Why Hunting, Fishing & Trapping are Coming to an end in America

There are several reasons why hunting, fishing, and trapping are coming to an end in America.

The first reason is that Gen Z and Millenials cannot afford homes. We are all in tiny little apartments. Without a home, someone who wants to participate in hunting, fishing, or trapping — or even just learn about it — has nowhere to process or store meat, store gear, tools, and supplies, clean fish, boil traps, skin animals, etc.

Can a person get really creative and make things work? Possibly, with the right community of mentors and volunteers, but that's the exception, rather than the rule.

Sure, you can rent a truck for the day, and work with a meat processor, but where are you going to store hundreds of pounds of meat in your apartment? You could get a handful of other hunters together and rent a pallet freezer space, but all of these workarounds end up being cumbersome, time consuming, costly, and logistically questionable.

Of course, it's not impossible, for someone dedicated enough. But most people are not even going to start in the first place knowing all the barriers before them.

Every generation since the baby boomers has seen a decline in the number of hunters. In 1980, over 17 million hunters were licensed; in 2023, it dropped to around 11 million. The US population has increased from the silent generation of 50 million people to nearly 350 million now.

Boomers are not largely concerned about passing on the torch to the next generation of hunters, fishers, and trappers. And you can't learn to hunt or trap from YouTube alone — it takes an elder, friend, or mentor. With boomers aging out, there’s a massive gap in practical knowledge transfer. Youth focused programs dominate sportsman's education. Adult mentorship programs are few and far between, as well as underfunded.

While it's politically and socially "safer" to "get kids outdoors" than to equip new adult hunters, there is an entire generation of potential new hunters who are adults. However, no true apprenticeship model exists for most adult learners. Adult focused programs fill up very quickly, which further discourages new hunters from participating.

Many new hunters start late and give up without guidance. Just look at your state's success chart for past year's hunts; you'll likely see around a 20% success rate. How many young people are going to endure that year after year when they are taught to seek instant gratification?

Parents avoid teaching hunting, fishing, or trapping because firearms, knives, and wild animals are "too dangerous." Schools have dropped outdoor programs and archery over insurance and PR fears. Essentially, three generations have been raised with a "stay inside" risk aversion mentality.

Without a home, sportsman activities are a dream that's out of reach for most of us. Not only is the lack of a home, and space, an issue, but the cost of living is so prohibitive now that most middle class people cannot afford all of the tools and gear involved with being a sportsman. A nice fly fishing setup can cost $5,000 or more. A nice hunting setup? You're looking at upwards of $12,000.

Of course there are budget options, but we all know now that you get what you pay for and who wants to pay for a sub-standard experience? Go read all the one star reviews on Chinese made fly rods and gear. What do you think it's like for someone on a very limited budget who wants to get outdoors, only to have their gear break within a few outings? If it happens regularly enough for people to post one star reviews, then think about all the other people who also experience the same thing and just give up altogether, and dump their broken gear in the garbage, and never look back.

Even guided hunts with outfitters can easily cost $5,000, and some even upwards of $12,000, which will often exclude meat processing and transportation. Looking for an all inclusive package including meat shipping? You better be very rich.

Want to start your own outdoor guided tours, or outfitter, business? Be prepared to pay $1,000 to $2,000 per year in insurance costs and another $500 registration fee and another $500 yearly renewal fee, and all the fees associated with having an LLC. You'll also have to pay for a $10,000 surety bond and a $60 background check.

And none of that includes all the gear, or vehicles, you'll need; and of course, no significant tax incentives are provided for them. You can go to your Secretary of State filings website and search for "outfitter" to see all of the hundreds of failed businesses that let their licenses expire; of course, everyone got paid except them.

My father worked for the US Forest Service in the 1980's and 1990's. His wife worked at a University. He was able to afford a home, snowmobiles, ATVs, boats, trucks, cars, a full wood shop, tons of fishing and hunting gear, a home remodel, a billiards table and expensive cues, paid vacations, and much more. With the decline in purchasing power, Millennials are able to afford a small fraction of those experiences, if they're lucky enough to have any disposable income at all.

All it takes to lose these activities in our country is for a couple generations to no longer have the experience, or wisdom, of being a hunter, trapper, or fisherman. Combined with the endless, and ever exhausting, efforts of anti-gun, and anti-sportsman, groups more and more young people are likely to be swayed into "protecting the environment" and "saving" furbearers and animals, without having any understanding whatsoever of wildlife management. With dwindling hunters and sportsmen it will be very difficult for younger generations to actually be educated. And why would they even care what the truth is? What's their incentive?

I attended a wolf trapping course recently. One of the key takeaways was: if I want to get rich all I have to do is start a wildlife conservation organization and solicit donations to stop trapping and hunting; there is tremendous demand for that kind of engagement. That can only exist because people are highly emotionally driven and completely uneducated about basic concepts such as wildlife management and animal reproduction.

