MN DNR is concerned

Less people outdoors….bummer

If there was no regulations, recruitment wouldn’t be much better, so go figure.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

Less people outdoors….bummer

I agree and was just going to post same thing. More space for me!

As far as cost???? Take the license fee and divide that by the hours you spend doing it? Pretty minor and inexpensive if ya ask me. Add a bonus meal in even better.

I have to agree..less people less hassle…the states just trying to figure out how to keep the cash cow giving milk….since its going to go the way of sin taxes and no one smokes anymore…need to have that income stream and if people are not buying licenses or tackle, etc etc quess what?

…less interest and money to protect or improve the resources.

The answer isn’t more money, it is money wisely spent.

Shuf off the wasteful spending and plenty of money will/has been available to manage resources.

It’s not the qty of people that has decreased, it is the wasteful spending that has exceeded budgets created by outdoorsman.

Insert feel good laws that do not improve resources but cost us millions here:

One of the biggest reasons for the waterfowl decline in the State of MN is the decimation of the pot hole regions in our state by farmers draining absolutely everything they can. Which by the way is regulated by the state and the DNR. If you don’t believe me I have attached some info that came from a MN Volunteer publication from a few years ago. This has and is happening through out our entire state where agriculture is big business. IMHO

Attachments:

1. 

   SMNwater.jpg
   

x2 Mocha, I saw a similar map of western MN that showed something very similar. It was shocking. I believe the migratory routes have shifted due to this. When I grew up in Central MN there were 2 parts of an amazing waterfowl season. The first there were just a lot more local ducks, you could spend days and days jumping from one pothole to the next. Soon after they left, the migratory flocks came down from Canada and nearly blocked out the sun. It’s sad, but that just does not happen in Central MN anymore.

FB&RM I agree about the wasteful spending, but as you know that isn’t going anywhere. So when the older generation no longer buys licenses, the DNR isn’t likely to just scale back that spending. It will get passed onto us. So while you may appreciate less people on your favorite haunts now, that is really short term thinking, imo, and we will all pay for it in the long run.

BigWerm wrote:

FB&RM I agree about the wasteful spending, but as you know that isn’t going anywhere. So when the older generation no longer buys licenses, the DNR isn’t likely to just scale back that spending. It will get passed onto us. So while you may appreciate less people on your favorite haunts now, that is really short term thinking, imo, and we will all pay for it in the long run.

But wouldn’t it be fun to actually fix the problem vs continually find ways to allow the problem to exist?

Duck hunting is gonzo.
Poof.
All habitat related, all legally drained to help feed America/others.

Good thing nobody is draining stocked lakes yet.

It is, and always has, been American culture rape and pillage natural resources.

Catch and release (for example) is completely against western culture. Nobody should be surprised of our decreasing habitat

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

But wouldn’t it be fun to actually fix the problem vs continually find ways to allow the problem to exist?

Umm yeah, where do I sign?!? Until that is reigned in we need to play the cards as they’re dealt.

tegg wrote:

Fishing and Hunting tends to be a rural activity. One thing to think about is the estimated Mn population in 1970 was 3.8 million. Today it’s closer to 5.5 million. How much more lakeshore development and habitat partitioning has happened since 1970? In 1970 there may have been a chance you grew up on a farm. Dad probably did & Grandpa almost certainly did. Today there’s a good chance Grandpa grew up in the suburbs that was partitioned into a housing development Great Grandpa use to hunt.

I think what you’re seeing is societal changes due to a growing urban population shifting from the family farm to the informational age.

This is exactly right.

Sorry to cut in on another great opportunity for an anti-DNR rant, but I’ve never actually heard anyone (young or old) give “too many regulations” as their reason for not even starting to hunt or fish. Maybe some of you have done extensive consumer research on this with thousands of participants and it all boils down to slot limits…

The fact of the matter is that for young people to hunt and fish they have to be exposed to hunting and fishing such that they continue to the age where they need to buy a license.

It is exactly as Tegg wrote. An increasingly urbanized population has less of a connection to the outdoors and kids and adults come to the outdoor sports like hunting and fishing differently than the way most of us oldsters came to it.

