YouTube and public land

[deadbuck]

Catman and Shane are the only 2 I can watch and I would be willing to share my spots with either of them and not be worried that they would tell anybody else where they were. Catman is knocking it out of the park with that homemade wing bone call!!!!!

[PaytonWP]

People have been complaining about their public land woes for years. Guess YouTube is the new scapegoat now.

I have no woes. My season has been excellent so far. There's a big difference in helping new hunters and showing thousands of people exact spots and road names. There's a reason the YouTubers get a lot more candid about what they show when they are close to their home area. Especially on the whitetail spots. Every spot they hunt some local guy knows about. As of right now 48k people have seen the road name THP posted in their last video. All I'm asking for is a little respect for the locals.

[Spurs Up]

Some of the YouTube heroes evidently are tone-deaf. If they won't or can't understand, it's best not to subscribe to their channels or give them clicks.

[arkrem870]

Back in the day it was the gas station coffee shop or the local diner.......people always asking what your hearing. You sure as heck kept it under your hat... if you didn't you'd have company.  it's like 1 + 1 = 2. Now we have guys actually filming it and putting it on the internet ........ and then acting like it doesn't increase crowding. Anybody that's been around the block in this sport and not just starting to ride the fad knows it's gonna increase pressure and competition. We've seen it first hand in the Arkansas public duck wood. Wether your killing turkeys, making money, or nailing best looking girl in town you keep your mouth shut if you want it to continue.  loose lips sink ships.   

[LaLongbeard]

Some of the YouTube heroes evidently are tone-deaf. If they won't or can't understand, it's best not to subscribe to their channels or give them clicks.

X2
Just to see how long it take I skimmed thru the THP video mentioned and in a couple minutes I found the road filmed, I recognized the town also. They either don't care or too dumb to comprehend what's being said.

[Click]

I have been hunting turkeys since 1973 and I think it is time to quit.  I blame Utube and all of the wannabe rock stars, the commercial actors and those who cater to them.  As the old man who so graciously got me started said, keep your mouth shut because there isn't enough room for everybody.  For those who can't find a quality hunt, repeat these words, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

Seems rather extreme.

[GobbleNut]

Catman and Shane are the only 2 I can watch and I would be willing to share my spots with either of them and not be worried that they would tell anybody else where they were.

Agree about Shane and Catman, as well as both Dave and the THP bunch,...and a couple of others that have shown up recently.  There has been a lapse of good judgement a time or two with a couple of them, but overall, they are class acts. 

Perhaps, since it is Easter, I will quote:  "Let those that have not sinned cast the first stone."  I suspect very few stones could be cast by most folks around here. 

[Hughesjr60]

I don't know. There has been more pressure no doubt but it was popular last year and I showed up at a big property in Indiana that's slammed opening weekend. I got there after work at 1pm. Not a car was in the parking lot and I killed my turkey 45 min later, 100 yards from my truck. Don't get me wrong there has been more pressure but I think this year its more from the virus and People being off or looking for stuff to do. I noticed our state parks and lake is a lot busier this year than years past. I expect the same during turkey season. Yeah it sucks dealing with more pressure but We will see but I just plan on making the most of it and adjusting when I have too. What I notice and maybe not this year because things like baseball aren't happening but after the first weekend the pressure dies off here. It may be different this year but we'll see.

[Loyalist84]

Might as well throw my 2 cents in - sorry for the Essay.

I've been hunting for 21 of my 25 years. In that time I was taught virtually nothing and was expected to pick up knowledge strictly through observation and trying to pick out the kernels of knowledge from all the BS-ing in camps or garages. Not an easy thing to do for a a dumb teenager.

I was consistently the only one in my group of friends who hunted, both in middle/high school and in university. I had to fight hard to personally portray hunting as something that was more than ignorant, overweight guys killing animals to show off how manly or tough they were.

If I had listened to the ethics I was raised around, I would have turned out to be a poacher of the worst kind. My hunting mentors admired 700 yard shots on bedded elk and I've heard them say more than once "I just like killing sh*t" and teasing me for days about notching my tag on a bird that is to them a limitless resource that we couldn't wipe out if we tried. These are people who lived to see them reintroduced to Canada after they were hunted to local extinction generations ago.

No doubt everyone here has bent the rules to some degree in their hunting. I'm not blameless in that respect.

However, when I found hunters like Rinella and Warren on YouTube it was like finding the Holy of Holies. They were hunters I could show my city friends without being detrimental to my own ideas of conservation and sportsmanship. These were well-spoken ambassadors to the sport who actually took the time to explain the minutiae of hunting that I would have had to pick up over years of blundering even with growing up with hunting. It's responsible and nuanced media that appeals to people of my generation who want a more introspective and responsible approach to the outdoors. I've seen more people my age go from urban upbringings to excellent and enthusiastic hunters through YouTube and Netflix than any other factor. I see social media produce hunters, and my home area produce poachers who only care about bragging rights.

I'll drive a Honda Civic, live in a city and work a white collar job to feed my family. But that doesn't make me any less entitled to hunt public land than the guy who works a trade 10 minutes away or someone who just likes to hike, because it is land for public use and I won't be able to hunt the fields I did with my father in a few years because I'll be 900km away from home.

I don't know what it's like to grow up the States where hunting is much more common and public land is crowded thanks to idiots bleating for imaginary internet points. But I do know that if we don't get new people into the sport, the anti hunting crowd will find it very easy to make us a thing of the past once the Boomer generation has gone to rest and we no longer have the numbers to resist at the ballot box or lobby for ourselves as a benefit for the outdoors.

