I have a couple bowhunting friends of mine that have killed every north American big game animal. Neither of them participated heavily in many non resident points or draws. One argues that we would be better off with a market based system for tags and that the current system creates artificial scarcity and higher prices for everyone. I am starting to move in that direction, i am sure i am not alone.
Utah raised NR fees.
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Pucky Freak
Well-known member
I’m trying to wrap my head around your idea but I still don’t get it. Is there an article that goes into depth on this, or maybe start a new thread and explain a bit more?
BuzzH
Well-known member
Considering Utah's last NR fee increase was 2005...I was just wondering.
Anyone want to talk about the inflation rate between 2005 and 2020? Buying power of a dollar in 2005 compared to 2020?
Anyone want to discuss the price of vehicles in 2005 compared to 2020? Home value? Price of food?
How about costs associated with game management in 2005 compared to 2020? Anyone?
Its funny how you don't hear near the level of whining about the cost of cell phones, vehicles, rifles, binoculars, scopes, homes, atv's, movies, taking the brats on travel ball tournaments, etc. etc....but raise the NR tag fees once every 15 years...look out.
The fee increase was past due...
Anyone want to talk about the inflation rate between 2005 and 2020? Buying power of a dollar in 2005 compared to 2020?
Anyone want to discuss the price of vehicles in 2005 compared to 2020? Home value? Price of food?
How about costs associated with game management in 2005 compared to 2020? Anyone?
Its funny how you don't hear near the level of whining about the cost of cell phones, vehicles, rifles, binoculars, scopes, homes, atv's, movies, taking the brats on travel ball tournaments, etc. etc....but raise the NR tag fees once every 15 years...look out.
The fee increase was past due...
It's averaged about. 2% inflation for that timeframe.
Did inflation increase 53%? Deer tags did.
And again, no one is saying it shouldn't increase. As an R I'd have no problem with a x% increase, yearly, across the board both R and NR.
But further it does create a "double middle finger" effect.
I could care less about Wyoming wilderness areas. I guess it's nice they are there, but I won't ever set foot on them, never see them, so why care? I'm pretty passionate about SW Wyoming because it's a place I frequent.
Folks are passionate, and care about places they can see and touch. It's human nature. The numbers of folks who care about these places shrinks every year. Especially in Utah.
There are VERY FEW dad's who can afford to party app with their kids. Especially if they are over 17. I couldn't. Which means my boys won't.
It's just a barrier to entry, and we ALL know the data on recruitment and retention.
It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.
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runningmt
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You nailed it!
BuzzH
Well-known member
Right, so take the NR LE deer in 2005: $468 adjusted for inflation in 2020: $617.76....the fee increase is $650. So, beyond inflation, Utah raised their fees by the cost of a tank of fuel.
As to Wyoming Wilderness areas, you and I don't agree on that analogy at all. I know that I'll never set foot on a vast majority of the acres in designated wilderness, I'm fine with that. I don't have to be physically present in a wilderness area to recognize and appreciate the value. I don't have to be a consumptive user of public lands or wildlife to find value in both...you seem to be cut from a different cloth. That if there isn't something in it for YOU personally, then it doesn't need to exist. As sad as it is unfortunate and I'm very thankful that I'm not that selfish. I'm even more thankful that those that fought tooth and nail in the years leading up to 1964 that they didn't have your selfish attitude.
The only barrier to entry in hunting is the one between your ears. Party app with your kids in Utah. Take them small game hunting, bird hunting, predator hunting. Hunt does, cows, there is so damn much opportunity for inexpensive hunting now, compared to when I started, its not even funny. Youth only tags, longer seasons for youth, youth only seasons, early youth duck seasons, reduced point fees, and it goes on and on and on.
If you aren't taking kids hunting or exposing them to hunting via the available opportunities and inexpensive tags...that's on YOU. For the record, dear old Dad doesn't have to purchase a NR tag for themselves either...if your focus is introducing your kids to hunting, then focus on them.
I don't believe that license fees are the problem, at all, with recruitment and retention. Its adults coming up with every excuse under the sun to not take their kids hunting and fishing, just a fact.
Losing_Sanity
Well-known member
Disagree with almost everything except the first line... I'm not sure why it needed to turn into a personal attack on another persons opinion. No need for that. As I see it...
People who study economics and the like always revert back to the comparison of income verses expense in the past to what it is today. As if it makes it okay to be higher than the average can afford. Even if discussing housing cost, gas prices, or cost of milk. I usually don't accept that argument because 1) It does not make anyone feel any better that things have not improved, 2) We ought to be striving for everyone's ability to enjoy public lands and hunting throughout this country that everyone (we as Americans) own. It is interesting to me that we, as hunters, always push for solidarity to fight certain subjects. Like public land access. But then, we pick sides of what actually affects you personally, then the person with a different opinion is a cry baby or selfish. To me, it's the selfish that don't defend the less fortunate or the week. Where is the solidarity in that? I guess people just need to agree to disagree. Just my opinion...