My kids like to shoot their air rifles, to fish, and to shoot bows, but in the context of where we live, their opportunities to do so are very different from the way I could do these things when I was young. I would walk out our back door with my air rifle starting at the age of 6 and wander for hours in a paradise of abandoned apple orchards, along field edges, and near marshes. I did it because I loved to do it, but also I suspect that I did it because it was SOMETHING to do in an era where we had 3 TV channels on a 19 inch TV.

I had no “youth” sports other than what we got in gym class and one month of T-Ball games once a week in the summer. No internet, obviously, no summer camps, no “travelling” league sports, none of that existed.

To my kids right now, the outdoor stuff is just one bucket of water in an entire ocean of things to do where they live now. I don’t blame them for that, it’s the way it is now.

My oldest son has asked me what sports I loved when I was a kid and I told him, the only thing I ever wanted to do were to hunt and fish. Everything else was just killing time to me. I hope some day they see why and they love it too.

Grouse

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

It is, and always has, been American culture rape and pillage natural resources.

joe wrote
As much as I dislike all the AIS rules I don’t think people have quite fishing because of it.

if i show up a landing and the weed police are there i go to a different landing. I’am tried of being hassled!!!!!

Too many rules is not the reason people don’t fish. However, it’s the main reason fishermen complain.

Hey everyone, I’ve enjoyed reading the responses posted by all. As others have said or alluded to in prior posts, as it is most of the time the problem is a little of this and a little of that. No one single reason can explain everything. Growing up in the 90’s and 2000’s I was exposed to aspects of the information, technology, video game age. I’ll admit I spent some time dabbling and testing it all out because it was all of the rage. Having said that, I was raised in a rural area where I had 40 acres of land to play around on in my youth, and I chose to play outside 85 percent of the time. I realize that I was privileged to have my parents land to roam on. I was also born into a family of outdoorsmen and women who took me hunting and fishing when I was young, to this day I still fish and hunt mostly with family members. The tradition of raising kids in the outdoors in rural settings is evolving.

Part of me is ok with fewer people buying licenses but I am also well aware that the money from the licenses is needed for the DNR to hopefully (crossing my fingers) improve and protect the resources we have and believe me WI is in the same boat as MN. I’ll echo some of Tom’s sentiments about getting the right people in charge or advisory boards on the politics side. I also realize that not a lot of politicians are going to run their campaign on the platform of focusing intensely on outdoorsmen, because as we have already discussed the entire demographic is shrinking, therefore fewer votes to be had lowering the chances of re-election which is ultimately the bottom line for all politicians. But agreed that it would be nice to incorporate sportsmen into councils or boards of some sort with the “real life” experience that only time can teach.

On the duck hunting discussion, besides the effects of farming, is there a possible role of global warming (I know this is a blurry subject but I’m not here to debate its merits in this discussion) when it comes to altering migration patterns of ducks? Any chance this could be another factor that hasn’t been explored.

I will also second the idea of western civilizations repeatedly raping and pillaging natural resources, the examples and case studies are numerous and very disheartening. C&R seems to be changing that to an extent but there will always be those who see it as their right as humans to do whatever they want, I’m just not sure that will ever change, It’s up to the good folks on here and so many other wonderful sportsmen to do our part and hope it is able to turn the tide.

And one final note on sports invading free time and hurting the kids aspects for exploring the outdoors in their most important time in life of identifying and developing their personal identity. Yes it does have an effect. I was a very good baseball player and I also played basketball as well not to mention 4-H in the summer. I quit basketball after eight grade because coaches were pushing me to choose basketball over spending time on baseball and other time working with my fair animals for the county fair. I told the coach flat out, I’m done, I want free time to do what I want. Instead, I played baseball for four more years between babe ruth, legion and high school my summers were still packed. However the coach and I had an understanding, I would be missing some games to go fishing or do other miscellaneous stuff but I had to always let him know in advance I wouldn’t be at a summer game. I know for a fact most coaches today will hold that against you or say that you have to choose, which is awfully sad in my book. As a future teacher and hopeful coach this dilemma weighs heavily upon me as I discuss this and other topics with other teachers and coaches.

Apologies for the long post but I had a lot to say.

