By Rick Brazell - President, First Hunt Foundation
We live in interesting, and I would say, inspiring times. As hunters, we have so much available to us to be successful at our craft or sport that it’s often hard to comprehend. The choices of gear and gear companies are enough to boggle your mind if you think about it too much. Then there’s the choice of which species to hunt each year and maybe which states if you’re really ambitious and can afford it. Now, do you want to go with a rifle, bow, black powder, or even a spear? You can day hunt, tent camp, RV camp, backpack in, horse pack in, spot and stalk, stand hunt, or blind hunt. The point is hunters can make a ton of choices each year, and those are theirs alone to make. One choice is whether to have alcohol in camp or not. It’s a simple yes or no answer, and for most situations, there isn’t a correct answer.
Most may not see it or even agree it’s there, but for some of us, it’s becoming more common, and we’re seeing it more and more. So, before anyone balks and quits reading, this article isn’t promoting some new prohibition on alcohol in anyone’s hunting camp but asking folks to look around and see if our sport might be at risk if we don’t admit it could eventually become a problem.
I believe everyone knows that drinking and driving has become a serious issue over the years, with every state enacting laws to protect their citizens. Slogans like “Don’t Drink and Drive” and “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving” are commonplace, yet statistics would tell you there is still a large segment of society that just doesn’t follow the rules because they feel “they” would be safe regardless. We would be naïve to believe that within our own ranks of hunters, that same attitude isn’t held by many.
In my world, which is mentoring new hunters, our mentors haven’t been instructed to bring the topic up, yet. The alcohol talk for youth most generally comes from a parent or guardian, and adult mentees are more focused on learning skills than a social construct. Our insurance company, on the other hand, forbids alcohol use at any First Hunt Foundation event, which includes any one-on-one mentoring event. Why were they adamant? Their concern was NOT as much about having alcohol around youth, but it was a concern with “impairment” of the mentor. Simply put, they felt anyone drinking alcohol while teaching others puts them (the insurance company) at risk, and if something goes wrong, they will potentially be paying out big money and weren’t willing to take that risk.
So, let’s look at the impairment side of the equation. There are laws that have been formulated to set a limit on the amount you can drink and still operate a motor vehicle. The rules are simple: you go over a certain amount in the bloodstream or on a breathalyzer at any time while driving, and you are breaking the law. It’s interesting to note that many states have specific regulations regarding alcohol use while hunting. Here are just a few examples:
1. **Arizona:** Arizona's Game and Fish Department enforces strict rules against hunting while under the influence of alcohol. This is part of a broader set of regulations aimed at promoting safe and ethical hunting practices (Arizona Game & Fish Department).
2. **Maine:** The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife includes regulations that prohibit hunting while under the influence of intoxicating substances. (Maine.gov).
So, it appears many state fish and game departments have followed the same path as state driving laws using words like “while intoxicated” or “under the influence of alcohol,” leading one to believe it’s okay to be drinking while hunting as long as you don’t pass that state’s specific threshold. Hopefully, we aren’t heading for our own slogans like “Don’t Drink and Hunt” or “Buzzed Hunting is Drunk Hunting”
It's interesting to note when you ask the experts what they think about the lasting effects of alcohol on the human body. I suspect we can all agree they gained a lot of their expertise from concerns related to the driving side. Folks from The Recovery Village, in their May 2024 article on “How Long Does It Take to Sober Up,” tell us alcohol remains in your urine for about 80 hours. Symptoms of intoxication appear differently from person to person and leave the body at different rates. Factors like body type, gender, eating, and drinking water can all affect how long it takes to feel sober. So, ask yourself, “What might be the potential outcome if a group or even one hunter in a group drank just a bit too much the night before a hunt?”