BuzzH
Well-known member
If you want to have a discussion about economics, instead of giving away our wildlife resources for free, perhaps you would be better served to discuss things like wealth disparity and flat and/or declining wages in the middle class. That problem shouldn't be solved by giving away my wildlife.
Disagree all you want, but a guy living in UT that cant find some hunting for his kids, is flat just not trying, and 100% fact that cost is not the barrier, lack of access is not the barrier.
I'm just curious how much lower priced should a WY NR doe pronghorn or deer youth tag be than $19? Or a NR youth elk tag at $100? Or a full priced NR youth bull permit at $275 and also having the season open for youth a few days earlier than everyone else? Youth buck pronghorn and deer tags at $100?
Is a pronghorn does life worth $19? A doe deer $19? A buck pronghorn $100? I think they're all worth way more than that. But, in the interest of "breaking down barriers", its not a bad thing to offer NR youth those tags at those prices.
I wont apologize for calling BS on people that claim the barrier to getting NR youth hunting in Wyoming is the $19 tag fee. Its not, and that's just a fact. People spend more money on that going to a movie, or in snacks traveling to get here, or 5 cups of coffee at Starbucks, or a host of other foolishness. I mean, lets get real, I pick up the tab when my wife and I go to dinner with the neighbors and its more than the cost of a WY youth cow permit, a handful of doe tags...and depending on the price of drinks, probably almost enough for a NR youth bull tag.
The other thing to think about, I didn't even fish out of the State I was a resident in, until 1978, and when Dad and I started steelhead/salmon fishing in Idaho...I mowed lawns for the money to buy my NR fishing license there. I paid the same price for that as my Dad and any other NR that fished there. I didn't hunt as a NR in any state until 1995, my Dad never hunted as a NR until 2002, my Grandfather never once hunted as a NR in another state. Never once did any of us bitch about the fees to hunt out of state, nor did we stay home and make excuses for not going in the State we lived in. Hunting out of the State you live in is a luxury item.
Also, fair to note, when I started hunting in 1979, there was no youth season, no youth allowed to shoot doe deer and cow elk all season...we hunted the same seasons as everyone else.
Nope, I'm not buying that tag prices and lack of opportunity or places to hunt is even a remote barrier for parents getting their kids hunting in the States they live in, or most any other State that offers dirt cheap NR youth licenses.
This is purely an excuse for parents to use to have someone to blame when they fail as parents to introduce their kids to the outdoors.
BuzzH
Well-known member
A few examples:
My nephews don't need to hunt as NR to find plenty of opportunity, $8 tags.
Hand me down .243 and an $8 tag:
More $8 tags:
My nephews don't need to hunt as NR to find plenty of opportunity, $8 tags.
Hand me down .243 and an $8 tag:
More $8 tags:
BuzzH
Well-known member
Another $8 tag, and a $5 deer permit:
Ok, now for the barrier causing, $100 cow tags:
This was interesting, my nephew's first pronghorn buck, $100....my Dad and Brother each had a $34 doe tag that they didn't even bother to hunt until after my nephew shot his buck. You know, putting the priority where it belongs.
Pricing youth plumb out of hunting, and if tags were free, we would have so much recruitment and retention...yeah, right.
Fortunately for my nephews, uncle Buzz doesn't use the "exorbitant NR tag fees" as the lamest of lame excuses to not get youth involved.
Ok, now for the barrier causing, $100 cow tags:
This was interesting, my nephew's first pronghorn buck, $100....my Dad and Brother each had a $34 doe tag that they didn't even bother to hunt until after my nephew shot his buck. You know, putting the priority where it belongs.
Pricing youth plumb out of hunting, and if tags were free, we would have so much recruitment and retention...yeah, right.
Fortunately for my nephews, uncle Buzz doesn't use the "exorbitant NR tag fees" as the lamest of lame excuses to not get youth involved.
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A NR utah license is $268. It will increase $130 next year.
From an outside perspective.
You can only hunt elk where there are elk. I can't hunt dall sheep in Utah. So it's not a "between the ears" issue.
It's a flawed funding mechanism. If sucking up huge money from out of staters worked, Utah would be awash in cash, 500+ conservation tags in my state. Obviously we are not.
It's bad buisness on both sides. A consistent raise yearly would make budgeting and projections by DWR much easier. Also makes it easier for the hunter.
