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Case closed? Hardly Dave. Do you intentionally distort the facts, or just not comprehend what you read? Here's exactly what I said about the Pawnee:



No gripes from me Dave, because I'm not local to that part of the state, and I haven't been there in the last few years. Just making the observation that the locals' comments were interesting. But no doubt, you know better than they do.

Damn Dave

You're a pro at veering off topic, providing compelling arguments against what you're promoting and promoting what you claim to detest.

Some general comments:

I was born and raised in Montana, and except for a few years elsewhere, have lived here all my life. Saw what the "old" Forest Service did to mountain timberlands in the 1960's, back when the FS was essentially run by timber companies: A bunch of mountains were scalped regardless of slope or common sense, to the point where some slopes didn't produce much timber, elk, or even grazing for many years--and ruined a lot of trout streams as well.

Oh, and the many, many roads didn't help elk either. In 1975 the elk harvest in Idaho had dropped to 1/4 of what it had been, due to so much clearcutting and so many roads.

That's part of the reason FS management has been hamstrung by lawsuits for many years: Multiple-use management was unknown, and as citizens began to realize that they demanded some voice in the process.

Of course, that has been forgotten by many today, including those who believe there's no reason for the Clean Water Act. Hey, we have lots of clean water--now. But I was around when the Clark Fork of the Columbia ran red with mining waste, killing trout and whitefish from Butte to below Missoula.

I'm very pro-logging, partly because I would love to see more of the modern-style smaller clearcuts, which helped my hunting considerably over the decades. But I am far from sure that turning the forest lands over to the state will results in a magical transformation. Partly that's because of what I've seen in state-owned grazing lands in eastern Montana, compared to BLM lands.

But part of its because of what I've seen of state-owned lands in other western states. I've seen them sold to real estate interests, ruining not just plenty of good game country but blocking the access of much remaining country.

Then there's the cost of fighting fires, which are NOT always prevented by "good management." Anybody noticed that the state of Montana doesn't have a hell of a lot excess funds lately?

Was that from the scene where Chico and Harpo were playing cards with those ladies?

California does not have an income problem, it has a spending problem.

Even with 12 and a 1/2% royalties from the BLM managed O&G wells (the state of Montana gets 1/2 and the Federal govt gets 1/2), the state of Montana is hurting for money huh? Not to mention the revenue it makes from gambling...

States are every bit as bad as the feds when it comes to financial decisions...

Montana was awash in O&G money 2-3 years ago, but the bottom's dropped out of that until the next boom, as it always does. They haven't run through the tax profits yet, but aren't running a deficit either.

I worked in the eastern Montana oil patch during the last boom before the Bakken, back in the early 1980's. It was great while it lasted too.

I just think its funny that the big push is always tourism.

Thats all well and good......but with a state with no sales tax?

My property tax has not gone down....just the opposite.

The main point for me would be that all these little tracts of land are not a money maker or even breaking even.

When these lands exist within a county, the counties themselves are paid for them because the counties cant squeeze tax revenue out of the acres.

The feds pay the counties PILT money. Probably a good deal for the counties, but not such a good deal for the tax payers.

Same as you born and raised in MT..hunted for 50 years now.
I'm not sure about Idaho harvests in 1975 but I hunted the Clark Fork drainage for elk beginning in 1974 to 1990 and the hunting was incredible. I hunted the tributaries of White Pine, Pilgram, and Trout Cr. hard against the ID border...heavily logged... and the hay day of MT logging...and recently logged. I also hunted the areas N and NW of Saltese.. The hunting was great and most all of the areas were logged and logging roads , cuts, after a heavy snow were preferred. I will simply say the elk hunting in NW Montana was excellent in the 70's era you refer to.

Fished, floated the Clark in the same time frame and the fishing was great...running red with mine waste/fish kills is simply BS as near as I can tell

The 7% "bed tax," on motels, lodges, etc. is erssentially a sales tax directed specically at the tourist industry. But of that 7%, 3% goes into the general fund, and in eastern Montana, where incomes are normally lower than western Montana, an across-the-board sales tax would tend to be a heavier burden on many locals.

Property taxes in Montana are levied on a local basis, adjusted for property value. Dunno what's happening in your part of the state, but in my particular county in rural southwestern Montana, our property taxes haven't gone up much in the 27 years we've lived here. But they sure have in Bozeman, and to a lesser extent Helena, which are in other counties on either side of us.