There is a ton of information on hunting accidents one can find relative to us today. When you look at the “hunter-ed” website, you will see what they label as the “Four Main Causes of Hunting Incidents.” They are:
- Hunter Judgment Mistakes, such as mistaking another person for game or not checking the foreground or background before firing
- Safety Rule Violations, including pointing the muzzle in an unsafe direction and ignoring proper procedures for crossing a fence, obstacle, or difficult terrain
- Lack of Control and Practice, which can lead to accidental discharges and stray shots
- Mechanical Failure, such as an obstructed barrel or improper ammunition
Likewise, John VanDerLaan, in “Hunting Accident Statistics: Injuries, Fatalities, and Causes” published in **Deerhuntingguide.net** 2023, wrote the most common causes of firearm-related accidents include the following:
- Failure to identify the target
- Shooter swinging firearm on game
- Careless firearm handling
- Victim out of shooter’s sight
It should be noted that every one of the causes listed except mechanical failure could be directly related to the discussion above about impaired behavior happening during a drinking event or the aftereffects the next day. That data isn’t being collected and when I reached out to Alex Baer, Executive Director of IHEA, who said, “Unfortunately, alcohol and drugs were not tracked well as a possible factor for an incident in the past. As we are currently modernizing the forms used in the field, we have added that as a data point to the forms used by law enforcement that we are rolling out later this year at the new IHEA Hunter Incident Investigation Academy in September. This will allow us to better answer these sorts of questions in the future. Subsequently, data pertaining to the use of alcohol and other drugs will be tracked within the newly updated National Hunting Incident Database found on IHEA-USA.org.” That’s exciting news to know we will now be looking to see if there is an issue and just how big it might be.
As important as safety is to all of us who value it, it’s apparent there are still enough folks out there willing to put others at risk so they may continue to march to their own drum beat. The hunters’ image and public perception of hunting may, in the end, be more impactful to our sport. Those that don’t hunt but do vote may feel empathy for a hunter hurt in an accident but find fault with hunting when they see behavior viewed as socially unacceptable to them.
For example, my organization is sensitive to how non-hunting parents might judge us given we are hoping to help their youth begin their hunting journey. We often get asked a ton of questions by these parents who are trusting us to teach their children something in a manner acceptable to them. We do criminal background checks on all our potential mentors and volunteers, but anyone can also check you out if you even dabble with social media. I had one mentor applicant who had a very old alcohol-related charge on his record, so I decided to check out his social media. I was shocked to find he was a very accomplished outdoorsman, but in every picture of every harvest and every fish, he was holding his beer. So, imagine a nice buck, gun in hand, grinning face, and a prevalent can of beer. What would a concerned parent think about their kid going out with him?
One of our national leaders and I attended the national meeting for a well-known national conservation organization, and we found the same prevalent message for two years in a row. Almost every speaker that told stories or mentioned their hunting adventures from the main podium made sure everyone knew that whiskey was an important part of their hunts. We stared at each other in disbelief as the large room had tons of young folks hearing the message that if you really want to be a great hunter, you need to drink whiskey. The same organization made a big deal of having free beer provided to all the vendors during the day at their show one year. My highly respected high school football coach would often tell us, “There’s a time to work and a time to play, and you need to know the difference.” Wise advice even for this subject.
It seems like every other day; we see lawsuits trying to eliminate hunting or curtail it in ways that aren’t scientifically sound. Thank heavens for those organizations who are on the front lines defending us in the legal arenas across the country. Meanwhile, as hunters, we owe it to our sport to never give the anti-hunters and those on the fence concerning hunting any ammunition that could place our hunting heritage at risk. Everyone can choose to have alcohol be a part of their hunting tradition or not. Regardless of that choice, hopefully, this article gives folks pause to understand there is always a cause and effect. Years of research and science trump opinion when alcohol is being evaluated, so let’s at least make good choices—whether it’s timing or perceptions—that will never hurt our sport. The choice is yours.
2023-2024 Voice of Leadership Panelists
Jon Zinnel, Federal Ammunition
Dan Forster, Archery Trade Association
Brent Miller, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation
Rick Brazell, First Hunt Foundation
Mark Peterson, Worldwide Trophy Adventure
Michelle Scheuermann, Bullet Proof Communications
Facilitators
The Voice of Leadership Panel is an appointed group of outdoor industry leaders who have volunteered to contribute their voices on crucial hunting and outdoor recreation issues to inform, inspire, and educate participants within our community.