Wyoming G&F, how de we get a voice as NR's?

[tdhanses]

32 percent really is not that much for having to deal with the yellowstone tourists attraction....... not even 650k I think we are below 600k all the California's moved back after last winter

Yeah but that tourist attraction funds 40% of the residents income, it’s a year round source. Crap I think it’s Brook’s lodge you can snowmobile into around Yellowstone and so many NR come to snowmobile in the winter. WY is a tourist destination overall and then it’s a fight between farm/ ranching and oil/gas/coal or something like that, lol.

 

[wapitibob]

NR provide 77% of license revenue, maybe 55% of the total game dept budget in 2023.

 

[tdhanses]

NR provide 77% of license revenue, maybe 55% of the total game dept budget in 2023.

NR fund the PR rev as well that they receive, WY residents are not spending that much on qualifying purchases yet they receive a large chunk from it. Heck I bet WY residents spend 1% of what CA residents do in qualifying purchases.

PR funds should be allocated based on population density or just stay in the state they are collected in, yes I know that’s not how they are allocated today.

 

[wapitibob]

Same for any low population state.

 

[tdhanses]

Same for any low population state.

You mean welfare state and that welfare comes from NR, otherwise WY would have 30k residents and 200k NR second home owners.

I also would bet you most WY resident landowners would be ok with seeing the population of residents drop.

 

[Deadfall]

The problem is a small but vocal minority of residents only like nonresident hunters voices when it comes to federal bear and wolf issues, but would rather we pay our money and keep our mouths shut when it comes to outfitter preference, tag allocation and price increases. It’s a two way street, and whether we like it or not, we each need each other.

Fair enough. Here's a montana resident perspective on a few of these things. Been here longer then where I was born.

1. Residents never wanted predator introduction. I'm nonstop beating drums trying to get NR to help fight that battle. Noone seems to have the time for it. Resident or NR. However, some of us spend more in a year combating the wolf problem then any 3 NR will spend in a season on a big game hunt. If you don't believe that, do some digging into how much it cost to run a trap line. Plus time not working costs money. Traveling around. Even regularly successful wolfers spend weeks and months to be that way. Hunting predators added in. It is full blown war out here. Nobody cares about that. Everybody wants to come hunt western states. Well come do that. In montana you can legally harvest 20. I promise you'll spend 10 times the amount of money everyone bantering about on this thread.

2. I am 1000 percent a staunch supporter of outfitter allocated tags. 2 reasons.
A. I know without a doubt that outfitters are a avenue for people to experience big game hunting that otherwise would not be able to! 100 percent fact.
B. Outfitters are regulated to certain areas. When someone has a outfitter sponsored tag they can only hunt within that area with that outfitter. Montana made a huge mistake when they did away with the guaranteed outfitter tag. The residents won't admit to it. This NR thing was not a thing until that happen. There's an influencer in this state that backed that. That's a whole different thing. Caveatte I've been a guide for a public land outfitter for a long time. The issue was with the private land stuff. The legal/licensed public land guys pay a gross amount of money in fees to ol uncle sugar to operate a business like that.
C. (Bonus ) it gave me an opportunity to pass on experience to guys that had none. Give back alittle to something I've dedicated my entire life too.

As for price increases and tag stuff. Everything is going up. Wyoming and montana residents don't make same kind of wages as other states. We live here for other reasons. When the ching wung happened and we got bombarded with big money people it has drove our cost of living through roof. Our wages have not gone up to stay equal. Not fair but that's the price we pay to live here. Same as NR pay a price to come hunt. In both scenarios prices are just going to keep getting higher, until one day we all be speakin ebonics. Then it'll he a free for all so who cares....
10,000percent I agree we need each other. Noone ever wants to look at other side and stop to think that maybe the other is just as %UCKED as their side.
Instead everybody just went to talk about fair or how mistreated they are.

Recon that's plenty of pontificating from a tounge chewing window licker

 

[Deadfall]

Unfortunately there is a whole bunch of “f$ck it I got mine” attitude going around forums these days.

I can imagine that 50 years ago, when decimated, slowly recovering game populations were still a recent memory, the attitude amongst all hunters was markedly different than it is now. We did great things but now everyone is spoiled… “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men” in a sort.

