Without hunters we all starve! Please comment

foodplot said:

When I do the hunting shows the people just can't keep there hands off the big racks.When you tell them it is HF alot will say it is like shooting a cow.They think they all are tame.

Click to expand...

mrwhiteails said:

fine print:

This message was not intended to offend anyone and reserve the right respond. Everyones seems a little touchy on here these days.

I can not be accountable for grammer, spelling,or anything else.............I wasn't a english teacher!

Click to expand...

ddwhitetails said:

Guys we can have pitch after pitch of what we need to do and Russ Jr. has so kindly opened the door that needed to be opened. It is out in the open now where it needs to be.......as Russ said, we can bury our heads in the sand and die a slow death or wake up right now put our heads together and turn this market around. The numbers are there guys.......yes kids of today know little about hunting because that is how they were brought up.....it's not their fault it's our fault.....it's our local game and fish commissions fault there has been NO drive to win these newer generations hearts back into a pastime that has been enjoyed by millions since this Country was discovered. Heck, my own son was falling into the new wave of thinking that hunting is basically not cool.....until i took the initiative to sit down with him and talk and basically give him my sales pitch about something that is important to me and something that i enjoy......He now loves hunting and has more passion for it than I would have or could have ever imagined.......this is what needs to be done guys but on a much larger scale......we will win some battles and lose some but the ones we win will be the saving grace for this Industry. That is just the newer generation not to mention our generation that is currently hunting........their perspective of High fenced hunts is awful.....they see it as a canned hunt in a small fenced in area...where the hunter basically walks in and shops for a buck he likes and then shoots it....again, it's not their fault for thinking that way......it's our fault for not letting them know the truth about preserves and that it is just another way of hunting with a lot more excitement! It's like producing the coolest car ......it has all the bells and whistles anyone could ever want........but you don't advertise it and your neighbor puts out all kinds of negative advertising about it because he feels threatened you will take his business........so people come up and basically thier mouth waters when they see the car and they really want it....BUT the word out on the street is the car is not what it looks to be ..........so you walk away and there sits that perfect car with all the things anyone could ever want a car to have but it never sells because the public has been miss informed.............you do some positive advertising and people give the car a try and the next thing you know the cars are selling out everywhere!

may not be the best analogy in the world but that is basically where we are right now with our Industry..........we got the product and it has all the bells and whistles everyone wants.....but they ahve been miss informed and until we change that ........that is where we sit!!



Russ, I really feel a new Board needs to be developed and their sole purpose in life is MARKETING for our Industry......I feel if we try to over burden the currrent boards such as Nadefa with this issue it will never get the attention it needs (not that I don't have faith in their board i just feel they have a full plate as is with everything they do).



Another very important thing we all need to do is Pray folks. God is our most powerful tool. I'm not going to preach here i am merely asking for your prayers as they are very much needed.......as it is said, where two or three of you are gathered in my name I will be there! It is because of our ignorance as a nation by seperating God from it that we are in the current mess we are in as a country. God is giving us exactly what we have been asking him for......and that is to stay away....that we don't need him ....that he needs to be seperate from our government......our schools......and so on .......look at where it has gotten us! Please......lets not make this same mistake with our industry........God will answer our prayers.........God will help.......WE just need to let him be apart of it.



Russ i know our first priority is to raise funds. However, I do know a company that is very successful in Marketing in the hunting Industry. This IS their business....they have clients such as Mossy oak, Real Tree outdoors and many of the big players in the industry.......they are good at what they do. I would be happy to talk about them in more detail once we are at that step in the process. They could be a very good canidate to run our national marketing campaign.



I think a 100% donation sale to get things off the ground for the advertising campaign is a great idea. Why couldn't there be a small percentage be taken from each consignment at the sales which would go directly towards these efforts as well. Once this is off and running there needs to be a steady flow of income being invested towards the campaign in order to keep it successful. It would not be fair to only ask for these percentages at our sales.......small percentages from advertisements in the deer magazines, websites and anywhere else our deer farmers advertise could be put towards the advertising campaign. Once the campaign is up and going it will be able to generate it's own revenue through advertisments as well......I'm sure there are lot's of breeders out there that would love to see their farms advetised on TV!!



Many of these hunting programs have used our preserves as a way of promoting their products and sellling their videos under a false notion that they are hunting in the wild with NO high fences. They save a lot of money by being able to come to the preserve and be able to film a quick successful hunt that in the wild may have taken weeks to get on film. It's time they pay their dues and start promoting our Industry as well. They need us as much as we need them.....we are all on the same playing feild. The hunters in our industry purchase their videos, hunt in their clothing, use their game calls.....so i see nothing wrong with asking for a little in return and that would be positive advertising about our industry........preserves could offer some free hunts to these hunting video producers in return for free advertising about their hunting preserve and positive advertising for our Industry as well.



Too bad we couldn't just do like the government does when they need money and just implement a 2,3,4 5,6 or 7% tax on all sales across the board within our industry.......boy wouldn't that be easy!?



We are at the here and now guys and girls.......this will not go away......if left alone it will with out a doubt get worse..........the strong will survive for as long as they can but even they will meet their end if the numbers keep falling as they are. If this doesn't scare you and motivate you to want to do something IT SHOULD. It really should. Don't hold back because you think your ideals might be stupid.......no idea or thought about how we can turn our Industry around is stupid.........their are a lot of bright minds out there, lets keep those thoughts and suggestions comming our Industry is depending on it. Let's give this the attention it NEEDS!! This should be the Hottest thread going in these forums........We all share to gain from this campaign lets make it work!!!

Click to expand...

Josh said:

There is a flip side to every story, look through the eyes of another...



