would rather be hunting than working, but a wise person realizes bye working can aford to hunt.

first lease got on was 1 buck, had 3 days for doe, but real reason, it had hog's, 24-7 365 for around $200.00 a gun. times have changed.

By the numbers

Hunting license sold by state from 2004-2013

http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages/LicenseInfo/HuntingLicCertHistory20042013.pdf

From 1958-2003

http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages/LicenseInfo/HuntingLicCertHistory.pdf

In 1958 there were 408,682 licenced hunters in Texas. In 2013, there were 1,036,946 licensed hunters.


Nation wide in 1958 there were 14,138,182 licensed hunters compared to a US pop. of 171.98 million people or roughly 8%

In 2013 there were 14,631,327 licensed hunters compared to a populaition of 316.16 million, or 4.6%.

The peak of hunting license sales in the US was in 1982 with 16,748,541 when the population was 231.66 million so theere was 7.2%.

I got that from the linked data if my math is correct.

So the percentage of the population who hunts is shrinking, but the numbers of hunters is stable to growing slightly.

Take into accountthe shrinking land available to hunting, and the number of people being forced to public land due to the rising cost of leases, and you see the problem.

The place we hunt has been hunted for 60+ years. My Dad remembers growing up hearing shots all the time throughout deer season. Compared to now when he hardly hears any. I also remember when i started hunting hearing more shots than i do now (hardly hear any now).

A newspaper interviewed my great grandma about wild life in our area. In the article she mentions that the bucks aren't as big as they use to be back in the day (this article was in in the mid 90's). Dunno what that means but I also hunt different now then they did back then.

As a side story, when i was getting my hunters education and took my exam. I talked to the young guy next to me and he commented he hope he passed. He was going hunting the following weekend and has never shot a gun or hunted. I was immediately concerned for the deer he was hunting (but i hope he had a good experience).

Nationwide in the last 25 years 41 million acres of agriculture land has been lost to urban expansion. 41 million acres is the size of the state of Indiana. During this 25 years Texas has seen a lot of growth in population, a good chunk of that 41 million acres were in Texas.

I am sure somewhere there are stats on this just for Texas, but I am no looking anymore. It is pretty simple to see that as land for hunting decreases, the price of leases will go up, and up, even if the number of hunters remain the same. During these same last 25 years, Texas has also gain a few million people, even with a loss of hunter from the base population, we have gained through the increase in population.

Interesting because when the TP&W shortened the hunter ed class time, there were a lot people on THF were all for it. But then I guess they already knew everything.

Shortened it and started letting 9yos take it....

Texas loses about 200,000 acres per year to urban expansion,

http://www.texaslandconservancy.org/who-we-are-mainmenu-34.html

How many deer leases would be lost every year?

who controls the animals in urban (?) areas? Or are they just allowed to multiply and fester? Don't know what it is like now, but there was an island back home that you couldn't hunt. There were some of the scraggliest, nastiest looking deer ( some even deformed) on there that you'd ever see...

Deer inside towns are still regulated by the county rules. But, because they are in town and firing guns inside city limits is highly regulated, most are protected. If the town thinks the deer numbers are a problem, they can decide to relax the rules on firearms, allow bow hunting, or hire someone to clear out deer through the use of special permits.

A lot of it taken over by urban sprawl will be taken over by HOAs and liberals.

Which one is worse? Another thing that comes with urban sprawl is rats and cockroaches. Maybe they just thrive around HOA's and liberals.

Wonder if that has only rifle deer hunters..

Nav, despite what you may think, a hunting license is required for the archery only season.

Its not the decrease in hunters, its the increase of liberal non hunters.....

We have gone through a major transition in my area east of Abilene. Fifty years ago, we really didn’t have enough deer to hunt. Twenty-five ago, we had a good population but most of the tracts were fairly large. The land owners permitted hunting but only in limited amounts. Today, our area has undergone major changes. The next generation of absentee landowners have divided and sold off their holdings, primarily to DFW folks. I have one immediate neighbor whose place was a little over 700 acres. The only hunters on the place were his two nephews. Today, it is owned by six different owners with only one owner residing on the property. All the other tracts are owned by non-residents or hunting groups. Lord only knows how many hunters pass through Luther’s original 700 acres in a hunting season. Opening day is like a war zone.

Cars, trucks and disease.


Don't forget that this is often done just so they can pay the taxes on the land they inherited.

Many of these ranchers/farmers where "land rich" but had to work the land to make it pay and did not have any other wealth. When they died and the kids inherited, they did not have the capital to pay the taex without selling a portion of the land.

whin i thought i was rich, making that easy money. was fixing up a house ta live in, run up a credit card was making payment's. went to a credit adviser, who looked at income vs money going out. asked what other bills we had. told about Family lease bout $200.00 a year. thats your problem was the advise, we walked out, payed bills off on our own. like u went to public land. leases getting higher & higher. people doing the work only to lose lease to higher bidder. More money ya have the more Freedom ya have, do to Government shut down, can't aford ta get to WMA land, dont do no good ta complain. keep your head held high & your powder dry.

Possibly lease owner management
knowing the amount of time, effort
and moneys spent to produce trophy
bucks.
Computer age with applications letting
them keep tabs on expenses.
You want to hunt, what's the hunt actual worth.

Ammo is crazy high and for a while it was hard to find. I think most people don't target practice as much. $2-$4 a bullet has made people think twice about shooting cans,etc. Just like gas prices...when gas was $1 a gallon there was a lot of Sunday driving just sight seeing. Not near as much of that now....a lot has changed in a short time...

I have hunted in Jack and Palo Pinto all my life on our family place. When I was a kid you couldn't see a house from any point on our property other than ours and one neighbor. Never heard a gun shot besides our own. Now you can see about 20 driving the perimeter. A bunch of bigger places that had old ranchers forever divided up from family growth or older folks moving in the city and selling the ranch ends up splitting up 100 acres for 10 ranchets or whatever realtors call em. The way most people think why sell 100 acres to one person when you could sell ten 10 acre places for more money. I think each one of them has a family member who target practices their ARs all day on sundays or sky blasts their shotgun during dove or duck season. There are also a lot more shots because everyone has an AR these days instead of just a trusty deer rifle.

Might be the amount of legal hunters. It seems that every year I see more and more people throw caution to the wind and hunt illegally, wether its not getting a license at all or just not using tags etc..

makes me feel kinda dumb. had hogs every night coming inta feeder's waited till got my hunting licnce so could legaly put some hog in freezer, & dogs run em out before could get legal shot of. all due to Government shut down.