Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game COLORADO hunting fee increase

I sent the suggestion instead of increasing license fees by 100%, why not increase the application fee across the board? If they increased the application fee to $10-15 across the board but not increase the overall cost of the license wouldn't they bring in more revenue? The application fee isn't refundable and the base sharing the costs would be greater. There is already a $15 fee on any turned in tags for refund or point returns they could just add that fee to all refunds.

There was almost 200K elk applications in 2016 and at $10 non refundable application fee that would be almost 2 million dollars and a net gain of almost 1.4 million. Net gain for deer would be nearly 1.3 million and a nearly 400K for pronghorn. So right there they would see a 3 million dollar revenue boost without raising the overall cost of any big game tag. There isn't an application fee for small game or fishing so why not just increase the tags by $5 for each one or $8 on a combo.

I wonder what's going to happen with tags like OTC bear. Who's going to throw an $80 tag in their pocket for the slim chance of seeing a bear on an elk or deer hunt. I'll still apply for all my normal tags, but I'll stop picking up OTC tags for areas I didn't want to originally hunt. I'll start saving that money to go on hunts out of state or overseas. If I start throwing all my refunds into a slush fund for hunting at $1000 per year in Colorado apps for my daughter and I, and $2000 with 100% increase it wouldn't take long to go somewhere else on a hunt.

If you want to see what raising the license fees way high you have to look no farther than California. Almost a 40% drop in sales since 1986. Fishing license sales are also way down. You get absolutely nothing for you license money. Except for the Game Wardens and Biologist your money goes to the fat cats in Sacramento who sit on their asses and make up rules and laws that border on the edge of absurd. Their whole plan revolves around how much money they can generate. No Senior break on fees, so called lead free zones, no hunting Bear with dogs which has caused their population to double to the detriment of the Deer population. I could go on and on but I wouldn't mind paying if I got something back for it. Oh, and the Governor can dip into those fees anytime he wants.

Not the case here.

Way cheaper to trespass.

We run into this at my job sometimes. Because of the very nature of the experience we provide it won't change much over the years, but the cost of providing that experience goes up as maintenance supplies, wages(always a big one), etc increase overtime. So people sometimes whine when there is a fee increase since their basic experience doesn't change all that much but they have to pay more for it.

But unless you can figure out a way to end inflation and keep wages stagnant you're always going to deal with fee increases, even if the basic experience you're paying for doesn't change all that much.

There is inflation of 3% and there is an increase of 100%. Poor fiscal management does not equate with this large an increase

I read the article, and it said that CP&W had cut both staff and annual budget. And as Pitkin pointed out, costs continue to rise.

It never made sense to why organizations choose to not deal with inflation annually. The range I shoot at doubled their day rate from $5 to $10 after holding at $5 for 10 years. Folks bitched then got over it.