Possible changes for Montana....

[huntnphool]

Maybe that would be a way for the outfitters to keep a few guaranteed tags, make them whitetail only since they seem to tie up most of the land the whiteys inhabit anyway.

[Ridgerunner]

West part of the state has tons of WT as well as national forest land, that's where I was thinking it would work well.

[huntnphool]

West part of the state has tons of WT as well as national forest land, that's where I was thinking it would work well.

That would be cool.

[bearpaw]

Lots of good points everyone....

Just to clarify a few things.

Outfitter Tags are part of the non-resident quota which has been capped for years, Outfitter tags do not take away from the opportunity of any MT resident to get licenses.

Every year each outfitter must renew their outfitter license. Each outfitter must also keep records up to date of all lands they operate on including the exact legal description and exact acres of each property. Every single property must be approved by the Board before you operate on it. Operating on any lands without land owner/manager and Board approval is a violation. That includes BLM, State, or Forest Service. The Outfitters Board has an exact figure for the number of acres utilized by outfitters. I spoke to the director myself last summer and he said the number of acres has dropped in the last few years by about 2 million acres. (can't remember the exact acres) That is a significant reduction, those are the facts.

Some of you may not realize but there are large hunting clubs popping up in Montana. These are not outfitters, they are hunting clubs. These hunting clubs are expanding rapidly and perhaps that is where the confusion is occuring. To my knowledge, hunting clubs are not regulated and state officials have told me that large areas in the Breaks and elsewhere are being leased by these clubs. I was also told that they have leased enough property in some areas to control access to public lands.

Please let me repeat, outfitters can not even hunt on any private or public land without landowner and Board approval.

I think many of you guys have got the apples and the oranges mixed on this issue. It's so easy for someone to get all fired up and then excite a bunch of other people into thinking some travesty is occuring. But until you have the facts straight it is easy to jump to conclusions based on heresay.

I can gaurantee you that the Outfitters Board keeps very strict control over the outfitting industry. Perhaps Montana should look into bringing hunting clubs under some type of control and monitoring.  

I hope I can locate some of these $200 per animal leases, so far I have not heard of such a thing in this day and age.  

As far as landowners go, I believe a person should be able to control who goes on their property. That includes people accessing their property to hunt. The reason some private properties are better hunting is because they are not over run with hunters, wildlife feels safe and stays on the property. Take the best property and overhunt it and at least some wildlife will leave.

I understand the plight of the public land hunter having to compete with other hunters, it's tough sharing the field with other hunters, but I think a we all should be glad there is public property to hunt on. The Block Management program adds to the availability of land for the public to hunt. Sure it's block massacre in some areas and I am sure there is some cheating somewhere, but overall the system puts hunters onto more acres....

As far as the quality of hunting overall in the state of MT. I agree it is slipping a little. But Non-Res hunter numbers have been capped for years. The real problem is that MT is growing and I think growing resident hunter numbers is going to force MT to eventually take action to reduce hunting pressure one way or another. Even if you eliminated Non-Res hunters and outlaw outfitters, that is only a small portion of the overall licenses sold. So no matter what, eventually resident hunting pressure will have to be addressed.  

[KimberRich]

First let me say that I read a lot of the thread but not every single word of it so if I say something thats already been addressed forgive me..

I'm confused about all these numbers of tags...  I'm speking of Deer only.  Not the Deer/Elk Combo.

Currently they give:

2300 general Non resident deer tags

2000 Landowner Sponsored Deer tags

1800 Outfitter sponsored Deer tags

6100 total per below.

http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/licenses/nonresidentCombo.html

I'm not sure if when they said 5500 additional tags they were talking about the Deer/Elk Combo or   From what I read there are 4750 Outfitter Sponsor Deer/Elk tags and 1800 outfitter Sponsored Deer only tags.  Making 6550 total per my math. Not seeing how they come up with 5500? 

Also I'm not sure where the hell they come up with the 60% successful number!

Here are the numbers for the Deer only Drawing per my conversation with a Montana Fish and Game person this fall:


2300 Non-resident Deer Only Tags - 13000 applicants  = 18% roughly

2000 Non-Resident Landowner Sponsor Tags - 6000 applicants = 33% roughly

They may be speking of the Elk/Deer Combo but I have a hard time believing the odds are almost 3 times better going that route..  I can't spek of my experiences with Deer/Elk Combo as I only put in for the Landowner Sponsor Deer each year.

Even if you threw in the additional 1800 Deer OUtfitter tags into that equation the number would only increase to about 32% success.

I'm under the impression that any Outfitter tags that are not purchased by a certain date go into the pool to be distributed to the people on the Alternate's List that is started soon after the Drawing in the Spring.

All this said I think it would be great to have additional tags available and I would have no problem paying the extra $200 if my chances would improve to get drawn.  I don't want to step on any outfitters toes though because they have to make a living also.  It's a tough topic.  Bottom line is there are more independent hunters than there are Outfitters so if everyone gets a vote it could be tough for the Outfitters. 

[Pathfinder101]

Not sure, but I think the deer elk combo tags have a little better than a 50% draw rate for NR.  Maybe that's the 60%...?

[KimberRich]

Not sure, but I think the deer elk combo tags have a little better than a 50% draw rate for NR.  Maybe that's the 60%...?

Might be.. 

