What concerns me, personally, about the "we need more hunters" sentiments sort of parallels off of what Rex talked about some in that podcast. With land being bought up or leased out, pushing more and more hunters to public land, where the heck are all of these "more hunters" supposed to go? I have hunted primarily public ground for the last 6-7 years BECAUSE of being pushed out of ground by leasing and $$$. In that short period of time, I have seen pressure on my local public ground go way, way up. Those first few years, I knew if I got a mile or more back in off of the access points, I was not going to have to worry about seeing other hunters. That's not the case anymore. Lately, I can't get away from people. I get the idea of "more hunters is a good thing" in terms of having a voice, but where are they supposed to go and what kind of experience are they going to have? Being 100% transparent, dealing with all of the issues on public this year alone has decreased the amount of time I have spent in the woods. I just don't want to deal with it all the time. The experience has led me, someone who has hunted for 30 years in Ohio, to NOT be motivated to hunt. I'm looking forward to the late season on the hopes that the woods won't have as many humans in them. I can't imagine I am the only hunter who has or does feel this way, so is more hunters really a great thing? Or is it going to lead to worse experiences and actually losing or not retaining hunters?
The other thing, this notion of "we all need to stick together," I only partially agree with. Again, I understand the logic of it, but there's a lot of shitty hunter activity that is painting an ugly picture to non-hunters that gets plastered all over social media for attention. My humble opinion, that activity should not be supported, and I don't want myself associated with that kind of stuff. I'm talking about stuff like painting your face with deer blood for photos. Using dead animals as props. Holding a dead duck in your teeth for social media pics. Filming yourself rolling a headless elk down a hill. Hunting "celebrities" of social media with poaching and wildlife violations history (I'm looking at you, Bowmars, among others). I've seen all of that stuff posted in public on social media. If you think this sort of garbage has no negative impact on non-hunters perceptions of us, I think you're wrong. I will refuse to support that crap in any way and think it should be called out instead of supported.
I'll stop talking now. Again, I tried to be as respectful as possible.