http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/fhw06-nat.pdf Not sure if any of you guys have ever actually taken the time to scour through this report, but it's definitely worth the time - particularly for you fellas who are in the hunting merchandising business. One thing that I both expected and noticed is that the heavy-hitters of hunting-related expenditures are: Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan. These 3 states are in an absolute runaway with the total $$ spent on hunting-related merchandise, licensure and services. Interestingly (at least from my view in the cheap seats), Pennsylvania and Michigan are disproportionately under-represented in terms of hunting-related merchandising. That is, when you look at the "Pro Staffs" of most large merchandising companies, they're comprised mainly of guys from Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, etc. (areas where trophy hunting is easiest). Likewise, many manufacturers are housed in the corn belt, but the bulk of their business is coming from the aforementioned hunter-heavy population centers. They're just not doing themselves any favors to connect with their key demographics in that regard. The same observation goes for hunting television shows - they routinely travel to midwest destinations in search of trophy-class animals, but I'm forced to wonder - if the hands that feed them disproportionately hail from Pennsylvania & Michigan, why isn't the onus placed in those areas? You hardly ever see a hunting show filmed from a treestand in the UP, or in Potter County, PA. Matter of fact, I've never seen that. LOL It's just neat to see where the money really comes from that drives the industry - it's decidedly NOT from the same areas home to top-end whitetail hunting. I guess that's just a commentary on hunter density and how that impacts whitetail age structure (i.e. the overall trophy potential of an area). Neat how everything ties together. A sidenote - I would've never known that Florida is the #1 overall state for outdoor-related expenditures. Apparently, people in Florida spend a PANTLOAD on fishing!
The primary answer, or response, to your observations is really pretty simple Fran - antlers, antlers, antlers, and more antlers. The reason that the majority of Staff members for most companies are located in the Midwest is b/c there's an abundance of deer with big antlers. The more, and bigger, deer these people kill the better it makes said company look, and the more products they will hope to sell. As they say, sex sells. And there's nothing sexier to a hunter than a big set of antlers. Period. Shoot a big buck in the Midwest, market a product that helps you kill big bucks, and every hunter in an underproducing location will want it. Why? Because it helps you kill big bucks! It's the same with TV shows, and that topic has been beat to death over and over again. We watch TV for entertainment (for the most part). The shows we watch don't represent our lives and how we live them, but rather how we want to live them. For most people they're fantasies. Just like my wife will never have a 2 million dollar engagement ring and live in a mansion like Kim Kardashian, most hunters will never own 2,000 acres in Iowa and shoot 160+ inch deer every year. However, that doesn't deter the average person from wanting to watch that on TV and dream about what it might be like. Beyond all of that you just have to look at the amount of huntable/wooded areas in those locations. States in the Midwest like IL, IA, KS etc have a very small percentage of their land that is wooded and suitable for hunting. There's thousands of miles of roads you can drive and barely see a tree in some of these states, which means they just can't support the same number of hunters that heavily wooded places like MI, WI, or PA can. More hunters = more money spent on hunting. Pretty simple equation.
I get all that. For hunting companies and wanna-be hunting celebrities, image is definitely everything, which is the driver of why they do what they do. But I guess what I found interesting was the story that the numbers are telling, which is that while the most productive and fruitful hunting land may well be found in the midwest, the best acreage for harvesting hunting-related money isn't in the midwest at all. It's right here in the over-hunted, over-saturated backyards of Pennsylvania and Michigan. Hunter-heavy population centers. We both knew that, but I'd bet that would come as news to some of the readers on this site, which is why I posted. It's also neat to see how much outdoor-related money that non-hunters spent. (i.e. birdwatchers, campers and such). I still can't believe how much money Floridians blow on hunting/fishing stuff. I'm halfway ready to pull up the stakes and move down there to open a Bass Pro Shop.
