The “Average” Hunter..

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Before I go further, I want to make it explicitly clear that I’m not trying to defend any position. I am simply asking questions for clarification on opinions based on the responses so far.

Before I do, I will give my opinion of myself. I’m the greatest ever. I’m a perfect blend of Tim Wells, Carlos Hathcock, Jerry Miculek, Phil Robertson, and of course, Chuck Norris. But the truth is I’m likely average or even below despite my continued success in the field.

I think @LoonWulf might be right. I think 90% of hunters out there are average based on the ever expanding dynamics of how we define it. It could even be higher than that. There’s a humbling thought. But if you think about it, I think the idea probably holds some merit. I’m going to read @DocRock link before I continue.
 
DocRock said:
There is quite a bit of work done on identifying "the average hunter". Several years ago, I was involved with the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports, then a joint effort between the National Association of State Wildlife Agencies and the NSSF. The Council is laser focused on promoting hunting and the shooting sports as a means to secure wildlife conservation funding from license sales and Pittman-Robertson excise taxes. They have done a great deal of work trying to identify "the average hunter" and on using that information for the 3R program: Recruit, Retain, Reactivate.

Their most recent study of the issue, conducted with several leading fishing organizations and entitled The Future of Hunting and Fishing Project (2017), offers a good deal of information on the subject. It can be found at the link below and may be of interest.

https://cahss.org/research/the-future-of-hunting-and-fishing-project/
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So what I’m gathering from that article defines average more by age and stage of life rather than skill set or location. Yet another dynamic to consider.
 
When I look in the mirror I see someone who still loves being in the great outdoors but has realized his best years are behind him now. Age and degenerative health issues have slowed him a bit but the urge to hunt still burns bright.The drive to kill game has been replaced with a greater appreciation of the time spent outdoors. Getting CLOSE to game gives him the same adrenaline charge as shooting game once did. The first hour of daylight in the woods is what he looks forward to. Just hoping when God sends an angel to earth to get me she will have to go to my favorite squirrel woods to find .me. Am I average? God I hope not!
 
glockgod said:
When I look in the mirror I see someone who still loves being in the great outdoors but has realized his best years are behind him now. Age and degenerative health issues have slowed him a bit but the urge to hunt still burns bright.The drive to kill game has been replaced with a greater appreciation of the time spent outdoors. Getting CLOSE to game gives him the same adrenaline charge as shooting game once did. The first hour of daylight in the woods is what he looks forward to. Just hoping when God sends an angel to earth to get me she will have to go to my favorite squirrel woods to find .me. Am I average? God I hope not!
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That’s the journey, and it sounds like you’ve had a great one thus far. I’m hoping your wish comes true and you meet the Lord somewhere down the trail in a nice spot filled with birds chirping and squirrels scampering.

I’ll have to think that through myself, but your setting will surely be hard to beat!
 
redneck2 said:
It’s boringly common to see these threads degrade almost instantly into the “everyone is a slob but you and me....and I’m not sure about you” bashing. Doesn’t matter if it’s hunters, guns, calibers, scopes.

I’m not qualified to judge someone else’s abilities, character, or equipment choices. And I’ve been hunting about 60 years. Other than poachers or road hunters, I welcome everyone who obeys the rules and helps support wildlife management with their license fees.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Maybe we should help the guys that haven’t had the opportunities we have. We all would have fit the derogatory descriptions posted here at some time. I don’t know that anyone is born with innate wildlife skills.

I am going turkey hunting a week from today with my best friend. I helped his son get a turkey a couple seasons ago, twenty minutes into opening day. When I started turkey hunting, I knew less than zero and struggled for five years until a neighbor was kind enough to let me hunt his land and guide me. After that, I whacked one a year maybe 8-10 years in a row

So, perhaps think about going out of your way to help someone rather than ridiculing them. I understand some will learn, some will never learn, and some don’t want to learn. But, maybe you can improve someone’s experience
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Well said!