[Craig]

This is off Huntin Fool web site

2008 big game combo

19444 apps
10707 drew

simple odds.  55.06 draw success.

[KimberRich]

not too digress too much but why doesn't MT seperate out their deer licenses and offer some WT only licenses for deer.  Seems like an underutilized resource to me.  And a way to make more money.

They already offer the WT doe surplus tags.  In years past you could buy up to 7 of them as a resident or non-resident over the counter until the quota had been sold.  I bought a couple in late Nov. and there were still plenty available.. I think they were $75 each for Non-res.  Like $10 for residents.  I know we all want to shoot Big Bucks but if you want to even out the herd or fill the freezer this is a good option.  I know getting access to private land is easier when your only shooting does.  On my family's ranch near Lewistown they charge to hunt but allow most anyone with a doe tag to come out and shoot as many as they have tags for. 

[KimberRich]

This is off Huntin Fool web site

2008 big game combo

19444 apps
10707 drew

simple odds.  55.06 draw success.

That would be closer to their 60% quote..  It's odd that 10707 drew a tag when their regs state that their are 11500 available?? 

[muleyguy]

BP,

I do not believe I am mixing apples and oranges;  I understand that "hunting clubs" are popping up and that this ties land up also.  I stick by my original point that  acres tied up by outfitters and guides, legal and illegal, etc is greater now then in 1993; which the "official" numbers that you are using are saying.

My question to you is simple:  I don't care what the official numbers say;  do you honestly believe the amount of acres tied up by the outfitter/guide industry in the State of Montana is the same in 2009 as 1993??

   I have no doubt that the Montana board of outfitters requires all of this information to be submitted to them.  But, the data has to be weak because the Private Lands/Public Wildlife Council admits that it does not really know what the acreage number was before 2003.  And, in the annual report, the data is only given every other year since 2003.  If the information was so readily available why not publish it every year??  The Private Lands/Public Wildlife Council was created by the guaranteed tag legislation back in 1996 to specifically look at this issue.  If the information is tracked so readily by the Montana Board of Outfitters, why the "problem" in the data pre 2003???  Here is a quote:

"accurate data documenting the amount of private land used by licensed hunting outfitters was not available from MBO  (Montana Board of Outfitters) until 2003......"

It doesn't take a lot of digging to figure out something is fishy in the numbers;  I went to the MOGA site (Montana Outfitters and Guide Association) and pulled up the websites of just 5 outfitters working in the Broadus and Breaks area;  you guys all like to brag about how many acres you control.  Just these 5 outfitters, according to themselves, control 2,145,000 acres of land to hunt on.  In 2007 according to PL/PW Council 5.2 million acres were controlled by outfitters.

So, your telling me 42% of the all the land controlled by outfitters is done by just 5 of you guys???   That doesn't leave much for the remaining 445 of you.........only about 6500 acres or so per outfitter.  Is that the makeup of the outfitting industry in montana??  5 guys average over 400,000 acres of land, and the remaining 445 average 6500 acres??  To be honest, I find few if any outfitters who say they only control 6500 acres.   My guess is that if I go through the websites of these guys, by the time I hit a 100 or 200 or so outfitters I will be up to the 5.2 million acres pretty easy.  That still leaves 200 to 300 of you. 

 So, lets be honest, the "official" numbers are weak, at best.  I don't pretend to know exactly why the numbers are off;  but, they are off, nothing reconciles.   It would be a PR disaster for the Outfitting industry, the PL/PW Council and the Montana Board of Outfitters, if acres tied up by outfitters were increasing.  So, I leave it to rational minds to come to conclusions why the "official"  numbers seem goofy.

Another point to those trying to figure out if draw odds would increase.  The draw odds would increase, not necessarily because of the additional tags being put into the pool, but because the large price rise would result in less draw "demand".  That is why the odds would increase.  Anytime tag costs are increased there are fewer applicants.

[Craig]

I beleve they take the number of elk permits sold out of the big game combo number. If I remember right Huntin fool said they sold a little over 700 elk only tags. To get a grand total of 11,500

[bearpaw]

muleyguy...I don't know which outfitters you are talking about, however I do know this, that Powder River is the largest outfitter in MT and reportedly leases the most ground in MT. Another thing that could happen is that more than 1 outfitter may operate on the same property. Perhaps that is why your numbers are such, I'm not sure.

I honestly have no idea about years before 2003. There was no accurate record keeping process that I know of. Thus any figure would most likely be an estimate by anyone providing it and very possibly not fact.

My point is that outfitter acreage is on a decline which is contrary to the impression you give. Since 2003 outfitter acreage has decreased.

If you want a true answer to how many acres are used by outfitters then contact the Outfitters Board who are charged with keeping records of outfitter use. They have the answer to 2003 outfitter use and the answer to current outfitter use, any other answers are heresay. If you look at the true facts they show that acreage used by outfitters is on the decline during the last 6 years.

Argue it all you want, but the outfitters board has an accurate accounting of all the acres of private land that Montana Outfitters are authorized to outfit on and it is less than in 2003, that shows it is on a decline.

[elkkiller]

 It sad to see that the hunting has gone to a Big money market. How can the average guy take his family hunting and afford these hunting tag prices? What is next, Financing Available. How can a young person afford this. That is why more people will quit hunting.

[Turkeyman]