Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game If your born in Montana this is good news...

Well written.


Travis

Very well said. Thank you. Nice to know that there are rational and logical people out there in the game fields of North America.

Tool, thanks for posting supporting evidence to my posts. I would still like to add, that although, NR licences were down, they still made close to $2 million more than if it had stayed with the old Outfitter sponsored tags type of system.

So, is this really going to happen? Or is it an internet myth?

4100,

Not sure where you are getting your information but according to FWP, there is no way to know at this point of the exact revenue stream and the exact cause(s). The situation is very dynamic due to many factors - I-161 and HB607 might have the largest impact but that is yet to be determined (throw in predators, weather and economy to confuse even more). Additionally, the license sales and fiscal year do not match up which provides additional confusion. FWP is now starting to sort out all the data and will hope to have a better handle once this is complete. HB607 really threw a monkey wrench into the works since it mandated all funds are now deposited into the general license account. One thing is for sure though, in years past, demand was greater than supply. In 2011, this was not the case.

So I will wait for the data before making anymore statements concerning I-161's effect on revenue. However, I still stand by my statement concerning a backfire as 20% increase of outfitter leased land was not forecasted.

I wonder if anyone is paying attention to the automatic increase in non-resident licenses - this is now tied to the urban cost of living index.

If I recall correctly all the NR tags available were sold out for the 2011 season. So how can anyone claim the demand was less. Sure maybe you had fewer people applying, but the money those people sent in has to be returned anyway for not getting drawn; less the drawing fee. The # of NR tags didn't change.

Yes, the NR tags initially sold out but nearly 1000 were returned. HB607 allowed a "split off" and refund policy. In addition, Montana has a policy that allows refunds due to unforseen circumstances. The telltale is the alternate list, this year it was approximately 120. As mentioned, FWP is number crunching in an effort to provide salient data. As a side note, FWP supported HB607.

Thread has gone to hell, but I consider the "kill" a bonus. Worked my ass off hunting/fishing a "few" times. Kill or not, great memories. Wouldn't change a thing.

If my "sole instigator" is to kill...guess I am doing wrong.

carry on....

Well stated. Can't say I can remember the kill but surely remember the hunt.

Tool, you certainly have changed your position sense the begging of this thread. Kudos for admitting you were wrong. I also get the feeling that you have talked with someone you trust on this subject to have done that. Your last post is right in line with my original one. Do you have a link, or somewhere else we can go to get proof of the 20% increase in leased lands?

Obviously .....

4100,

My position and opinion remains the same - I believe I-161 was a poorly crafted bill that would have the opposite effect of the stated intentions. I am also of the opinion that the real reasons for I-161 were never transparent. I still think I-161 caused NR to hunt elsewhere but willing to wait for the published data (the outfitter sponsored license funded hunter access so this directly effects resident hunters). The opponents of I-161 warned that leased land would increase, funding of hunter access would decrease and non-residents would spend thier dollars in other states. Many applaud I-161 as non-residents and outfitters are seen as some kind of enemy. My own theory - as hunters, we are already on an island and pushing off our friends will seal our fate. In Montana, the outfitting community has been unfairly branded while they have acted as ambassadors for our glorious state. They also have given back so much more through their Big Hearts Under the Big Sky program.

I don't have a link to the leased land numbers as that is also being looked at by FWP. However, as you guessed, the information does come from a trusted source. I also don't think the resident license price will increase but that is a guess based on rumors.

Tool said:
Wrong
I've proven that I-161 made almost $2 million more in revenue than the old "outfitter sponsored" system. You blamed I-161 as a reason for the shortfall.


The purpose of the bill was to stop an unfair subsidy to a small segment of our hunting society. One that feeds off of the public resource. Uncontrolled growth occurred in that industry, and they were given a blank check to do so with what ever they wanted. The system was being abused badly. More "guides" were hired to fill in under outfitter's licences. Thousands of acres were off limits to general public because the land owner, became a guide, and let NR in to hunt. Those lands weren't under lease because of this. They may be now and be part of the 20% increase in leased land you claim . I don't know.


You have got to be kidding me. I had to clean the puke off my mouth before finishing this.

Big Hearts Under the Big Sky program has been in existence for 4 short years. Great PR for the industry. [b]BUT[/b] there are only 16 participating outfitters out of 600. Don't paint a picture of what great ambassadors they are for our glorious state with that small percentage of good doers. I can give you way more clippings of outfitters that have been busted for illegal activities than you want.

Which one of the 16 outfitters are you?

In a free market system it only makes sense that the logical conclusion to leasing is that every available acre of land that holds game is leased at whatever price the market will bear at some point in the future. The areas that are good or have the potential to be good will be the most expensive, BMA will disappear because it will not be able to compete with the market price, and public land will start to become overrrun with those unable or unwilling to pay to hunt. We'll begin to see people buying ranchland as investment property, with the sole intent of farming the wildlife to the point that they can get pics of some big ones and then sell the land for a premium. Hunting as a tradition in MT will cease to exist within the bulk of the general population. Token efforts like "Big Hearts..." will do nothing to change any of this. There are two possible solutions to this as I see it: Make leasing of hunting rights illegal or severely limit the number of outfitters and the acreage that they can control. The second option would not serve to fix the problem nearly as well as the first, too many folks out there like DINK and worse.