[LaLongbeard]

Might as well throw my 2 cents in - sorry for the Essay.

I've been hunting for 21 of my 25 years. In that time I was taught virtually nothing and was expected to pick up knowledge strictly through observation and trying to pick out the kernels of knowledge from all the BS-ing in camps or garages. Not an easy thing to do for a a dumb teenager.

I was consistently the only one in my group of friends who hunted, both in middle/high school and in university. I had to fight hard to personally portray hunting as something that was more than ignorant, overweight guys killing animals to show off how manly or tough they were.

If I had listened to the ethics I was raised around, I would have turned out to be a poacher of the worst kind. My hunting mentors admired 700 yard shots on bedded elk and I've heard them say more than once "I just like killing sh*t" and teasing me for days about notching my tag on a bird that is to them a limitless resource that we couldn't wipe out if we tried. These are people who lived to see them reintroduced to Canada after they were hunted to local extinction generations ago.

No doubt everyone here has bent the rules to some degree in their hunting. I'm not blameless in that respect.

However, when I found hunters like Rinella and Warren on YouTube it was like finding the Holy of Holies. They were hunters I could show my city friends without being detrimental to my own ideas of conservation and sportsmanship. These were well-spoken ambassadors to the sport who actually took the time to explain the minutiae of hunting that I would have had to pick up over years of blundering even with growing up with hunting. It's responsible and nuanced media that appeals to people of my generation who want a more introspective and responsible approach to the outdoors. I've seen more people my age go from urban upbringings to excellent and enthusiastic hunters through YouTube and Netflix than any other factor. I see social media produce hunters, and my home area produce poachers who only care about bragging rights.

I'll drive a Honda Civic, live in a city and work a white collar job to feed my family. But that doesn't make me any less entitled to hunt public land than the guy who works a trade 10 minutes away or someone who just likes to hike, because it is land for public use and I won't be able to hunt the fields I did with my father in a few years because I'll be 900km away from home.

I don't know what it's like to grow up the States where hunting is much more common and public land is crowded thanks to idiots bleating for imaginary internet points. But I do know that if we don't get new people into the sport, the anti hunting crowd will find it very easy to make us a thing of the past once the Boomer generation has gone to rest and we no longer have the numbers to resist at the ballot box or lobby for ourselves as a benefit for the outdoors.

That's nice but I don't see how filming a public land access trail number or intentionally filming landmarks and towns is in anyway helping city kids become responsible hunters. It will however make it easy for lazy wannabes to show up to said locations and ruin the area for the locals. The anti hunters will get us if we don't recruit new hunters is a pile of crap I been listening to my whole life.

[Trax]

It's the internet, any time someone posts something, along will come others to shame or complain about it.
In other words, haters gonna hate.

I enjoy watching THP, Catman, Shane and Dave. Im in Mid TN and sure, the pressure has picked up a bit, but a little walking or tweak the schedule to hunt mid week and there's plenty of space. 

[Loyalist84]

LaLongbeard - You're right, I don't see a point in any of the location advertising either - the closest I would personally get is mentioning a specific national forest or region. I won't comment on the wannabes because I have no experience with them. I will say the situation is different in Canada, because we have lost grizzly hunting in this country and only recently brought back a full spring bear season in my home province - our hunting privileges are being successfully chipped away at every day up here since our urban-rural divide is much more prevalent than in America.

[silvestris]

I have been hunting turkeys since 1973 and I think it is time to quit.  I blame Utube and all of the wannabe rock stars, the commercial actors and those who cater to them.  As the old man who so graciously got me started said, keep your mouth shut because there isn't enough room for everybody.  For those who can't find a quality hunt, repeat these words, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

Seems rather extreme.

It is extreme, and true.

[SpitNDrumN]

Some super super super salty people commenting on this post. Almost laughable.

[Squoose]

I had a conversation with a hunting buddy about his opener here in VA on public land.  He was overrun by hunters.  Had a guy near by running the same seven note yelp every two minutes from daylight until he left at 9:45.  We say "thats ridiculous" and "how obnoxious".  Yes that can really "ruin" a hunt. 

But that guy is probably one of those guys on the FB group who posts: "This is my first season turkey hunting any tips appreciated".  Yikes!  How does one even respond to that?  So he gets a ton of small tidbits that don't mean anything without context and goes after it; calling every two minutes cause thats what the guys on the Outdoor Channel do.

How is he supposed to learn?  Honestly, the first thing I am going to tell that guy is to go watch THP, Calling all Turkeys and Pinhoti Project.  Because their videos teach the ethics, techniques and nuances of the game as well as most mentors would.  And good mentors are few and far between, unless all of us are taking several newbies out a season.

I agree that showing specific towns and especially gate numbers crosses a line.  But I'd rather have these guys showing the ropes to people who's interest is piqued by hunting than the newbies bumbling around the woods without these "rules" in mind.  Cause, again, these guys/gals probably have nobody else to teach them these points.

The world is changing constantly.  This trend isn't going to get "better".  This is what public land is for.  It sucks for the guys (like myself) who see the old honey holes get overrun.  But we need these newbies to sustain our sport.  We need their license purchases to fund the conservation to see the ecosystems we cherish into the distant future.  I'd rather see more hunters than not have these lands to hunt.  We just have to adapt to it all.

Have you guys sent THP an email or message voicing your concerns?  I'd wager they listen.  Yes everyone is a little different on camera, but their base values seem pretty sound (but I've been wrong before).  I do have a weakness for seeing the best in folks as much as I can.

Happy hunting, folks!
Royce