Elkgunner, USO just might be out to help you get a tag in Arizona, but probably only if you want to have one of his 3rd rate guides take you on a Wal-Mart special $3450 elk hunt in one of the best units in the state. You know, the ones where your odds of getting one of the 2 non-resident tags are against 5,000 other numbers in the draw, 2,500 of them from USO's license application service. If they are lucky their lawsuit has made it possible for the license pool to go from 2 nonresident tags to 5, meaning your odds went from 0.04% to 0.1%. So much for saving your bacon in the draw with this lawsuit. Taulman must really be looking out for you.
If you hand the reigns to the USO types, it might not be too long before your hunting trips are replaced with regular visits to Walmart during the fall to pick-up your latest copy of HUNT-USO IDAHO edition VII. Watching some cheesy hunting video might bring back memories when you actually could draw a license to hunt in your own state. While shopping in Wally World you might overhear the pierced up urban trash checkout boy talking about guiding for a USO client, some lard-ass Maryland prick that brought up an entire fleet of ATVs to assist in the filling of his special set-aside outfitter permit in the USFS areas around town. The pierced up punk may mention that it was also his first time in the area, but since the ID Game & Fish now manages wildlife for the lobbying outfitters and limited opportunities for state residents, the quality is tremendous and large antlered bulls can be taken easily by any jackass with a rifle and a pick-up truck. Meanwhile, you will be stuck sitting at home on your ass, with your son (who’s become addicted to X-box video games because he doesn’t get outside enough). You kids and grandkids might cross their fingers to get one of those cow elk depredation permits just a time or two in their lives unless he wants to pay some dick-weed 10 large to take him road-hunting in Idaho’s next generation of high-quality elk hunts.
The Taulman types are going to screw it up for all the hunters… unless you’re that jackass from Maryland with all the ATVs.
I encourage you to order USO’s 2004 brochure. See if you can read between the lines and recognize what it’s all about and the type of hunter it targets. What happened in AZ was a bad deal. How many extra deer permits were given out on the strip? What are the deer numbers like there now? And was that an impact that needed to be placed on the deer so some outfitter could try to acquire more business?
