Originally Posted by LopeSticker
Originally Posted by JGRaider
I haven't done any research but I think tags (any State) should be priced at a level high enough so that demand is not hurt by it, generating the most revenue possible. In other words, they should "get all they can get" without hurting demand. That's what I'd do anyway.


Should F&G eBay all the tags? That maximizes revenue. Bunding first access to the unit to the highest bidder will generate even higher bids. How about the approach where applicants blind bid all tags then everyone pays the lowest price that is needed to sell out that tag?

Be aware, the sheep tags will go for around $30,000 each in the blind bid and around $40,000 average in the eBay scenario. Teddy Roosevelt will not be happy, though, as will turn the Big 3 tags into the playground of only what most current big game hunters would view as the wealthy.

Or, keep the current process but drop the resident preference so more tags go to non-residents which pay more for each tag sold?

Do people deserve a sheep tag that are not wealthy? If the goal of F&G is merely to maximize revenues then the answer needs to be you as a hunter earn a Big 3 tag by first accumulating wealth that exceeds all but a few folks that hunt. If F&G wants to offer a chance for a wide variety of hunters of varied socio-economic classes of hunters to participate then needs to keep the tag price as low as possible.

Colorado is experiencing the growth in a voting population majority which is not hunter nor trapper friendly. A revenue-maximization scheme is short-sighted and will hurt recruitment of resident big game hunters which in turn accelerates the pace of imposed restrictions on hunting and will lead to the voter-approved introduction of wolves and grizzly bears.


No offense dude but you went way off the reservation in the above assessment.

Colorado’s struggle is not a bad one to have if you are in charge of the coffers, they are caught in between not wanting to reduce opportunity at the expense of losing revenue but they know that they have to do something in the name of wildlife management because right now there is just too much pressure in the field and it’s growing. How they curtail the flood gate to non res has to be balanced so they don’t lose revenue, the question is how do you do that without losing money. That’s where discussion of trying to price people out of the game comes from. If you are used to selling 75,000 non resident licenses at $660 but you only want to allow 50,000 non res to hunt you gotta figure out how to not lose money so you’d have to raise the fee several hundred dollars to keep making the same money. It will be interesting to see what they do in the coming years. 250,000 people hunt elk in Colorado annually to the tune of a overall 17% success rate, it would be nice to see less hunters and bump that success rate some, because 17% ain’t very good if you take into account, private land hunts, guided hunts and outfitted hunts all offer much higher success rates than the public land DIY hunter.