Trapping is seen as an absolutely brutal and unnecessary activity. The average, ignorant, person increasingly sees hunting as violent, unnecessary, or barbaric, especially among younger, urban populations. Even so, the same people still want their hamburgers, honey-glazed roast duck, and fancy lemon-garlic halibut entrees. The disconnection from reality has grown to a level of literal insanity in younger people. They can no longer even admit the difference between male and female. How are they going to understand the complexities of wildlife?

In both hunter's education courses and trapping courses, new learners are told to "hide" their interests and not post pictures of any kind or even speak publicly about their sportsman's activities. These directives are always followed by stories of mishaps, bad publicity, and dramas that involve NPCs or Karens. The same exact sentiment is taught at concealed carry classes where people are told not to open carry because, "it might offend someone." What was once normal in American culture has now become taboo.

The instructor at the wolf trapping course I took, an ex-government employee, Jeff Ashmead, said that one activist woman managed to find and destroy his traps and even peed on one of them as a political statement. Maybe she was just marking her territory? Jokes aside, it's gotten pretty bad.

Culturally speaking, hunting and fishing require silence, discomfort, and failure — traits our culture now avoids. Today's youth grow up with TikTok, YouTube, and dopamine loops, not early mornings, stillness, or patience. Most Americans now live in urban or suburban environments with no generational link to the land. The "blood and dirt" mindset that built this country has been replaced by screens and simulations. We are experiencing the "Disneyfication of wildlife," where animals are seen as pets, characters, or friends, not as part of the food chain. Films, media, and schools promote a romanticized, but unrealistic, view of nature. Many believe "nature balances itself" without human involvement, despite centuries of opposing evidence.

Ballot initiatives and legal changes are slowly restricting trapping, bear hunting, predator control, and even lead ammo. Some states are passing anti-hunting legislation by vote, not biology (e.g., spring bear bans). Federal and state land closures and over-regulation increasingly chip away at viability, not all at once, but bit-by-bit.

Trucks cost $100,000 or more now. Without a truck, how are you going to transport your big game? How are you going to get to your hunting grounds? Quite simply, you're not going to. Then you have the gas money required to drive to your location. The push toward EV vehicles is another way to take away your ability to travel and participate in outdoor activities. There are no charging stations on the old logging roads in the Idaho forests.

Journalist Marty Roney says, "Gone are the days of walking up to a farmer's porch and asking permission to hunt. Farmers and landowners often use hunting rights as supplemental income. Tracts of hundreds of acres can be leased for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars each year."

He goes on to quote Ray Mims, a hunter, "If you don't have land or aren't in a hunting club, then good luck...I know several people who pay $4,000, $5,000 a year for hunting club dues. A working man can't afford that. That's doctor and lawyer kind of money."

Typical club dues range from $1,500 to $6,000 per year, depending on land quality and game species. Leases for prime whitetail or turkey property in the South or Midwest often go for $10 - 50+ per acre annually. Land is capital, and the traditions of communal access are being replaced by markets.

"Access Yes!" properties in Idaho are tracts of land that the landowner agrees to open to the public for a small compensation from our tax dollars. Most of these properties are located on cattle/ranching and hog land. Who wants to fish downstream of cattle troughs, muddy banks, and maure pits?

In the past, hunters could knock on doors, talk to farmers, and gain access to private land by offering meat, labor, or simply goodwill. Landowners often saw hunting as part of the local culture — not a business transaction.

Game departments increasingly cater to high-revenue species, tags, and lotteries rather than holistic management. Complex draw systems, expensive out-of-state tags, and preference points discourage new blood and favor wealthy hobbyists.

It's not just about the decline in purchasing power, but the endless greed that American life has turned into. Developers in the small town of Eagle, Idaho, for example, told the city that the many ponds they planned near new, multi-million dollar, homes would be for public use.

Then, after the homes were developed, HOAs put up "neighborhood residents only" signs and got the local police to not only enforce, but to even advertise online, that it was a misdemeanor, for the poor people, to fish in those ponds. Real estate agents regularly tell their home buyers that the waterways adjacent to their properties are private, even though it is usually not the case. Those homeowners are then shocked, and upset, when they see people fishing on "their river."

There is a certain demoralization that comes with realizing that everything has become about money, efficiency, private ownership, and entitlement. It creates a kind of unconscious psychological drag on the ability to enjoy life. If someone intuitively understands that they can't afford to do more than survive, they're not going to even entertain the idea they might be able to pursue, or enjoy, sportsman's activities or hobbies.

Then you have the yearly license costs, tags, and permits. Someone who is just barely surviving cannot afford these either.

In the end, it won't matter how many great laws are passed or how much money conservation organizations manage to accumulate through donations. If we can't afford to participate, and don't have the property, space, or tools necessary to engage in the activities involved, you can say goodbye to this great tradition. Being a sportsman has largely become relegated to the rich elites, property owners, and large commercial enterprises.