Oregon’s Coming Expensive Lesson

For decades, hunters and fishermen have quietly funded conservation while everyone else took credit. In Oregon alone, sportsmen contribute nearly a billion dollars annually to the economy and generate tens of millions more through Pittman-Robertson excise taxes that fund wildlife habitat, hunter education, and conservation programs. Yet lawmakers continue treating these same people as a problem rather than partners. Perhaps Oregon should proceed and learn the lesson firsthand. Numbers don’t care about politics. When the funding shrinks, the jobs disappear, and conservation budgets start hurting, the state may discover who was paying the bills all along.

They Promised Us the Right to Hunt. Then They Took It Back.

Hunters were promised respect. We were promised constitutional protection. Instead, we got a regulatory maze where normal behavior is criminalized, enforcement is arbitrary, and tradition is treated as a threat. The same system that sells hunting licenses now treats hunters like suspects. The same agency that depends on hunter dollars increasingly acts as if it knows better than the people who live on and manage the land year-round.

Rescuing a Dying Tradition: Rebuilding the American Hunter, Part III

Part III – Rescuing a Dying Tradition: Rebuilding the American Hunter “If We Don’t Pass It On, We’ll Bury It Beside the Campfire.” The numbers are grim but not terminal. Hunting can be saved—but not by bureaucracy. It will be saved the same way it began: neighbor to neighbor, family to family, and a kid’s …

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Last of the Deer Camps: Saving America’s Hunting Heritage Before It’s Gone, Part I

When Congress passed the Pittman–Robertson Act of 1947, it did something rare: it trusted ordinary citizens more than bureaucrats. Hunters agreed to tax themselves—an excise on firearms, ammunition, and archery gear—to restore the nation’s wildlife. Every box of shells, every rifle sale, sent dollars straight to state conservation agencies. No congressional earmarks, no political games.

Bucks, Bullets, and the Business of Land Grabs: A Hunter’s Take on Fort Knox and Fort A.P. Hill

You don’t expect to feel history crunching under your boots when you’re dragging a tree stand into the woods. But at places like Fort Knox and Fort A.P. Hill, that’s exactly what you get—world-class hunting grounds layered over old farmsteads, lost churches, and more than a few hard truths about eminent domain.

Sisu: The Legacy of Finland’s Warrior Heritage in Modern Hunting and Shooting

The Finnish people have long been known for their resilience, resourcefulness, and deep connection to the land. These qualities, encapsulated in the Finnish concept of “Sisu,” are not merely cultural traits; they are the product of centuries of survival in one of the world’s most challenging environments.