Maybe a little long but well put

Our neighbors have 3 boys and a cabin. All 3 boys are in hockey which is 12 months of the year now – or they won’t have a chance of making the high school team. Dad was an avid fisherman and so were the boys, none of the 4 have bought licenses for 3 years now… cabin is up for sale too. Sign of the times ~

Heres from an outsiders point of view which may mean very little between the states. Here in Iowa the same rules still apply and not much has changed in the last 30 years. Fishings still the same and it looks like about the same amount of people are still fishing as there was 30 years ago. I haven’t heard much about a budget problem, atleast on the news so to me that means the Dnrs funds are being spent reasonably well, except for a couple of things, but over all its working good. No AIS inspections at infested lakes but there are signs at the ramps asking everyone to inspect their craft. The DNR here Does take care of things pretty well in my opinion and all of the parks are well maintained and theres no politics that I’ve heard of involved, I think the DNR overall is pretty good at solving its own problems, maybe like just let them do their work, after all they more about the natural resources here then any politican that doesn’t spend time outdoors. Its probably a certain amount of all the above reasons comparing to here. All of the DNR officers I’ve met or have checked me, which has been very few over 50 years of fishing by myself were polite and just doing there job. I know you guys have thousands more lakes and is this comparison even something to compare too, but things are simpler with less red tape down here. Their still shooting quite a few ducks and geese and the pheasants, quail and partridge are coming back pretty well, and lots of coyote hunters. Maybe too many people with inaccurate fingers and thoughts in the pie, that’s meant for everybody?

Just another symptom of…

Did Big gubernment eliminating the small farmer contribute to this shift from rural kids to city kids? I too moved to city employment. Along with 1 of 2 Bros & both sisters. Kids involved with sports as has been mentioned many times. Electronic invasion starting with remote control to phone which are now powerful computers…

Sociology is always changing, right? Why should the numbers participating in anything climb at a constant, predictable curve?

Another ugly symptom of approaching 8 billion inhabitants on this green earth?

I dunno… But hope the DNR’s concern for this issue doesn’t get as absurdly comical as their concern for Mille Lacs….

FryDog62 wrote:

Our neighbors have 3 boys and a cabin. All 3 boys are in hockey which is 12 months of the year now – or they won’t have a chance of making the high school team. Dad was an avid fisherman and so were the boys, none of the 4 have bought licenses for 3 years now… cabin is up for sale too. Sign of the times ~

For them! After these boys either make (or not make) the HS hockey team…any realistic chance of college and/or pro? I guess you go for it when you can but 99% chance 10 years from now hockey careers will be dismissed but the fishing would/could keep going until they had their own grandkids. Perhaps they’ll come back but too bad they’re selling the cabin.

I don’t duck hunt today… because I was taught how to duck hunt in the early 80’s… when there was 2 ducks…

carroll58 wrote:

ROFLOL: After reading the short NEWS article I just had to laugh.

“In the 1960s and decades before, hunting and fishing was simply a part of people’s heritage, and it was a relatively low cost social activity that provided food for the table,” said Jeff Ledermann, angler recruitment, retention and education supervisor. “But times have changed.”

The numbers back him up: In the 1960s and 1970s about 40 percent of Minnesotans age 16 and older purchased a fishing license. That began to decline in the 1980s and today, just 27 percent of Minnesota residents age 16 and older fish and 12 percent hunt.

“Because hunting and fishing provide important social, economic and conservation benefits, many are concerned about the declines in participation,” Ledermann said. “That’s why we’re bringing experts and organizations together around boosting hunter and angler numbers.”

Really, they have someone paid with that job title?

Actually most states have recruitment, retention and reactivation positions. It is a national effort, commonly called R3.

ClearCreek

After this thread I found a PDF from the national wildlife service or some federal natural resources site. It showed 10 years of license purchased data. It seemed like the number sold has basically remained the same. Are the saying it is declining per capita? It was also interesting seeing some years deviating greatly from the average. Not sure what would cause that.

I’ll try and find the link today. The problem is the data is tabular and not a graph and it lists all 50 states by year, so it is hard to read.

