Interesting thread, I have been chasing birds with a gun in my hand for 50 years now and my approach has certainly changed but I feel it has more to do with my stage in life rather than the times we live in. I worked in the outdoor industry all of my career and keenly observed trends and what was going on.
What I learned applies to almost all outdoor pursuits from big game hunting to fishing (and maybe more in life).
Stage 1 - We are introduced to the sport, most often by family but it can be friends. During this stage it is mostly about the relationship with the people you are enjoying it with. I am sure most on here have happy memories of fishing with a father or grandfather. You probably hardly remember what you caught but you were happy they wanted to spend time with you.
Stage 2 - If the pursuit catches on with you, you try and get better. You seek to learn how to have success on your own. You read some magazines, go to the sportsman's show and start to buy your own equipment.
Stage 3 - It becomes all about the numbers. You just want to catch fish, shoot birds, whatever. Numbers is way more important than quality. You need to practice what you have recently learned and improve your technique.
Stage 4 - You become competitive. You want to test your newfound skills against others to prove to them and yourselves how "good' you are and demonstrate to others how you have mastered this game which has become so important to you.
Stage 5- You move beyond competition and on to quality. You move to things like fly fishing, only pursuing trophy muskie, only shooting 200+ deer, only shooting over point whatever you define to yourself as "quality".
Stage 6 - You become more reflective and the harvest becomes much less the focus than the experience. Your memory bank is full of great days, full limits and trophies. You no longer need to prove yourself. You no longer need to fill the bag to have a great day. You just want to be out, participate and reconnect with the sport that has brought you so much joy. In this stage you can happily woodcock hunt with a blank pistol, sit in a duck blind just to watch birds come in or watch trout rise in a stream.
The problem is something like the "Stages of Grief" many are familiar with, is there is no way 90% of people ever get to Stage 6 without going through all the others. I clearly remember how frustrated I was hunting with my father and a couple of his old buddies in the last few years of his life. They were all clearly in Stage 6 while I was still in 3 or 4 and wanted to see results. They were content to shuffle along, puff their pipes and tell stories about the old days.
With this in mind I am very supportive about practicing restraint however I think we need to be careful about not being to "preachy" about it. If the sport and the resource is going to survive we need young people getting involved and we can't expect them to jump in at stage 6. They will need to go through the process.
One of my greatest passions is waterfowl hunting. Yet almost any TV show about it makes my skin crawl with loud tattooed young studs who only shoot fields, call to much, High 5 and whoop it up over ever dead bird and stack them like cordwood in the back of a pick-up. It makes me want to puke. On the other hand I remind myself It is much better for waterfowl that they are at least interested and.... they will grow out of it.