I think everyone in this thread should go pause and read the principles of the North American model. Particularly “democracy of hunting.”

I’d like to ask Wyoming residents if the general/special tag split, 2k elk tag, or even higher priced sheep or moose tag, along with the even worse wilderness law really is in alignment with that principle.

I get it, nonresident tags should be limited, and they should cost more, maybe even a lot more, due to their limited availability and the cost or management.

However I feel like the fact the average Joe can throw his chips in the ring, maybe draw an awesome tag, load up the truck and have an epic hunt somewhere halfway across the country is the epitome of the American dream.

I put about $1500 down on licenses, points and tags a year. I generally hunt elk in one state as a nonresident. As a father of a middle class, single income family that’s sometimes a bit of a stretch, but it’s more than doable by making it my priority.

But you get much above $1000 for an elk tag and it starts getting really hard for the average guy to afford. I could even probably swing a 2k tag every few years, but we all know this probably isn’t gonna stop there.

I don’t want to see public land hunting become a “pay to play” endeavor. It won’t work out well for us or our wildlife long term.

It already is!

 

[Deadfall]

Other than federal funding, not wildelife related just in general, without it the state would have major issues so it needs the help of other states to even provide basic services, now if it didn’t rely on federal funding I could agree.

Can’t take 32% of your state budget from NR and say leave us alone and then on top of that have NR fund 77% of your wildlife budget.

Now residents could easily make up the 77% of the wildlife budget but no way could they make up the 32% of the states overall budged per household when there are only 650k residents, of which maybe 30-40% are none earning residents such as kids and the avg household income is 60k.

Nah man. Oil, gas, coal run that state. Go look at high-school in wyoming. Them wyoming boys pretty tough they would figure it out.

 

[tdhanses]

Fair enough. Here's a montana resident perspective on a few of these things. Been here longer then where I was born.

1. Residents never wanted predator introduction. I'm nonstop beating drums trying to get NR to help fight that battle. Noone seems to have the time for it. Resident or NR. However, some of us spend more in a year combating the wolf problem then any 3 NR will spend in a season on a big game hunt. If you don't believe that, do some digging into how much it cost to run a trap line. Plus time not working costs money. Traveling around. Even regularly successful wolfers spend weeks and months to be that way. Hunting predators added in. It is full blown war out here. Nobody cares about that. Everybody wants to come hunt western states. Well come do that. In montana you can legally harvest 20. I promise you'll spend 10 times the amount of money everyone bantering about on this thread.

2. I am 1000 percent a staunch supporter of outfitter allocated tags. 2 reasons.
A. I know without a doubt that outfitters are a avenue for people to experience big game hunting that otherwise would not be able to! 100 percent fact.
B. Outfitters are regulated to certain areas. When someone has a outfitter sponsored tag they can only hunt within that area with that outfitter. Montana made a huge mistake when they did away with the guaranteed outfitter tag. The residents won't admit to it. This NR thing was not a thing until that happen. There's an influencer in this state that backed that. That's a whole different thing. Caveatte I've been a guide for a public land outfitter for a long time. The issue was with the private land stuff. The legal/licensed public land guys pay a gross amount of money in fees to ol uncle sugar to operate a business like that.
C. (Bonus ) it gave me an opportunity to pass on experience to guys that had none. Give back alittle to something I've dedicated my entire life too.

As for price increases and tag stuff. Everything is going up. Wyoming and montana residents don't make same kind of wages as other states. We live here for other reasons. When the ching wung happened and we got bombarded with big money people it has drove our cost of living through roof. Our wages have not gone up to stay equal. Not fair but that's the price we pay to live here. Same as NR pay a price to come hunt. In both scenarios prices are just going to keep getting higher, until one day we all be speakin ebonics. Then it'll he a free for all so who cares....
10,000percent I agree we need each other. Noone ever wants to look at other side and stop to think that maybe the other is just as %UCKED as their side.
Instead everybody just went to talk about fair or how mistreated they are.

Recon that's plenty of pontificating from a tounge chewing window licker

We lease out our ground, good idea, we should double the lease or find a new rancher that will pay double what we currently get, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to put the screws to people even though you can.

