I'm 41, been hunting since I was very little (maybe 5 or 6?), and my experience is that deer hunting is better today, but turkey hunting just flat out sucks compared to yesteryear.

In the 80's / 90's we could hear 12/15+ birds gobble every day, and it was almost easy to kill your limit. Heck, we Fall turkey hunted and killed lots of birds.

I see 5x more deer today than back then, but (for me) deer hunting peaked about 5-7 years ago and has actually declined somewhat.

I do agree though that our modern-day hunting club mentality has commoditized hunting, it has caused the price of a good experience to be so high that most guys can't do it. The average guy just can't get in a $3,500 Dallas County club with low members and high deer anymore. He's relegated to WMA's (none of which are as good as they were years ago), or lousy clubs with low deer and high hunters. With a few exceptions, the guys I know who still have a high-level hunting experience are very wealthy. I have an uncle who purchased 180ac, and leases 1,055 acres surrounding it BY HIMSELF. That lease alone costs him $10/ac, and he literally hunts it by himself. He'll see 40/50/60 deer a day, and cherry-picks which buck he wants to shoot. 15 years ago there was 10 of us who leased all that land as a club, and we never saw deer like that. (just an example)

On a similar note, the same fate that turkey hunting met has also happened to fishing. Just 10 years ago I don't think there were 50% as many fishing as there are today. And as you would expect, the fishing isn't as good.