Let's mix a couple of forums

[Carbon 6]

Seriously though, coyotes are thick flies on a fresh cow pie around me. You can breed wild rabbits faster than they can eat them if you give the rabbits some cover. Mink are the ultimate rabbit predator. Look for mink sign.

 

[Boomerang]

They don't let you hunt yotes at night in Indiana?

Ya they do, but it's hard to do with primitive sights and a traditional rifle with modern optics kinda defeats the purpose.

 

[Carbon 6]

Hunting coyotes at night with a muzzleloader would be the one time I would want a scope.
I have shot a lot of coyotes in the early morning hours though. No scope needed then, and they were all close shots too.

 

[FishDFly]

"Owls are a different story."

Sat Saturday evening. Owl landed across from me and sat in a tree.

Watched it for 30 to 45 minutes or so. It's eye's were like watching a blinking yellow caution light on the highway. It could almost turn it's head around 360 degrees.

Many years ago, I was calling coyotes in South Texas. Right at dark a pair of Great Horned Owls came into the speaker. I dropped both of them. Took them to a Taxidermist to have them mounted and he closed down.

Will never hurt another owl.

 

[Ames]

Good. They are federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

 

[Carbon 6]

I wasn't suggesting you shoot the owls, just that I do find owl rabbits kills frequently in the winter.

 

[Ames]

Kill the yotes and there will be enough bunnies for us and the owls.

 

[Kansas Jake]

In many areas of the great plains changes in farming practices in the last 50 years have done more to eliminate small game than anything else. Most 1/4 sections of farm land used to have at least a few draws or tree groves and brush providing cover of game birds and small game. Now with pivot irrigation and farming practices there is almost no cover to provide nesting or other good habitat for game. I'm not blaming farmers, it is just the way it is these days. 40 years ago many farms were diversified with pasture land and crop land and livestock and crops. These days many farmers are strictly grain farmers and the pastures and cover land is gone. Look at a satellite picture of Kansas or Nebraska. Do you see all those circles? Not much room for game there.

 

[Tumbledown]

I think a major factor in getting people interested in MLs is simply the cost.

If someone is looking to get into shooting, they can get a cartridge rifle pretty cheap, like $300 or less for a plinker. If they are getting into hunting, it's still only in the $6-800 range. Compare that to the cost of MLs: $300 for something you have to assemble, and gets poo-pooed as a cheap gun, to upwards of a grand for what is still a factory-built gun, AND only goes BOOM once every few minutes.

It's not like these things are complicated. Milled wood, some cast parts, and a machined barrel. Yes, there's a lot of hand work in assembly, but there is in modern guns as well.

The industry side of the hobby depends on the hobby, but is pricing itself out of reach of those who'd join in.

 

[elkslayer]

To be honest, I don't think small game is going to be the thing that increases interest in muzzleloading. I enjoy hunting with my muzzleloaders but if I'm after small game, the .22 is coming along. Small game hunting as a whole has the lowest participation among hunters. Big game and waterfowl are at the top, squirrels and rabbits are at the bottom. Unfortunately there are not any mainstream media options that showcase muzzleloading.

I'm 36 and got my first muzzleloader at age 24. My interest in muzzleloading came about due to the movies Jeremiah Johnson and Last of the Mohicans which I saw as a kid and in my early teens. I think the main reason why we don't see more interest in traditional muzzleloading is because of the lack of media, widespread media exposure, for this hobby. It would need to be in the form of a television series or movie with a young protaganist set in a time with muzzleloading rifles and still be engaging to younger age groups.

Just look at how popular archery became after the hunger games movie came out. Kids in the city were flocking to local archery shops and indoor ranges so they could try to be like the protoganist of those films.

Local organizations will only have a small area of influence and will only bring in small numbers of recruits. If there was a hit mainstream film/series with a muzzleloader weilding protagonist became popular, then local muzzleloader clubs could leverage the popularity of the film/series to draw kids and their parents to "Learn to shoot like _______" events.

Again look what Fred Bear did for archery and what Jeremiah Johnson did in the 1970's for muzzleloaders. IF it's not in the popular media, then you better find some other way to run a large advertising campaign to generate interest.

 

[Spikebuck]

Ooooooh! Yea!

View attachment 53650

Even better:

 

[Crow-Feather]

The increase in Non-traditional rifles coincided with the decrease in traditional muzzleloaders. Could we have stopped this from happening? I don't think so.
I remember going to shoots in my early years and competing with excellent shooters who always took the prize with their custom rifles. There wasn't a system where one new to the sport had much of a chance. And the old shooters, who controlled the shoots scoffed at our sufferings. Well, I am now an old shooter and still can't shoot well, but I have a lot less shooters to compete with.
We are more like the mountain man than most would believe. The beaver will never disappear and hats will always be made with beaver. There were many that lived in the present and never considered the future ............... until it was too late.

 

[hanshi]

I agree that small game is the way to go for encouraging the younger crowd to try real muzzleloaders. I learned to hunt in the squirrel woods since deer hunting was confined to the Southern swamps in Georgia. It was the 1960s before deer became common in the piedmont area where I lived; quickly the place was overrun with them.

Here in Maine cottontails are protected. But we have snowshoe hares for the brave to chase.

But porky pines, coyotes have no closed season, of course.