Montana has previously raised the prices for tags (both resident and non-resident), many times--and every time people bitched about it. I can remember when the price of a resident deer "A" tag first hit $10. You should have heard the bitching then.
But the state also kept the non-resident "combination" elk-deer-bear-bird-fish tag at $150 for years, long after other Western states started charging much more for similar tags. The game department finally realized that they were way behind the times. Did anybody pat them on the back when they were almost giving away those tags? No--but when they raised the price the screaming sure started.
Yeah, I do go on some free hunts, and occasionally get a discount on a hunt. But I also shell out thousands of dollars a year on hunting in various places, and have yet to bitch about the prices other states, provinces or countries charge. If I don't like it, I look elsewhere.
Yeah, I'm "lucky" that I can count those hunts as business expenses. All that was required was working a lot of other jobs (mostly labor) during my 20's while learning my profession. Even after starting to make a full-time living as a writer at age 30, I didn't make enough money to just survive for several more years. I never hunted anywhere outside of Montana or went on an outfitted hunt until I was 35. All those "free" hunts are the only benefits I get with the job--which isn't the best-paying in the world. But I decided long ago to make this my life, so don't bitch and whine.
Anymore most of my hunting is, once again, back home here in Montana. I buy the resident combination license just like anybody else, and hunt mostly on public land or Block Management. There are 3-4 farms and ranches I can hunt on, because I'm friends with the owners, but I don't have exclusive rights to hunt any of those places. Oh, and I have gotten permission to hunt private land several times because I've volunteered to shoot varmints or doe deer, which eventually morphed into permission to hunt bucks as well.
I had mixed feelings about 161, because I have a number of friends who are outfitter--but I also watched the quick and considerable rise in outfitter-leased land when the guaranteed tags started. There was a lot of anger among average hunters back then, and evidently there still is. You bitching about a $200 price hike isn't going to make it go away, and isn't getting much sympathy here because $200 obviously isn't a 60% rise in what you pay each year to hunt Montana.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
