Tales from the Cheap Seats Please
When is the last time you read about the guy or girl next door and how they became the hunter they are today? When is the last time you read about the normal, every day hunt where nothing strange happens, you just went to the woods, the birds chirped, you might have seen nothing or you simply tagged out?
The online world of hunting, and even the magazine world of hunting, is missing the mark. If your story isn’t epic, if your animal isn’t some ground-breaking record book scoring freak show, if you didn’t as a woman complete the entire hunt by yourself without help from anyone, you’re just not getting published. If you wrote about it as a woman, you’re also probably not getting published.
If you don’t embellish, overcome some near-death experience, get caught off guard by a wildlife manager, forget your most sacred survival lucky gear, you aren’t even given a second look. Media and product manufacturers have lost sight of what it means to be a hunter. We do not go out and shoot record book animals on an annual basis. Sometimes we come home empty handed. Sometimes we come home having lost an animal. Sometimes we come home with just meat for the table. And we don’t boast. We don’t brag. We just, do.
It is scary to me that just about every post you see on social media starts with “well, he isn’t the biggest” or “he wasn’t our target”, “do you think this is worth sending to the taxidermist?” and so on. This need to compare every hunt we go on to some trophy wall hanger is pretty gross.
This could be a problem derived from an algorithm, created by what product manufacturers are currently publishing that are nothing but giants and paid outfitter hunt success stories. The only other thing they seem to be publishing lately are selfies and reels with influencers who have questionable morals, or more often no morals at all.
It all looks ridiculous.
What will it take to give a shit about the everyday hunter? The one who takes care of their family during the week and struggles to make it to a stand on the weekends? The one who doesn’t wear matching overpriced camouflage? The one who eats real meals instead of calorie deficient dehydrated bags full of salt? The one who does put in the work DIY and shoots something just as big or bigger than the local guide found? The real hunter who doesn’t have 500 product photos on their social media accounts and no photos of tags on animals?
We are tired of reading the same names over and over and over again on every single product page. What will it take to get a business and publication, non-profit etc. to give a real look at the real hunter in this world? No fame. No television shows. No bought followers. No pod-cast moguls. No one has ever known this person except their friends in their small towns. Give us something real. Something to strive towards and look up to. Give prospective hunters realistic goals and aspirations.
If you own a business or product and market it to hunters, what’s your hold up to reality? Engage with the common, everyday hunter. It is time to change.
