hunting and find somewhere to hunt.

Saying that influencers don't get people into hunting is insane. Whether you think that they are problem for hunting or not is the real discussion.

Joe Rogan for example. This brings a lot of exposure to hunting. The question is about whether that is good or bad - not whether this gets people into hunting (It almost certainly does). These are guests that I would categorize as hunting influencers. These episodes probably reached around 30 million unique people.

Guest
Cameron Hanes
Steven Rinella
Remi Warren
John Dudley
Adam Greentree
Ben O’Brien
Ryan Callaghan
Valentine Thomas

[th]
JRE appearances

[/th]
[td]
19

[/td]
[td]
16

[/td]
[td]
6

[/td]
[td]
6

[/td]
[td]
5

[/td]
[td]
3

[/td]
[td]
2

[/td]
[td]
2

[/td]​

My family and I went to a lake last weekend that I used to go to as a child 30 years go. There were 10X the people there on a Saturday that there once was. None of em were there to scout hunting places. There's just more people recreating period and hunting is a subset of recreation. Lots of factors from economics, to covid, to tag allocations, influencers, etc might influence these things, but I'd say HQ weighs one factor far too heavily. It's also the case that if increasing one's hunting experience is the goal, the ROI on attacking it is low.

I don't think hunting sits in some special category of recreation where it is disproportionately influenced by social media vs paddleboarding, fishing, hiking, etc. I'm not saying there's no effect, but that it isn't the chief driver, and that there's not a whole lot of utility in trying to dissuade it.

Matt has some good points about how hunters carry themselves that I think people should take seriously.

Here's a chart of hunter days (NR and R) on the landscape by year from 2004-2025. I wish the data went back further, but I don't see an obvious signal in the year-to-year increase in days correlating with the huge year-to-year increase in social media use during that same time period, and I'd wager a chart of days people spent hiking, going to my dump, or patronizing the Suds Hut would increase at similar rates.

Tl;Dr: Every thing good and lovely in this state has become busier, more crowded, and more desired by more people in the last 20 years, and hunting isn't special.

 

[SAJ-99]

MT chose to R3 NRs. The benefit was the R license price hasn't changed since the Nixon administration. (yes, I know. It's a joke)

The data is odd because everyone says it is more crowded but hunting license sales have been pretty steady for the last decade. However, add up the 50 states and R sales are down and NR sales are up. This just shows hunting is becoming less about putting food on the table and more about the experience.

 

[Forkyfinder]

MT chose to R3 NRs. The benefit was the R license price hasn't changed since the Nixon administration. (yes, I know. It's a joke)

The data is odd because everyone says it is more crowded but hunting license sales have been pretty steady for the last decade. However, add up the 50 states and R sales are down and NR sales are up. This just shows hunting is becoming less about putting food on the table and more about the experience.

My opinion, and its a sad one, is that the casual guy (typically the R who hunts 4 days a year) hunting is drying up and the amount of NRs pounding 5+ states grows. Im not even convinced its more people hunting - could be a few thousand guys who run entirely away from their family all fall and work overtime in the winter, spring, and summer to do it.

I know of some in both categories.

 

[El Jason]

The data is odd because everyone says it is more crowded but hunting license sales have been pretty steady for the last decade.

Part of this is loss of private land access.

 

[PoleX]

 

[Nick87]

Part of this is loss of private land access.

Definitely. This is probably the biggest factor in crowding and people giving up hunting. Especially in the midwest and dont think that the midwest is mutually exclusive. If people here weren't losing access not near as many would be applying in western states. Best thing a R western hunter could hope for is more access in the midwest/south etc