I know many MT residents that would like to see non native, being those not born there leave the state, maybe there should be a special draw for native born vs non native born residents. Do NR land owners that are native born get priority over non native born residents, they probably pay way more in taxes, these are just thoughts but I do know for a fact if you were not born in many of these states your not considered family of the state.

Guess what I’m getting at is you can keep breaking it down more and more to who deserves what and what people really think.

 

[tdhanses]

Nah man. Oil, gas, coal run that state. Go look at high-school in wyoming. Them wyoming boys pretty tough they would figure it out.

Of course it does but that will change with the direction the world is heading and those in that industry know it isn’t WY residents keeping them alive, it’s WY residents dependent on it staying alive, much like MT, WY has very little to influence the direction the country is going, usually the president is already elected before they even vote.

 

[Deadfall]

We lease out our ground, good idea, we should double the lease or find a new rancher that will pay double what we currently get, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to put the screws to people even though you can.

I know many MT residents that would like to see non native, being those not born there leave the state, maybe there should be a special draw for native born vs non native born residents. Do NR land owners that are native born get priority over non native born residents, they probably pay way more in taxes, these are just thoughts but I do know for a fact if you were not born in many of these states your not considered family of the state.

Guess what I’m getting at is you can keep breaking it down more and more to who deserves what and what people really think.

...should've read the whole thing..

 

[tdhanses]

...should've read the whole thing..

Yeah might of jumped the gun on that one, it was so long, I’ll go back and read it.

 

[Deadfall]

Of course it does but that will change with the direction the world is heading and those in that industry know it isn’t WY residents keeping them alive, it’s WY residents dependent on it staying alive, much like MT, WY has very little to influence the direction the country is going, usually the president is already elected before they even vote.

.....idk bout that. You know california is biggest oil producer? Or one of them....that stuff ain't going nowhere. Not for a couple lifetimes.

 

[tdhanses]

.....idk bout that. You know california is biggest oil producer? Or one of them....that stuff ain't going nowhere. Not for a couple lifetimes.

I was thinking WY revenue producer, if we lost all oil/gas and coal from WY we would survive the price increase nationwide.

 

[tdhanses]

...should've read the whole thing..

MT will never speak Ebonics, lol, that cracked me up thinking of buddies rounding up cattle and using Ebonics to communicate.

Not sure I agree on the outfitted opinion but I do get the point, maybe it is true for most and I’m in denial.

 

[Deadfall]

This deserve stuff is weird to me. I wanted to hunt wyoming, so I just moved there for a few years. Found a pretty fair job and tooled around hunting and fishing all I could stand. I got awesome friends down there. Had to quit jobs to come guide in montana. Work never an issue. Now I'm back home in montana where I belong.
Moral of tge story. Guess if you want something badenough you'll sacrifice for it.
Or just complain about how unfair the world is.

 

[tdhanses]

This deserve stuff is weird to me. I wanted to hunt wyoming, so I just moved there for a few years. Found a pretty fair job and tooled around hunting and fishing all I could stand. I got awesome friends down there. Had to quit jobs to come guide in montana. Work never an issue. Now I'm back home in montana where I belong.
Moral of tge story. Guess if you want something badenough you'll sacrifice for it.
Or just complain about how unfair the world is.

I think some of us just see the writing on the wall, hunters are a super minority and we continue to eat our own.

 

[Deadfall]

MT will never spark Ebonics!

Not sure I agree on the outfitted opinion but I do get the point, maybe it is true for most and I’m in denial.

Eh....maybe not...pretty funny thought though....
It's OK. Most don't agree with me on that. I have unique perspective though. I grew up a backpack hunter. Got into guiding through a series of unfortunate events...haha...not sure it fits "most". Definitely a bunch. Just look around trailheads and what's running up and down roads in the guppy gadgets.

 

[Deadfall]

I think some of us just see the writing on the wall, hunters are a super minority and we continue to eat our own.

That's what they want us to do. It's coming to an end for sure.

 

[ropeup79]

Wyoming has an elk herd of 113,000 and roughly 13,000 NR licenses (7,250 GEN + LE). That’s more than 10% of the entire Wy elk population not including NR cow tags. Seems reasonable to me. Other states that have a larger elk population have more available tags. Pretty simple economics.

Elk Population by State 2024

worldpopulationreview.com