Hunting spots: To share or not to share

When it comes to hunting on land, myself my father and grandfather have accomplished more than our fair share of big game animals from across the globe. World records and the sorts. We seem to average a higher success rate and larger trophies than everyone else, but there is one thing I was taught. Never be afraid to share your good spots, for one thing its just common courtesy to share the bounty of mother nature with the rest of us, and likely someone told you and so on and so forth. So why the heck do people act so lame when it comes to helping other people be successful. It seems to me to be a lack of confidence thing, are you great in yourself, or are you just mediocre with a good spot. It seems that the people who don't share locations just kinda suck, while the people with the highest success are successful because of skill and knowledge. Take a hunter under your wing, show them the ropes, show them the good spots, the more people we do this with, the more fun everybody has and the numbers of the sport will stay substained, this will ensure that we will one day be able to pass our legacy onto our children and continue to be able to experience the bounties of our wonderful world. Hunters have strengh in numbers, a good spot is a good spot, show a friend, so someone new so that they might be able to enjoy the ocean or land as much as we do. Hunting is no place for the selfish, selfishness is the antitheisis of being an outdoorsman(woman).

I think that it is due to the very large investment many of us have in boats, equipment, and gear. But even more important than that is time. Why distribute something you spent a long time acquiring just to give it away. You don't give away your entire paycheck each week after putting in those long hours.

I know exactly what you mean, I can think of an area in alaska that we have established to hunt Caribou, we started researching the area in the late 70's and narrowed it down to a really really good area by the mid 90's (read almost 20 years of research and nearly that many trips at thousands of $$ each) but have never been afraid to tell anybody about the location, and it is so remote you have to be flown in but can't be flown out. you have to walk out of the tundra or float back 60 miles to a gravelbar than a plane can pick us up at. It shouldn't matter how much time you put into something, a good sportsman is always willing to share in the bounty, after all, you are only taking your limit right? Surely a really good area can support more than just your limit of X critter. By The way, anyone interested in "secret spots"

true, we don't give our paychecks away after working all those hours, but unless we are fearing for our jobs, we aren't afraid to tell anyone where we work

here is my take on sharing spots.
i will share any of my spots with you. you just need to come with me on my boat to dive them with me.and it would be nice if you shared in the trip expenses.
now if you want to go to without me in your own boat here is what i will do.i will tell you what oil rigs seem to be holding fish or what public wrecks i have seen good fish on. i will not give you my private numbers.
if not being willing to share "private spots"seems greedy to you here are a few things you should take intop consideration before judging me.

in my area we have a permitted reef building area where we are allowed to build artificial reefs.on average i would say a reef costs about $1000. to build and deploy.would you like to share $500 dollars with me for each set of private numbers i give you?also for every 5 reefs we build only one usually become a real fired up barn burning honey hole.so you can figure $5000 bux for each really whizz bang honey hole i have.
now in general i am a generous person and i used to share some of my favorite spots with some close friends,here is what happened.
when it isnt your spot you tend to guard it a little less closely.so maybe you have a good bite of fish going and it looks like some other boat is coming your way?so to heck with it we are catching good fish and dont want to move,well now another boat has my numbers.or perhaps you dont like holding up on a spot and decide to anchor up on the spot well now you are fair game to anyone who wants to run on you.because you cant move off the spot fast enough.
now when i dive my spots.we throw a bouy descend the bouy line nad after giving us a couple minuites to get to the bottom, the boat pulls the bouy and waits for us down current, so that if a boat decides to run on us he can move 100 yards or so from the spot and they wont get it.most people you share a spot with just anchor on it and dead boat it, with a big dive flag advertising to all concerned that they can come geta free private spot.
so after sharing a few good spots and seeing them become barren wastelands within 1 year of my sharing them i decided that it was a bad idea.if that makes me a greedy turd then sue me ...

spots are just not that easy to come by and in my experience what is shared wont be spared.sad but true.

i do like your logic on that, you will give your areas, but not the exact coordinate, thats fair, i guess. with land hunting i do that all the time, giving an exact coordinate on land won't help much anyhow because of movements of animals, so i say, you want to check out the north end of that canyon, its good etc. I have to say i like your logic and its not selfish, therefore i won't sue you

i think its a good thing to share.

I'll always tell people where I shot my fish. Good thing about NE Florida is the lack of crowds and multitude of big fish