A recruited hunter's perspective on R3

[meatviabow]

[NewlyMinted]

Steve Rinella recruited Joe Rogan who recruited you... that's a pretty straight line.

I personally was self-recruited after drinking beers with and chatting to a friend who muzzleloader hunts elk as often as he can in AZ and shared his stories over the course of 5 years, and then by me going quail hunting for the first time with (who turned out to be) my father in law. My buddy didn't take me into the woods, I decided to learn on my own. I landed at this forum after watching hours of video and reading a bunch of books. 2 forum members reached out for moral support on my first muzzleloader season and we've stayed in touch. A 3rd forum member showed me the ropes and shortened my learning curve on bow hunting this year. I dream of heading into no-cellphone-coverage areas and spotting and learning about deer, javelina, and if I ever get to elk. Obligations keep me pretty grounded, but every chance I can get I'm heading to the desert.

Your journey is whatever you want it to be, but to say R3 is not working doesn't seem right. There isn't a direct link from the FWS funded efforts and how I started to hunt, but I'll bet there's a good linkage that might not have been there without the R3.

That and most hunting shows want you to buy the sponsored products or merch (which I happily do for one of them).

I fully agree on the marketing of the idea of hunting - that's it's not just blood and murder - but hunting is like most other hot button issues, the first sentence is out and most people have made up their minds. It's about awareness with how hunters talk to other about hunting and the slow crawl normalizing that conversation in my opinion.

[meatviabow]

40 minutes ago, NewlyMinted said:

Steve Rinella recruited Joe Rogan who recruited you... that's a pretty straight line.

I personally was self-recruited after drinking beers with and chatting to a friend who muzzleloader hunts elk as often as he can in AZ and shared his stories over the course of 5 years, and then by me going quail hunting for the first time with (who turned out to be) my father in law. My buddy didn't take me into the woods, I decided to learn on my own. I landed at this forum after watching hours of video and reading a bunch of books. 2 forum members reached out for moral support on my first muzzleloader season and we've stayed in touch. A 3rd forum member showed me the ropes and shortened my learning curve on bow hunting this year. I dream of heading into no-cellphone-coverage areas and spotting and learning about deer, javelina, and if I ever get to elk. Obligations keep me pretty grounded, but every chance I can get I'm heading to the desert.

Your journey is whatever you want it to be, but to say R3 is not working doesn't seem right. There isn't a direct link from the FWS funded efforts and how I started to hunt, but I'll bet there's a good linkage that might not have been there without the R3.

That and most hunting shows want you to buy the sponsored products or merch (which I happily do for one of them).

I fully agree on the marketing of the idea of hunting - that's it's not just blood and murder - but hunting is like most other hot button issues, the first sentence is out and most people have made up their minds. It's about awareness with how hunters talk to other about hunting and the slow crawl normalizing that conversation in my opinion.

That's an awesome story. It sounds like camaraderie and genuine interest is what really got you out. I think that's a bit different than the direct R3 effort and I would argue that scenario absolutely could have played out without R3. I'm not at all against naturally spreading interest in hunting through relationships. I think the volume of half committed hunters as a result of direct calculated efforts to create hunters would undoubtedly have an impact on the quality of the hunting experience.

I don't think that the move to change the conversation around hunting has to be a slow crawl. We're seeing good examples of ethical hunting enter the mainstream every day.