Nonresident Montana Elk/Deer licenses may go to outfitters?

[badlands13]

Looks like the Montana legislature has a bill that has an allotment of nonresident tags going towards outfitters. This is the way it was a few years ago when they finally got rid of that rule. Even worse now is it looks like this bill may give preference to outfitters tags over people who have been applying for years in good units.

https://www.facebook.com/stalkhuntingguide/posts/1064759560666708

https://leg.mt.gov/legislator-information/

 

[PrairieGhost]

Outfitters are like sheep. Mountain maggots.

 

[Wags2.0]

Being out of state, and having hunted Montana a couple times this really sucks. If i was a resident of Montana im not sure how'd id feel.

 

[Fly Carpin]

There's a growing coalition of rational hunters out here that are loudly voicing their opposition (myself included). It will likely go through many, many rewrites, but as it's written right now, if you don't want to hire an outfitter or if you don't have a landowner sponsor when you apply, you're pretty well screwed. It's a bill written to force nonresidents to hire an outfitter or pay a landowner to hunt elk and deer.

Here's a link to the bill language.
https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2021/billpdf/SB0143.pdf

 

[8andcounting]

It won’t pass

 

[SDMF]

IIRC, it used to be about a 60/40 split with 60% of the NR combo tags going into the lottery and 40% going to the outfitters. RESIDENT hunters opposed this basically because with guaranteed tags some outfitters were using deposit $$ to lease more land taking away opportunity from DIY hunters.

2011, MT went to virtually 100% of the combo tags go into the lottery (very small number for landowner sponsored tags and former residents with resident family to come home to hunt). The guaranteed outfitter tags sold at a premium vs. lottery tags. The price for the lottery tags went up to offset the premium that the outfitter tags used to generate. Again, this elimination of guaranteed outfitter tags was driven by resident hunters. I seriously doubt that the resident hunters will allow guaranteed outfitter tags to return anytime soon.

 

[8andcounting]

IIRC, it used to be about a 60/40 split with 60% of the NR combo tags going into the lottery and 40% going to the outfitters. RESIDENT hunters opposed this basically because with guaranteed tags some outfitters were using deposit $$ to lease more land taking away opportunity from DIY hunters.

2011, MT went to virtually 100% of the combo tags go into the lottery (very small number for landowner sponsored tags and former residents with resident family to come home to hunt). The guaranteed outfitter tags sold at a premium vs. lottery tags. The price for the lottery tags went up to offset the premium that the outfitter tags used to generate. Again, this elimination of guaranteed outfitter tags was driven by resident hunters. I seriously doubt that the resident hunters will allow guaranteed outfitter tags to return anytime soon.

spot on . It won’t pass . Tag odds are still relatively good , outfitters are doing fine .

 

[Fritz the Cat]

In Montana, when a lot of wildlife are wintering or doing some depredating on a ranchers property, the State was not required to compensate but instead they gave that landowner a couple tags to sell or give away. This was done for tolerance by the landowner of a whole bunch of wildlife congregating.

Whatever happened to that? Do they still do it?

 

[SDMF]

spot on . It won’t pass . Tag odds are still relatively good , outfitters are doing fine .

I suspect leases in special draw areas are expensive and of course an outfitter can charge a lot more for guiding those hunters as well given that they take so long to draw, folks will pay extra.

Outfitters trying to tip the scales their way is nothing new.

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IIRC, when the resident hunters organized to get rid of guaranteed outfitter tags, they essentially deemed/labeled the guaranteed tags as "State Welfare" given to the "businesses". Basically, the businesses couldn't stand on their own merits without the allocated tags. Leasing of private that was cutting off access to public is what really steamed the DIY folks into organizing.

 

[Whisky]

Playing devils advocate.....that was 10 years ago. What has changed? An undeniable boom in Western hunting, and overcrowding of public lands. I would suspect a fair amount of R MT hunters might now be for this, again. It would take nearly 40% of the NR pressure away from the public lands?

Fly Carpin, I'm curious about your coalition of rational hunters. What's the main reason they are against it, still the same?
Keep up the fight, in this case, I certainly appreciate it. Thanks

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It won’t pass

I didn't think Biden would be our POTUS either....

 

[ndlongshot]

There's a growing coalition of rational hunters out here that are loudly voicing their opposition (myself included). It will likely go through many, many rewrites, but as it's written right now, if you don't want to hire an outfitter or if you don't have a landowner sponsor when you apply, you're pretty well screwed. It's a bill written to force nonresidents to hire an outfitter or pay a landowner to hunt elk and deer.

