Economic Impact of Hunting

Hunting Brings In Big Bucks For WV. November 10, 2010 Reporter: Patrick McMurtry Videographer: Brad Rice

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By the time most of the game seasons are over this year, nearly 400,000 hunters will have hit the woods hoping to put meat on their table. That pumps around half a billion dollars into the states economy, providing jobs for countless West Virginians. Spring Hill Rod and Gun's Dan Kessel says he gets about 40 percent of his annual business in the fall.

"You have a rush at archery time, late summer, early fall, a lot of arrows, bows re-stringing them, that's great. Then as soon as the season is in and they're in the woods and happy, they start focusing in on ammo and scopes, rifles, the last month, scope and ammo when they start going to the range." says Kessel.

Kessel says even in a tough economy like we've all gone through the last couple of years, hunting is still king in the state and people might have to cut back, but most still spend on this life long sport.

"With the bad economy, a lot of people didn't spend $2,000 at the beach or didn't go on they're cruise or Vegas, or whatever, so instead, they just bought them a new gun, maybe bought their kid a gun, which keeps the money in WV, they didn't take their big vacation, but they can still afford to go hunt here." says Kessel.

And hunting here is a good bargain, even for the 75,000 people who are from out of state but buy hunting licenses here. Kessel puts that into perspective.

"I just came out of Wyoming, $1,100 for an elk tag, $600 for a buck tag. I had people kill a buck and then ask if they can go spend another $600 to get another buck. $20 isn't too bad to go hunting here. <4:56>It's a bargain for how much you pay compared to other states." says Kessel.

Twenty bucks...that's less than it costs to take your family out for fast food!

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