On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 8:46 AM Randy Newberg <XXXXXX
@randynewberg.com> wrote:
Rob and James:
I will be waiting by my phone at 6:30 tomorrow. Hopefully the tone of that call will be less accusatory and presumptuous than the emails you’ve sent.
As for you relying on someone “familiar with my career,” you’ve obviously got your information from someone very unfamiliar with me and my career. But, proceed as you may.
As for my career, I am a CPA. That is how I make my livelihood, not from any of the hunting platforms I have built. I do the hunting and public land advocacy as a passion, the same as I volunteer for multiple non-profit hunting/conservation/public land groups. We operate our platforms based on a
WHY that has not changed since we started in 2008 –
“To promote self-guided public-land hunting and create advocates for that cause.” I have not taken a dime from the media operation in my eleven years of doing so. If it could be my livelihood, that would be great, but such is not the case today and if it never becomes my livelihood, it will be time and money well invested.
A few things that you might want to know before you start down a trail I suspect was provided to you by one or more of a small handful of critics with an axe to grind. Every question you have asked could easily be answered by watching our YouTube channel, our Amazon channel, or reading the threads I post on our Hunt Talk forum, links to which are provided in my signature below. I’ll give you a bit of background here, making our time on the phone more productive.
I would suggest you go back to the historical draw odds and check out how easy some of these tags were to draw at the time we applied. One of the hunts you mentioned had 100% draw odds in the Special Draw that year, with some tags dropping to second choice applicants. One of the other hunts you mention could be drawn with 1.5 points and had very high odds in the random Special Draw.
Go check the same for the hunt you seem most concerned about; 19-2. Before it became a popular recommendation in the research services like Huntin’ Fool, Unit 19 could be drawn without many points in the Special Draw and there were not nearly as many people applying for the late Type 2 hunt as there are today. The two times I drew in a party, it was with long-time friends who I have hunted with in many states. They both had higher point totals than I did. Both of them shot elk. On one of those two hunts, I shot a bull and on the other, I did not shoot a bull.
One of the hunts you mentioned, 39-1, we did a hunt for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation TV show. I took a long-time friend from Michigan, who happens to have a serious heart condition. My focus was for him to get an elk. He did; his first bull, his only bull, and a good chance it is his last elk. I did not fire a round on that hunt.
These guys are not internet strangers solicited for some personal benefit as is implied when you equate the activities on Monster Muley with me hunting with long-time friends. I have hunted with these people in many other states; Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Alaska, and New Mexico. They often come to Montana and hunt here. Some places they were the low point holder. I have joined them on many hunts where I didn’t have a tag, as I have with many other family and friends. We’ve been on fishing trips together. That is what my circle of hunting family and friends do.
You are missing a few of the other party draws I have done in Wyoming with family and friends. You are missing the 2008 Unit 33 elk hunt, where I did a party app with my Uncle who had recently recovered from a two-year fight with cancer. He shot a bull, I didn’t. That hunt is on our YouTube channel and the Hunt Talk forum.
You missed a WY deer party application from 2016, when a long-time friend and I hunted left-over tags for whitetails in NE Wyoming. I had a tag. He shot a buck, but I didn’t. That is on our YouTube channel and forum.
You missed some WY party applications for antelope, some of which I was the higher point holder and some of which the other person was the higher point holder. We hunt the units with difficult access and therefore we can draw every 1-3 years. All of those are on our forum and some of them were filmed for our video platforms.
My son and I both have maximum WY non-resident deer points. We are waiting to use them with a family member who is three points below us; a person who is elderly and pretty much my father figure as a child. I suspect when that hunt happens, your source of information will again make claims for you to investigate.
If you spend some time on our platforms, you will see the other Wyoming hunts I have done or been a part of. Lots of hunts where I was the sole tagholder and I was joined by a friend or hunts where I joined a friend who was the sole tagholder. For me and most my family and friends, hunting is a social and cultural endeavor. I join a lot of people when I don’t have a tag and a lot of people join me when they don’t have a tag. In situations where we can both draw a tag, we do that.
If you think I am trolling internet sites, offering strangers my 25 years of multi-state western hunting experiences in exchange for the benefit of their points, you’re going to be very disappointed. I get dozens of requests each year from strangers to help them, to share their points, to (insert here). I decline them all.
If you want to place credibility in the claims of others who think my hunting with family and friends is something questionable or outside the intended rules of party applications, you are wasting a lot of your time and my time. In your endeavor, you are placing the credibility of your new organization at risk. Not that it is my place to tell you how to operate, but I’ve spent my adult life serving on non-profit hunting and conservation Boards of Directors, giving me a bit of background on non-profit advocacy.
Not sure why you are keeping your focus limited to Wyoming in your claims of my activities. If you read our forum or watch our YouTube channel, you will find lots of party apps with family and friends I many states. You will find the most recent party application hunt to be in Arizona, where a long-time college buddy and I were able to go deer hunting, due to me having eleven points. He had two points, but it mattered not to me, as we were able to fill a long-time promise of hunting together. Neither of us fired a round, but it was worth all eleven points.
Everything I do is in a fish bowl. I suspect your organization, or the person who you are relying upon for such claims, is why a friend of twenty years was investigated recently for illegal outfitting, for nothing more than joining us (me and my son) on my son’s 2018 Wyoming elk hunt. Another claim an agency person had to follow up on, resulting in no basis for the claims made of our activities. Maybe it is you and your organization that is filing the FOIA requests for all of my BLM and USFS film permits, something I find quite humorous given I am one of the few outdoor media platforms that complies with the cumbersome rules and costs of public land film permits.
Not that it matters who is the source of your claims and accusations or the direction you are going with your efforts and your new non-profit organization. I know the rules and I follow them. I know what I do is placed under a microscope and I operate with the prudent level of awareness and understanding of that reality.
If you want to make a difference with your organization, I would suggest you work to change the peculiar rule Wyoming has of a Regular and Special non-resident pools, heavily tilting draw odds in favor of those who can afford the higher fees. It is a stupid rule, one I advocate against whenever it comes to your legislature, and makes me a target of your WYOGA. That seems to be something that would make a difference for the average hunter in Wyoming.
If you and other Wyoming hunters want to change the way Wyoming party applications work, fine by me. I suggest you do what is best for Wyoming. Myself and others will follow whatever rule that is. Your state, you make the rules. I want to hunt there and I will follow the rules, whether in Wyoming or any other state. If that results in a party application system like Colorado, fine by me. I do party apps there with my brother. If you want to make it subject to next-of-kin, fine with me. Most of my precious hunting days are with my son, now that he is out of college. If you want to get rid of party apps all together, fine by me, also. I have enough opportunities to hunt that I will continue to share camps/hunts with family and friends, whether Wyoming has a party application system, or not.
Whatever it is you want to change in Wyoming, it makes no difference to me. As a non-resident, I hunt western states at the pleasure of the residents of those states. They should do what is best for them and their collective citizenry. I’m just happy they let me hunt, knowing states have no requirement to share their state-trusteed resource with non-residents.
I will wait for your call at 6:30 am. My number is (406) xxx-xxxx.
Randy