I always put it off on the "Dunning-Kruger Effect":

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities.
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Way back home n 1967, I know of a doofus farm kid that went deer hunting for the first time. Wearing rubber farmer boots, dirty sweatshirt, overalls. Had a borrowed 16 gauge Mossberg 16 gauge with cheap Remington Sluggers.

Knew less than nothing about deer hunting. On the way home he and and his hunting buddies saw a big deer crossing a field towards a woods. Stopped to ask permission to go after the deer. Land owner’s son happened to be a classmate, said it was OK

Long story short, the doofus farm kid got the 11 point, 214# deer. Third biggest deer taken in Indiana that year. And I was the doofus farm kid. Rack is on my wall downstairs.

Everybody has to start somewhere
 
Unfortunately, hunting around here has turned into baiting and shooting. I would guess that 75% of the deer taken here are shot over bait. I am as guilty as anyone, but I do it for doe control and seldom take a buck over bait. If the Game and Fish banded baiting the harvest numbers would take a major dive.
 
I don't know "average," a friend is an avid turkey hunter who posts gobble by gobble accounts on TFL.
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6863479#post6863479
In deer season, he is right out there with them, too.

Another has shot a couple of deer, but is happiest in a cornfield full of pheasants.

A third has wall to wall African plains game in his "man cave."

I know a couple of successful elk hunters, too.

All do conventional, sportsmanlike hunting, no slob hunters in my circle.
 
BigBore44 said:
So, what is the average hunter?
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IMO, many times somebody making the statement "the average xxxxxx" is either trying, purposely, to portray a specific
group in a stereotypically bad light; or they are assuming they know a lot more about the subject matter, than they actually do.

At 6:35 am I was out, in the blind, watching for wild dogs, coyote, feral cats, and wild boar. I saw a couple does walk up to within 35 yards of the stand. Later I was watching a turkey, 80 yards behind me, picking thru a freshly planted feed plot. The animals were feeding, naturally, in their environment. For me, they were acting as bait, I just let them be, and waited for predators to move up on them. Sat out, till 10:40 AM. It was, IMO, a fine morning. Does that, somehow, make me not average, below average, or more average, as a hunter?
 
Dibbs said:
IMO, many times somebody making the statement "the average xxxxxx" is either trying, purposely, to portray a specific
group in a stereotypically bad light; or they are assuming they know a lot more about the subject matter, than they actually do.

At 6:35 am I was out, in the blind, watching for wild dogs, coyote, feral cats, and wild boar. I saw a couple does walk up to within 35 yards of the stand. Later I was watching a turkey, 80 yards behind me, picking thru a freshly planted feed plot. The animals were feeding, naturally, in their environment. For me, they were acting as bait, I just let them be, and waited for predators to move up on them. Sat out, till 10:40 AM. It was, IMO, a fine morning. Does that, somehow, make me not average, below average, or more average, as a hunter?
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In my eyes you are a "normal" hunter . Good to see you doing it and enjoying it .
 
Well...

Used to be, anyone who embraced their human instincts, and their place in the food chain.

Someone who was willing to step out into the wilderness, and fend for themselves and their family.

... to challenge Nature for sustenance, on her terms, and win.

An Adult human.

Now?

"All y'all are just a bunch of sport-murderin' sociopath neanderthals."
- the Democrat National Socialist Party -

:D




GR
 
I would say cognitive dissonance probably comes into play for those most offended by this thread.
You know, at one time I was probably guilty of some if the actions that I now dissent. Does that make me a hypocrit or mean I have a false sense of my own status? No, it means I took instruction, sometimes the hard way, and learned to be a better man, hunter, sportsman, whatever. I suppose some people rolled out of the crib perfected, but for myself, I had to take some correction from others along the way, and still do. So if my comments offended anyone, so be it, call me a troll or negative or whatever you like. It's just as easy to keep scrolling as it is to dis someone or their comments. But it might be good to question yourself at the same time.
 
