If anyone actually wants to knock down point creep, they should be jumping up and down for states to increase the costs of applying. I mean MAJOR price increases. That is damn near the ONLY thing that will work. Going to a random draw does nothing and almost every other idea does little to nothing. Not saying it's a good thing to double or triple prices but it would work.
I agree that it would probably work, but I disagree that it’s the right thing to do.
A) Relating to point creep, believe it or not, most people who have a lot of points in a lot of states for a lot of species, also have a substantial amount of disposable income, so I THINK the biggest impact of substantial price increases would be to price out most of the low to mid point holders(they started accumulating points later in life, or go hunting more than once in a lifetime by going on low to mid point hunts instead of applying for every species in every state since they were 12), while those with extremely high points would try to hang on at least until their next hunt. Long term it would obviously have a huge impact on NON-RESIDENT point creep, but I think in the short term the impacts would be fairly small. Point creep is primarily occurring for desirable hunts and species, so people who could largely afford the increases could fairly well trim applications like deer, antelope, and bear from states and keep the glory tags in the budget. Also, most people are only proposing huge increases on NON-RESIDENT costs. Decreasing non-resident point creep does absolutely nothing for resident point creep. Lastly, price increases, just like point systems, push a lot of people toward the most desirable tag in the state. They don’t want to spend thousands to hunt sometime crappy, and they don’t want to burn 10pts to hunt something crappy. Just eliminate points. Boom! Problem solved. No more point creep.
B) It’s a public resource. We shouldn’t be pricing people out of it. It will never cease to amaze me how many people here want to whine, cry, and moan that a landowner might be able to charge money for access, or even for a tag, BUT THEN advocate for a price level that prices out their competition on PUBLIC land for animals also supposedly belong to the PUBLIC. If you want the market to dictate the price of an elk tag, go look at getting a landowner tag in NM, or a deer lease in TX. Lastly, if you don’t care about the moral conflicts related to pricing people out of a public resource, just consider who is going to defend your public land and your hunting rights if they can’t afford to go hunt? Not me. When public hunting is only a rich man’s game, you’re going to have a lot more problems than point creep.