Taking a page out of the WY playbook. Reserve half the state for themselves. (Legislature is usually the same landowners, guides and outfitters lobbying for themselves. Come to think of it, not that much different in Nodak!)

 

[SDMF]

Playing devils advocate.....that was 10 years ago. What has changed? An undeniable boom in Western hunting, and overcrowding of public lands. I would suspect a fair amount of R MT hunters might now be for this, again. It would take nearly 40% of the NR pressure away from the public lands?

Plenty of outfitters operate on public land in MT. Give them several years worth of guaranteed tag hunt deposits and they'll have more $$ to pay guides to be out scouting earlier, put up more tents/camps essentially "claiming" the best areas for their paying clients ahead of seasons, and the biggie, looking for more places to lease that restrict public access to public land. In MT there's lots of places where the private land is very few acres but follows a creek/drainage with a narrow private land "dart" into a vast area of public. I know of a place where an easement grants one access to a giant area of public land, but, one must walk 3Mi of creek bottom to the end of the water-rights before venturing out onto the public land. There's a well established foot/horse trail and if you leave it before the end of the easement, you've trespassed and will be prosecuted as such if it's discovered. The private land is 3Mi long but only about 200yds wide and it's the only access into a large drainage. If an outfitter were to lease that little strip, they'd have exclusive rights to 6-7Sq-Mi of mountains and meadows, there's no other way in short of a helicopter.

Give an outfitter say 10 combo tags that he sells the hunts for $6K each. Require 50% down and book out 3-4yrs and the outfitter has $9K-$12K worth of downpayment with which to lease access.

 

[LBrandt]

Its all about the money, and soon the king will own all the critters.

 

[Fly Carpin]

Plenty of outfitters operate on public land in MT. Give them several years worth of guaranteed tag hunt deposits and they'll have more $$ to pay guides to be out scouting earlier, put up more tents/camps essentially "claiming" the best areas for their paying clients ahead of seasons, and the biggie, looking for more places to lease that restrict public access to public land. In MT there's lots of places where the private land is very few acres but follows a creek/drainage with a narrow private land "dart" into a vast area of public. I know of a place where an easement grants one access to a giant area of public land, but, one must walk 3Mi of creek bottom to the end of the water-rights before venturing out onto the public land. There's a well established foot/horse trail and if you leave it before the end of the easement, you've trespassed and will be prosecuted as such if it's discovered. The private land is 3Mi long but only about 200yds wide and it's the only access into a large drainage. If an outfitter were to lease that little strip, they'd have exclusive rights to 6-7Sq-Mi of mountains and meadows, there's no other way in short of a helicopter.

Give an outfitter say 10 combo tags that he sells the hunts for $6K each. Require 50% down and book out 3-4yrs and the outfitter has $9K-$12K worth of downpayment with which to lease access.

As per usual, this guy gets the bigger picture. Good insight

 

[SDMF]

The entire "Mountain West" has thousands of tiny strips of private land tied to water rights from the 2nd half of the 1800's. "Tiny Strips" doesn't sound like much, but, those "Tiny Strips" are often the access points to major drainages.

During the Homestead act one could tie up 220yds wide X 2Mi long for their "Free" 160Ac. They'd claim the land that had water/creek access and leave the grazing land as public because without access to the water, nobody would move in on them.

These are easy to spot on just about every map in any of the mountain west that shows public/private ownership. The valley floors are pretty much all private as they had water and fertile land then folks claimed water rights as narrow as possible for as far as possible up into the canyons to keep other ranchers/farmers out.

 

[Enslow]

The tag game has become a real joke. Our taxes pay for the majority of each states fish and wildlife budget through the department of the interior. Then we have to pay big dollars to maybe draw a tag. The cost to even have the legal right to hunt is waaay out of control.

 

[8andcounting]

The tag game has become a real joke. Our taxes pay for the majority of each states fish and wildlife budget through the department of the interior. Then we have to pay big dollars to maybe draw a tag. The cost to even have the legal right to hunt is waaay out of control.

Yup , and in Montana specifically a huge % of their game and fish is funded by us the NR which I why a NR deer tag is $700 and big game combo almost $1100

 

[Jiffy]

Man I don't know, I like elk but 1100 bucks buys a lot of ribeye.

 

[ndlongshot]

Man I don't know, I like elk but 1100 bucks buys a lot of ribeye.

But lets be honest, thats not the only reason you are out there. Its not the reason we have $60,000 boats for walleye, either.

 

[Whisky]

As per usual, this guy gets the bigger picture. Good insight

Roger that