Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game TAGS IN MT

The amount that Montana is charging for tags is ridiculous; it is short changing its wildlife and sportsman. The non-res combo tag should well over 1000, and yes, I put in every year as a non-res. If hunting is that important to you, you will make it a priority to save for it. If the state wants to sell guaranteed tags, great, charge more, double, whatever, put some money in farmers and rancher pockets through outfitters and increase the state wildlife budget. Same thing with sheep, goat, and moose tags�they should follow New Mexico�s lead and push the 3500 dollar mark. .22% chance at 680 with 6 bonus points as a non res, are you kidding me�Pay to play. Bump all the tags up, I hope they charge all they can, use every avenue they can to channel money into F&G. I live in Alaska, born and raised in mt, and I cannot go on a hunt in AK that includes any flight service for less than 1500�.MT is the best deal going, bar none.

There is an upper wise limit on tag prices and IMO that is where the average person can no longer even dream of a hunt and it becomes a rich person's sport exclusively. By the way, this is not sour grapes because I can afford it. When it becomes the domain of only the wealthy, we will all be much more politically vulnerable. If we want our sport to go on, we will need to strive to maximize involvement. Sorry stoneriver, but pay to play sounds more like Chicago politics than hunting in my home state.

I don't think we should be looking at the price of tags as whether it is a "good" value. Rather the price should be set to support the necessary functions of the FWP to manage our fish/hunting seasons and to protect our fish/game populations. Why should we have to pay more than that? All the other "happy [bleep]" functions of FWP should be paid by all state residents out of general funds.

I agree, wildlife belong to the state of montana, not the property owners where the wildlife reside. The ranch owners/managers that I have talked to don't see it that way. Elk are a large cash crop to most of them. If money is the issue, what about requiring trophy tags, some sort of progressive scale base on rack points?
After all a typical 5x5 bull is treated differently then a 7x7.

I like the guys that charge a trespass fee based on the number of points the deer or elk has or x amount for a doe or cow. Can't figure out how that equates to anything other than selling publicly owned property. I'm thinking later today I'll put the state's new rotary plow on ebay and see how I do.