Afraid I missed HB607.

As far as the refund polcy goes the longer one waits to return the tag the lower the refund.

Farming animals just to lease property is already happening.

With tags costing almost a thousand dollars now as time goes on and tag prices increase further only people with money will hunt. Those people will not hunt public land or pay a trespass fee to hunt. They will want fully guided hunts with gourmet chefs. Outfitters will able to lease all the ground because their clients will not have to compete with the average guy for tags.

Dink

well....I do not know why I am stupid enough to weigh in on a subject like this...glutton for punishment I guess.

Toolelk is correct...161 was poorly thought out, whether by accident or design.(be sure to thank those who voted in 161 for your increase in RESIDENT license fees, part of the FWP shortfall aforementioned).

161 opened (some of you will need to google this)Pandora's Box. When we had the outfitter set-aside license(OSL) we had a lot of rules/regulations to deal with. We were going backward in numbers of hunting outfitters and acres leased(part of the give/take w/ the OSL)...now those conditions are gone, and I am willing to wager that the acres leased by outfitters is way up since 161 passed. Unintended consequences I warned about, and there are many more that I did not forsee(like res. license fees going up).

Let's talk about the percieved issue. Access. If we are all honest(some will not be able), there really is no access issue. There are plenty of places to access(for free) and hunt. I have checked, there is not a city/town in Montana that is less than a 30 minute drive to free public hunting. So access can not be the issue. There are 30 million acres of public lands w/ adequate access, and another 8.5M acres of Block Management...and at time of passage of 161 outfitters were leasing 6.2m acres...and we caused an access issue? Give me a break. We can not track the number of acres leased by resident or non-resident hunters...we also have no way of knowing if a landowner is just using "leased out" as an easy way out of telling you "Nope, you can't hunt here"....so before throwing the entire blame of "access" onto the outfitter think about it a little.

Now, let's shift gears...to the real issue, which is not one of access, but one of quality. The public is tired of no quality. I can read it in the above posts. If you think things are bad now just wait a year or two when there are an additional 100-200K people living in Montana because of the oil boom...we can not keep a 5 week long rut encompassing general firearms season and have any game left. If you want quality demand wildlife be managed biologically.

If you are going to get personal or disrespectful, have the wherewithal to sign your real name.
Eric Albus, landowner/sportsman/outfitter

If outfitters/leasers and access are not an issue and it is the hunting public that is being dishonest, answer me this: If you were leasing a ranch and an adjacent ranch became available for you to lease which would allow you to lock up access to several thousand acres of public, would you do it? If you could lease every single acre of land in the county(s) you work in would you? The idea is for the outfitter to make money, the more land you control the more money you can make. This is counter to the enjoyment of every hunter, resident and NR, that hunts without a babysitter or a lease.

As to the 5 week season and increasing pressure on the resource, you have a good point. Instead of shortening the season (I live in a 3 week deer season area - 640) I think putting the tags on a draw would be a better route to more quality. Shorter, non-rut seasons only prompt the average hunter to shoot smaller bucks, not no buck at all. This decreases quality. A draw only season in large portions of the state would also serve to reduce the # of leasers, as it would be tough to lease year to year without any way of knowing if you would get to hunt the next year.

**I seriously doubt that 100-200k more people will hit MT as a part of the forecast boom. None of the wells in this part of the Bakken have hit anything even approaching the quantity of oil that has been found in ND. It's all speculative for the time being. Now all bets are off if a big well comes in, even then drilling in MT is less lucrative and more cumbersome (regs) than it is in ND.

Projections for Bainville, Plentywood, Culbertson are over 50K people in the next 5 years....the drilling has commenced in Shelby, supposedly the next big boom area. Don't know either if it will happen, even if it does not, Montana is growing in population....

Leasor's of land (whether it's an outfitter/resident sportsman/non-res. sportsman are all contributing to access issues)...never said they were not...I just said it is not solely the outfitters who are leasing. Still, w/ 30 million acres of public land and 8.5M acres of BMA's there is plenty of access...just not to much in the way of quality most (not all) places.

As to the permits, I agree. It is where we will eventually wind up. I for one would like to start w/ less restrictive measures first. Why don't we work on re-structuring our hunting seasons? Like Sept. 1 thru Sept 30 archery only season. Then Oct. 5 thru Oct. 20(or 25) any weapon general season, then Oct. 30-Nov 8 muzzleloader(no in-lines no scopes), followed by another archery season Nov. 10-Nov 30. Now we have just created more opportunity w/ less impact on the resource. As time goes on the system would undoubtly need changed, like maybe a person would have to pick which season(s) they wanted to hunt. This is a better solution than going to a permit situation right at the start.

Nov. is the best month of the year!! I'd hate to lose the opportunity to rifle hunt for big game at that time of year. To my way of thinking, fewer people in the field (permit system) and a 5 week season would make for outstanding hunts. Those that hunt exclusively for meat could shoot cows and does on over the counter tags. No reason that resident kids 18 and under couldn't have either sex tags every year.