One thing's for sure: Not enough of the tax money from the oil and gas industry got spent in eastern Montana, where it was needed most.

Our taxes have gone up quite a bit, but I chalk that up to the manner in which our county is run.

They used to say that if you drew a line north to south right through Great Falls that the revenue came from one side, and the benefit went to the other side.

Dont know if that is still true, or ever was.

Always funny to see a guy who makes his living and sells himself as a "conservative freelance writer" talk about how someone else sells a perspective.

Dave, you think you have a unique perspective and insight that no one else has. You said as much a few posts back. It sounds good and it might fool some people but that's just how you make your living. You promote it and sell it. I would say your quote above is just the pot calling the kettle black but that doesn't really work. Because all we have here is the pot.

Dave often tells the world about me. He's never spoke to me, never written to me, never asked a question of me. A small circle of folks up in his neighborhood loop Dave in on emails and rumors that occasionally have me and my life as the topic of discussion. And when those emails and other rumors get shared with me it's some pretty funny stuff.

Dave should know I make my living by disinheriting the Federal Treasury. For 29 years I've been a CPA where people pay me more than I am probably worth to make sure their income tax and estate tax liability is the lowest legally possible. That's what allows me to pay my bills and do the rest of the things that piss off Dave's friends.

For him to say I "sell it" is hilarious. So funny, I didn't even bother to respond to him when he posted it. I've never taken a dime from my TV show, podcast, or website. I've signed the front of many checks to get that operation off the ground and keep it afloat. Someday I hope to sign the back of a check. Any cash gets reinvested in the platforms and/or gladly donated back to the cause of hunting, conservation, and public land access.

Dave would know that if he took the time to ask. I'm a pretty open book; proud to come from a logging family and the connection that gave/gives me to the landscape beyond what I get from hunting and my interaction with business owner-clients who make a living off the land. But so long as Dave relies on the emails and rumors from the local talent he runs with, truth and facts are not likely to have a place in anything Dave writes about me.

Dave's comments about lazy journalists distorting the truth make me laugh my arse off. Kind of like Bernie Madoff speaking out on trustworthiness. Dave's comment that I only spend a few days/weeks in Montana is another laugher. I could go on, but Dave's ramblings about people do a good job of self-identifying his work product as being clueless.

I'm in the phone book, Dave. If ever you want some actual facts to distribute to your circle of intellects (heavy sarcasm), give a call.

Now, back to the questions, Dave.

I'll again ask the one most relevant to the 24HCF crowd - How you going to tell the NRA that the plan you and your pals are promoting will eliminate recreational and target shooting on hundreds of millions of acres?

10at6,

The upper Clark Fork running red occurred in the 1960's, and is a matter of record. A little digging can find information on it from various sources. By the 1970's much of the river had recovered, though mostly below where Rock Creek enters, 22 miles above Missoula, due to the large amount of clean water entering there.

But even in the late 1970's the number of fish in the river was much smaller than below Rock Creek, with the exception of below the settling ponds near Anaconda. Brown trout could cope with the water there, but rainbows and cutthroat were basically gone, and along the banks were easily-seen layers of copper waste. That areas been cleaned up considerably since then, but it took years to mitigate most of the after-effects. I'm familiar with all this partly through working with FWP on various projects along the upper Clark Fork during those years.

Starting in the mid-1970's I also hunted the area near Saltese for elk and deer for several years, and yes, it was very good. But by then the Forest Service had started gating off many side-roads during the fall, eliminating motorized access outside of the main canyon roads. Prior to then just about all the logging roads remained open, leaving few places for game to get away from hunters. One of my favorite hunting areas was around a 7-mile-long closed side-road, which helped a lot in getting game out, even on horses.

Idaho's elk harvest dropped from over 16,000 a year in 1960 to 4000-some in 1975, which happened to be the period of heaviest logging and greatest access due to thousands of miles of new FS roads. That is also a matter of record.

As noted in my other post, I am not anti-logging, mostly because since my years of hunting around Saltese I've had great success hunting around seasonally CLOSED logging roads that helped me find, and pack out, game around clearcuts. In fact I wish more logging would be done right around where I live now, because the new, smaller-size clearcuts that were great hunting when I moved here 27 years ago are grown up in thick, 20-foot-tall trees. Some of them burned a couple years ago, which will help, but more small clear-cuts would help just as much, if not more.