I think that it is also very important to remember that if we all get what we are asking for, which we will, the nation stage at our fingertips. We need to also be prepared for as much fire power from the anti's as we have place into the education ends of promoting our message. They have almost unlimited resources at there disposal if they feel threatened!!



We must change the mind set of the hunters so much, that they are as excitied to be a part of our vision of the hunting industry, that they are willing to stake it all with us.

Click to expand...

RWalkJr said:

Wisdom your last post is accurate as to what I am seeing here on the other side (Hunting Ranch). As I see it we basically have 2 options here.



1st we wake up! Re- organize our efforts, ask our national and state originations to help or spearhead the project, ask a major sale company to step forward, develop a national outreach to recruit new hunters, step to the advertising plate with a huge hammer ($1,000,000+) no tiny advertising tickle, drive hundreds of thousands of potential hunters to our web site, bring aboard all who wish to "continue deer farming" as Co-Op board of outreach members or add this to the existing national board (NADEFA) and start to finally build a stable future for our markets.



Tim, you are very right when you mention what the lobbyist have done for us and the amazing work being headed up by NADEFA. That's why I generously donate to that organization. The NADEFA board never gets the credit they deserve.



I'm saying that this is desperate times in our countries financial health. Our hunting preserves are down 50% and hunting in general is falling off with the next generation. Pennsylvania alone sold 1.8 million hunting licenses just a few years ago. Last year we were down in the 600,000's. You see kids walking down the street texting all day long, they can't wait to get home and play the Play Station or get on the computer. This is the next generation of hunters and that's why statistics show hunting licenses dropping off; 75% of the loss is in people under 30 years of age. We are already fighting an uphill battle with hunting in general but its ludicrous not to market our outstanding whitetail product to the market we hope to sell it to. Many just have no idea what we have to offer or are tainted by the negative taste in their mouth that they have got from anti hunters or those purest hunters that want their 140 buck on the wall to represent the best buck in the county. We need a positive and exciting message to sound loudly that high fence hunting is no different than a stocked trout stream, released pheasants or every hunt available in Africa. Our message is "High fence means more fun!" and all the serious hunters are" going high fence for a better future". Marketing works! If you don't believe me just look at our current president! The media brain washed enough to put Obama in office and thats a much bigger feat then recruiting some new hunters.



My family just came back a few weeks ago from the Buck-a-Rama hunting show in Atlanta. We along with Apple Creek and Dream Ranch were a few to represent high fence hunting opportunities at that show. We had thousands of guys look at the very impressive display of antler and creative marketing ideas only to walk away disappointed that they would be unable to participate in our offers just because of the high fence and the mental block they had when they thought of it. Imagine if our positive advertising campaign could change the opinion of only 20% of these critical hunters. We would have potentially had opportunities to book over 300 hunts!!! And that's only one show! This year was the first year our company was unable to purchase at the Ohio shooter sale because we didn't need the bucks. Now imagine what that sale would have looked like had we bought 50+ bucks as we have in past years. Compound that with Apple Creek and Dream Ranch and the 3 of us could have bought every shooter in the sale, just from bookings at one hunting show! Yes, this is big talk, but you get the overall point here.



Option #2 We pretend all is well. A good day is around the corner and things will come back. Not gonna happen guys. This is about like saying gas prices were 89 cent just a few years back and just around the corner is gonna get better. Here is what is going to happen. Your shooters will continue to get cheaper as the next few years pass. Kevin Grace pulled off a great shooter sale in Ohio and I guarantee you nobody will get more for the same deer as that sell brought. Why? As Wisdom said "supply and demand". I'm getting calls regularly with desperate voices saying what can I get for my bucks? Everyone knows what I am saying is true. You can try to hide it in order to sell those last couple animals in the next sale, but there is a problem brewing from the core of our sales recruiting philosophy. The most successful breeders are biting there lip and gritting their teeth right now as they are reading this because by hiding this from you and projecting a false market they make money.



Our industry can answer this warning and turn around a poorly inherited business platform or slowly sink and someday soon, you will say man I wish we would have got started a long time ago in our marketing to the hunters!



Again, I am a positive, motivated thinking 30 year old aggressive breeder, and am still investing heavy in this business. In the last 14 months I've purchased 8 breeder bucks -Rolls Royce, Ebenezer, Noble, Legacy, Gold Digger, Time Bomb, Promise Land and Energizer. I've also spent over $300,000 on a new breeding facility to expand with future options and have added some smokin does to our lineup. I have no money man backing me and have worked my butt off trying to get some great deer. "I'm all in". I believe and am counting on the innovative ideas and business minded spirit that the great people of this industry has. Scott get the round table ready there is work to do. Deer breeders lets change a dim future to one with hope and prosperity. Top 30 breeders step up to the plate. Auction companies answer the call - we need a 100% donation sale towards creating a future advertising campaign. NADEFA and state associations we need your financial support and organizational expertise.



You can call me whatever you like but my heart is in this business and I'm only trying to stir a movement that will provide a future. Thanks for the great comments and posts guys. Aaron great site keep up the very unselfish work. Let's use this thread to throw more ideas around. We need Sam, Eric, Fred, Holly, Bruce, Harry, Mark, Will, Michael, Josh, Chad, Dustin, Alex, Greg, Nate, Jarrod, Reed, Scott, Tara, Jason, Rusty, John, Craig and so on... we need some words of advice, ideas, opinions, solutions, ect. This problem will not go away until it is addressed and aggressively worked on until fixed.

Click to expand...

mrwhiteails said:

Here's an idea... We have some 20,000+ farms/ranches in the country why not everyone kick in $200 bucks. You do the math...I ate got enough fingers and toes but that should get us going. What do you think folks??



Don't call me to many names now!

Click to expand...