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Montana Elkonomic$

What would be the impact of having all NR jump on public land at the same time for a 1-2 week window? All you might do is push elk farther or on private faster.
Go to the Breaks during archery. All the NRs jump onto private for the same 1-2wk period already. Maybe have to break the seasons apart like other states do. Early archery, late archery, early rifle, etc?
 
Go to the Breaks during archery. All the NRs jump onto private for the same 1-2wk period already. Maybe have to break the seasons apart like other states do. Early archery, late archery, early rifle, etc?
I think Montana is extemely generous with their seasons for NR. I could see more/better NR opportunities if the seasons were separated.
 
The "culture" of Montana hunting is going to be hard to break into. I'm guilty to a degree. mtmuley
Agree. Kind of surprised they give elk a break between archery and rifle. Might as well fill that with a crossbow and muzzleloader season.
 
Ok here’s a stab at crackpot elkonomic$. Let’s say the potential economic value of elk to the state of MT is “B”. What are the revenue streams contributing to “B”?

I’ll list a few of them:
-Tags “b1”
-Federal tax revenues (PR $, LWCF $, etc.) “b2”
-Donations (RMEF, etc.) “b3”
-Hunter expenditures “b4”

If the ONLY objective is to maximize “B”, there are different ways to do it.

Strategy 1: Maximize b1 by selling 80% of general tags at $1800 a pop, and auction the remaining 20% as premium tags for desirable units. Outfitting becomes very lucrative and expands. No discounted resident tags; everyone must pay $1800 to hunt. b3 is $0 because there is no reason for entities outside of MT to invest in public land or public land hunting. b4 is small due to the small number of hunters.

Strategy 2: Maximize b3 by creating a democratic paradise, where everyone gets a quality hunting experience at a modest cost. Outfitting is banned and LO tags are discontinued. Herds are managed for quality. Tags are limited for R, and cost $100. NR tags are $700. b4 is modest.

Strategy 3 is the one already described by GM. Give away resident tags for nearly free to maximize b4.

I’d argue that strategy 2 yields the highest “B” of the options because of the large volume of stakeholders in the resource. Strategy 1 disenfranchises a ton of people, but if you can fool enough R hunters into thinking NR DIY hunter crowding is the problem, you can inch towards this model with ever-increasing landowner and outfitter perks.

The downside to Strategy 2 is you remove LO and outfitters as stakeholders. The vast majority of hunters do want them at the table; they just want to see a somewhat fair balance between LO’s/outfitters and public opportunity. As it has been pointed out in the 501(c)4 proposal thread, public land hunters just lack a strong lobbying arm to compete against the other interests, and so we get pushed around despite being in much greater numbers than the other groups. At the end of the day a small number of moneyed interests gobble up huge pieces of the pie and we fight over the crumbs amongst ourselves.
 
Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

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