“Category: Join the Hunt”

Allowing someone to tag along while you chase squirrels or rabbits may be the simplest, most effective way to recruit new hunters.

Americans’ attitudes about hunting exist across a continuum of acceptability from animal rights to animal welfare to “dominionism.” Understanding this continuum is crucial to communicating our mindset as hunters and why hunting fits the American landscape now and into the future.

The moment a hunter encounters a curious spirit is an ideal time to influence a future educator, leader and voter. If we remain prepared for these opportunities, we can take advantage of them.

In 1985, we launched a program to facilitate friendly competition among youths 18 and younger that would advance hunting skills including wildlife identification, orienteering and rifle, shotgun and archery marksmanship. Today, thousands of hunter education volunteers and parents still conduct this program at the state and local level to produce safer, more skillful and more ardent American hunters.

Here’s a rundown of the basic optics terms that every hunter should know.

Every aspiring hunter dreams of a perfect first experience, and every mentor longs to create it. But before the perfect scenario can be created, a mentor needs to understand just exactly what kind of temperament his charge may possess. Here’s a look at four types of hunters: Is one of them your pupil?

In the adventurous world of hunting, there are many great stories and books to make us all gasp, laugh, cry and more. If, as a hunter, you are a reader, odds are your life has been influenced by some of them. If you haven’t yet read enough of them, find them, read them, then pass them on to an aspiring hunter.

Despite its importance as a good food source, as a wildlife-management tool and as a crucial source of funding for conservation in the United States, hunting remains vulnerable to misinformation and negative attention from ill-informed media, which can encourage support for restrictive legislation. The hunting community must appeal to non-hunters through common goals, motivations and values if our pastime is to remain a fixture in American life.

In 2021, ‘Join the Hunt’ will provide—thanks to the NRA Hunters’ Leadership Forum—research, tips and talking points to teach hunters how to talk about hunting’s positive impact.