I didn’t notice much difference between MN and FL. Florida does a lot of the things I mentioned,way more than MN. They have websites for catch and release recognition tied into winning gift cards and boats. They also have a lot of fishing clinics and free fishing days at least twice a year.

Despite that, I didn’t see Florida as growing participation in the PDF file. I could be wrong.

Maybe I’ll make a graph if I find the PDF again.

Maybe it has always seemed this way to older people, but it sure seems to me that a lot (not all) of young males are mush, for lack of a better word. They just seem to exist and shuffle their way along. They just aren’t engaged with life. When I think of my young self, I wonder what would have happened to me with access to cable TV and todays video games.

I see 20 year olds playing Pokemon Go. That speaks volumes to the problem.

Here’s the PDF

Graph Attached. Kind of surprising considering Florida has over 3Xs as many people and it’s the self proclaimed Fishing Capital of the World.

Attachments:

1. Paid-License-Holders-Sheet1.pdf

The concern should be that fishing license sales have not kept up with population growth. This causes a shift in the percent of anglers of the total population, noted in the article.

The interesting thing to me is that from 2000 – 2011 resident angling licenses sold has been flat. MN has not lost anglers which the article is trying to scare us into thinking.

See a DNR presentation I found online.
Page 9, table 2.5.

Average sales per year was 888.5k
Min 863.9k
Max 912.9k
Std Dev 15.1k

Those statistics tell me that fishing license sales are stable for resident sales.

Non-Resident sales are another story. They have been declining, losing 13.1% over that same 11 year span.
In that case, I would probably point to regulations and the ML issue as probable contributors.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

It is, and always has, been American culture rape and pillage natural resources.

Wrong (well incomplete)…. its the human way. Not just Americans. Want a good read that is eye opening… check out, “Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations”

Basically discusses how many of the greatest empires of the past were brought to their knees because they could no longer feed their people. The most fertile areas of the world, the birthplace of agriculture… are now deserts. We’ve only been farming the US for 150 years really… pretty short time period. Yet we can’t seem to look at the past and realize our current state of affairs is not sustainable.

While I worry somewhat about participation… I am much more deeply concerned that my grandchildren won’t have to worry about whether or not to participate in outdoor activities because there is simply nothing left to hunt or fish. I hope it never gets to that point.

Yeah I’m not up to par on world history enough to comment, so I kept the scope of my comment within Western culture.

Currently reading People of the Sturgeon: Wisconsin’s Love Affair with an Ancient Fish.

That one boils me quite enough at this point.

Sorry FBRM… I was being a smart-A.

Point is…I agree with you and that our culture is not the first to go down this path. We have the benefit of having the opportunity to learn from those civilizations errors. Whether we have the capabilities to actually turn things around is yet to be seen…

FryDog62 wrote:

Our neighbors have 3 boys and a cabin. All 3 boys are in hockey which is 12 months of the year now – or they won’t have a chance of making the high school team. Dad was an avid fisherman and so were the boys, none of the 4 have bought licenses for 3 years now… cabin is up for sale too. Sign of the times ~

Well, they’ll never get anywhere in hockey if they’re only willing to devote 12 months a year to it.

But you’re absolutely right. It is the same sign of the times was referencing, kids just have a lot more stuff to do these days.

I have a cousin and both he and his wife are self employed and can literally work anywhere there’s an internet connection. They went shopping for a lake cabin/home and they were expecting relative scarcity of options because, hey, everybody wants a cabin/lake home right?

According to their realtor, not anymore. He told them he was very surprised when they first met because they are relatively young with 2 kids under 12. Apparently, this is exactly the demographic that does NOT buy a lake home or cabin anymore. The common reason is, “Who’s got the time?”

I can remember being oh so jealous of friends and relatives who had a lake place and their kids that just got to be there all summer fishing and swimming every day! One more outdoor opportunity list that today’s kids so rarely get now.

I’m actually surprised my kids really like to swim in lakes! 90% of their swimming is in our pool or at swimming lessons, such that I thought they’d think sand and dark water would be totally weird and would want nothing to do with it. But the novelty of having sand, they just love playing with trucks in sand so much that they almost forget about swimming.

Sign o’ the times.

Grouse