And in fact cooperation amongst neighbors could both increase participation and not lead to the border issues. We do it with flaming gorge.
Another $8 tag, and a $5 deer permit:
Ok, now for the barrier causing, $100 cow tags:
This was interesting, my nephew's first pronghorn buck, $100....my Dad and Brother each had a $34 doe tag that they didn't even bother to hunt until after my nephew shot his buck. You know, putting the priority where it belongs.
Pricing youth plumb out of hunting, and if tags were free, we would have so much recruitment and retention...yeah, right.
Fortunately for my nephews, uncle Buzz doesn't use the "exorbitant NR tag fees" as the lamest of lame excuses to not get youth involved.
I noticed no dall sheep pics. No tundra swan pics. No Roosevelt elk pics. No Sitka deer pics.
Is that because it's between their ears, or possibly because their ain't an $8 tag to be had for any of them.
I am glad I have been able to do the hunting in other states that I have. Sometimes as many as 4 states in a fall. Those days are over. I constantly adjust what states are the bast bang for the buck and where my friends live to decide now. It has gotten to that point, I am done worrying about it. In the end the outfitters, land owners that lease out, and wealthy will benefit on the NR portion and price of tags. Looking at prices these days makes me less bummed that my kid is not into it like I am. Turkey hunting is right around the corner and he is happy enough to go chase a feathered lizard 2 miles from the house with the old man so life is good.
How many kids do you have?
It's interesting. Your on a forum owned by a guy who purpose is
"To promote self-guided public land hunting and create advocates for that cause."
Yet somehow your stuck. On a minor point.
I want your nephew's to come to Utah and get to hunt Tundra Swans. It's good for them. It's good for the resource. It creates an advocate. The more times they do it, the more it's good for the resource.
Bending them over once might get short term $$.
If you can't see that we are pricing would be advocates out, your not realistic.
I openly admit I don't have a better idea. But that doesn't mean a 53% increase in one year is a good one.
D
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Those doe in the pictures appear to be enormous in body size. What do you feed them @BuzzH lol. At $8 per tag that is a hell of a bargain for the amount of meat those old girls provided.
BuzzH
Well-known member
Even those species, the barrier isn't the price of the tag. The cheapest part of any of those hunts is the license...by a landslide.
Should we reduce the price of airline tickets because they're a barrier to you getting your dall sheep? Should you get cheaper ammo, cheaper fuel, cheaper price on rifles, trucks, game bags, because you make less than someone else?
What other price barriers do we need to reduce so that it fits into your budget? Just special for you, because you're so special.
Also, you don't recruit hunters by taking them dall sheep hunting...you recruit hunters by taking them hunting for small game, birds, doe pronghorn, doe deer, etc. etc.
If someone would have asked me when I was 12 if I wanted 1 sheep or 10 deer tags....I would have taken the 10 deer tags in a heartbeat.
You're dragging another round of excuses into the discussion.
Oh, and BTW, the license for me wasn't the barrier for 3 of the 4 on your list...and I can assure you, I made less money than you do now when I hunted them all.
$3 tag:
$500 tag in 1995, on a seasonal firefighter budget:
$150 a piece...that's not the barrier:
I refuse to be a victim, in particular when the barrier clearly isn't the NR tag fees...the barriers are self imposed excuses.
Good luck with that.
Had to edit: The swan tag was only $3, they're $5 now in the Pacific Flyway, they went up $2 in 22 years, price gouging I tell you what...they're now free if you hunt them in the Central Flyway (went down $3 in price) and $5 in the pacific flyway...for both R and NR.
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BuzzH
Well-known member
Right because $19 NR doe tags and $100 cow elk tags aren't low enough to create advocates...we have to give them free tags for dall sheep.
Oh, and they can hunt tundra swans, for free in the Central Flyway and $5 in the Pacific where they live, no reason to go to Utah....more for your kids.
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BuzzH
Well-known member
They eat snowberry, kinnikinic, service berry, etc. in the mountains of Montana...they never see an agricultural field.
Snowberry really seems to be what they prefer.
That's the point you've missed yet again.
There is a proposal to damn the bear river in n Utah.
Doing so will destroy a big chunk of tundra swan habitat.
It's being fought. We can use all the help we can get. If you've never been there, and never experienced it, in the abstract it might matter. But if you have a connection to it, your more likely to advocate for protecting it.
I notice in all the pics you keep posting, I don't see your kids in any of them. Cost must of played some factor I'll suppose.
Good luck, as usual.
I was the OP. I'm a Utah resident. You guys want to keep dropping huge coin to fund my hunting, THANKS. I guess.
I felt that 53% increase was a little brutal. That's why I posted