Randy:
Try not to exaggerate so much. States like California probably aren't interested because Sacramento likes preservation status. And there are millions of acres that are already under Congressional restrictions of other types that guarantee they would be fiscal losers -- no state will want those under any circumstances anyway. So there will still be millions of acres open unless, of course, federal policy changes.
As for "recreational and target shooting" -- you mean drive out in the woods and go bang? I'm sorry to say it, but some time ago I went up to the Rampart Range shooting area and came away pretty ashamed at the mess. I never fired a shot myself, I belonged to the range at Pueblo and wasn't up there for shooting. But I did stop and look out of curiosity.
Nobody picks up after themselves. Or they'll try to shoot down a tree just because they can. Old monitors, propane bottles, junk of all kinds...
Then there are "public ranges" and formal shooting positions, but those tend to get wrecked rather quickly too without some kind of adult supervision -- the kind of supervision that requires effort worthy of a paycheck. Or controlled access.
Can you really argue with a straight face that a state might restrict random "target shooting" and that would be a truly bad thing, even if the state establishes formal ranges (well backstopped and safe) in convenient locations as compensation? In a state like Montana, that's a pretty likely outcome and one that I don't think would be a negative.

John, the crux is SEASONAL closures. Back in the 1990s when the bottom fell out on the federal harvest side, I participated in discussions about seasonal closures as a means of protecting game and habitat. Seasonal closures (or year-to-year rotationals) would work with the public if they happened for valid reasons.
Instead, the policy was permanent closure/destruction (with no eye toward the next harvest, or the preferred methods of access/use for the vast majority of visitors). It was arbitrary, a complete waste of past expenditures as well as present funding, and therefore much of the knowledgeable public is resentful of these closures.

And now I'd like to answer both Smoke and Randy:

Hans Wyss ranks right up there with George Soros and Peter Lewis in terms of funding the "nonprofit" parallel universe of progressive political infrastructure. As I said, and as duly reported in a little-known "local business" story in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2006 -- that in turn was about human experimentation conducted by Mr. Wyss's company that resulted in four operating table deaths (at least three with the company sales rep present in the operating room)-- Hans Wyss anonymously gave at least $10 million to the lawsuit-crazy Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued the Fish and Wildlife Service into knots, at our expense.
Just put "Center for Biological Diversity" plus lawsuit into the Google search window.
He is also a major giver to the Center for American Progress, so much money that he enjoys a board seat. Exactly how much, not possible to find out for sure due to nonprofit disclosure requirements, but it's in the millions.
Keep in mind that, as a Swiss national, he's prohibited (like Indonesian coal barons) from giving to political parties and candidates. But giving to "charities" like the Centers is okayyyyy, with no limits, no disclosure from personal assets, and no timely disclosure from his foundations. Those expenditures are only made public at least ten months and sometimes 22 months after the money flows -- and who cares what happened two years ago when there's a scandal today, right? Precisely, kids.
So, Wyss is a strong supporter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, which was founded by Trout Unlimited staffers.
In 2013, Wyss gave BHA 300,000, which in that year had grant revenues of 725,000 -- meaning one single check was 41 percent of BHA's funding.
In 2014, BHA got nothing from Wyss, but other groups did:
Defenders of Wildlife 250 grand -- not exactly pro hunting;
Environment America (used to be Ralph Nader's PIRGs) 12.5 grand, not much, but NADER?
Trout Unlimted 1 million (this is cute because Wyss once called fishing "playing with your food"
Nature Conservancy, 44 million (probably to buy land from timber REITs)
New Venture Fund 6.3 million
The link to the 2013 tax return is here --
http://990.erieri.com/EINS/251823874/251823874_2013_0aa0722e.PDF
go to page 40 and there is the grant to BHA, and right under that is 647,000 to Center for American Progress, John Podesta's think tank. Now, we all remember the stunned John telling everyone to go home from the Javits Center on election night, don't we?
Go ahead, look at that return for 2013 and see how much money this guy nobody's heard of spent on groups we HAVE heard of?
If that doesn't work, go HERE and bookmark the page, it will give you free access to a stunning number of "philanthropic" documents.
http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.c...e=Quick&Cobrandid=0&Syndicate=No

So, why would a sportsman's group be funded by one of the most influential, behind the scenes progressive funders in America, someone who is not allowed to play "real" politics but is doing it through the back door?

George Soros? Seriously Dave? Where's Ted Turner and Obama, surely they must be involved too.