I don't know, I'd have to see the context in which the phrase "the average hunter" is used, in order to understand the question better.
I think when somebody uses a phrase, in this manner, they assume a lot. Like "the average hunter" hunts deer, or "the average hunter" drives a pickup truck, or "the average hunter" just goes into the woods during hunting season, etc.
 
The “average” hunter who rolls with me is a highly competent outdoors person. They are completely safe and familiar with their chosen weapon. They strive to follow local rules and regulations, and they know their limitations, physically and with their weapon. They are motivated to hunt and have a positive attitude.

If they don’t the “average” hunter won’t be sharing my hunting camp for very long.
 
red rick said:
IMO , you can’t say what the average hunter is nation wide . It is a very regional thing .
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So true. The average hunter in the east is a completely different creature than a hunter in the western states. There are different methods for different animals. I know that when I hunted Colorado and Wyoming it was a lot different than sneaking around the Ozarks.
 
Captcurt said:
So true. The average hunter in the east is a completely different creature than a hunter in the western states. There are different methods for different animals. I know that when I hunted Colorado and Wyoming it was a lot different than sneaking around the Ozarks.
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Which is what Loon and horsey were talking about. And I agree with that assertion. A proficient/accomplished/above average hunter from Louisiana is likely to be below average in Montana based solely on skills. And vice versa. But that same Louisiana hunter didn’t become accomplished in Louisiana, by being of below average ability or mentality. So is he really below average? Again, not if we evaluate by region.
 
BigBore44 said:
Which is what Loon and horsey were talking about. And I agree with that assertion. A proficient/accomplished/above average hunter from Louisiana is likely to be below average in Montana based solely on skills. And vice versa. But that same Louisiana hunter didn’t become accomplished in Louisiana, by being of below average ability or mentality. So is he really below average? Again, not if we evaluate by region.
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I’d be a lost puppy trying to hunt the swamps of Louisiana.
 
Captcurt said:
So true. The average hunter in the east is a completely different creature than a hunter in the western states. There are different methods for different animals. I know that when I hunted Colorado and Wyoming it was a lot different than sneaking around the Ozarks.
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Yep, I've never even seen a "tree stand" for real, and the first time I ever heard of a "deer blind" was right here on THR - that was probably less than 2 years ago. Yet I've been hunting deer here in Idaho since I was 15 (58 years ago), and I was tagging along with my mom and dad for a long time before that.
Maybe one of these years I'll get lucky and actually get a deer. Do any of you eastern deer hunters think a tree stand would help?:rofl:
 
I'd adapt quickly in the swamps, grew up in TN swamps, but I'm going to be on the other end of the skill level when I go Elk hunting with my son in law later this year. Never been Elk hunting, never had to hike more than a a mile or two to go hunting, don't normally take shots at game further than 400yds, never had to pack out that much meat , if we're even lucky enough to get one.
 
This really needs to get broken up by game pursued as well. The culture around waterfowl hunting is very different than big game and even more so than pheasant or small game and that is just listing off the things I know enough about to think I know what I don't know. The one thing I do see as a constant is people working their butts off to get things done so they can take the time to get out in their field/woods/blind. The other constant is everyone seems to have a story or two they wish their buddies would forget because they are embarrassed at a moment of poor judgement or discipline. Besides that I've met too many people that span the gambit to really say their is an average that has any useful meaning.
 
more interested in conservation than people who do not hunt or fish
fund more conservation that people who don't hunt or fish
suffer less from modernization food dystopia, and the associated diseases
 
H&Hhunter said:
I’d be a lost puppy trying to hunt the swamps of Louisiana.
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Which is a bold statement. Because I bet you consider yourself at least average or above (and I wouldn’t disagree based on your posts). You have some very fine firearms. Does the average hunter have a Searcy or Chapuis? Probably not. But some people have more money than sense, or skills. So while you may be at or above average in Colorado or Africa, you would possibly be the brunt of many jokes at a southern deer camp. Especially if you showed up with your 375.
 
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