The Future of Hunting=Public Land Fees, Price Increase and Longer Wait

[CEI]

A couple weeks ago, I found out my in-state tag fees and hunting licenses were going to go up next year.  

dang, I wish I could do that when I had a budget issue.  

 

Today, I got the official word of an access program, which includes fees, being implemented for a big ranch in Arizona.

 

My wallet can't take too much more of this, but I will adapt my lifestyle to continue to get myself and my family in the field.  

 

I am officially on the wagon and I will eat saltine crackers and peanut butter this hunting season, so I can put fuel in my truck and buy our permits.

 

My rant! 

 

• Hunting is changing.  
• Hunting is not going to get any cheaper.  
• We are going to see access fees & programs for National Forests in the future.  
• Any of the large tracts of private land you access for free now, will eventually be developed, or closed for only those willing to pay big time access fees. 
• Draw odds for the best hunts will continue to decrease and eventually the state wildlife departments will have to charge more for these permits (ie. premium permit) to make up for lost revenue.     

I think the future will allow for only those who value hunting the most to participate on a regular basis.  I see hunting becoming less family oriented and more of a secular activity.    I hate to be the grim reaper, but hunting numbers will drop in the future.

 

The good old days...  Gone?

A few thoughts... 

 

• The answer is not to increase non-resident fees.  This only hurts those of us with a less full wallet, who apply for out-of-state hunts.
• Start applying for out-of-state hunts, now!  Can't afford it?  Yeah, that's why the above is NOT an option.  

 

View the full article

[wildwoody]

wow there trying to end it all for us. AMERICA HOME OF THE NO LONGER FREE!!!!

[CEI]

Wildwoody,

 

Nothing is free.

[couesmagnet]

I think the sport of hunting has become a victim of it's own success. In the 1980's the demand on our animal resources wasn't even close to what it is now. If you think about it there where only a handful of hunting magazines available for hunters to resource, and those where your standard magazines you had to buy at your local grocery store. Now it seems like everybody has a magazine out, all talking about giant animals, how to score game, and where the best places are to hunt giant animals. In the process of hunting morphing from the 80's from a sport involving families and friends in search of a nice 3 point deer and good stories to tell, hunting became more about a competition with all the new attention hunting was receiving from new publication start ups and t.v shows. Everyone wanted to boost hunter recruitment to the sport and in the process overwhelmed the system with new recruits. All of this came from the hunters themselves and usually involved making money off the sport in the process. All this new attention on hunting starting in the early 90's brought lots of people who would have never joined the sport prior to the 80's when hunting was much more pure of a sport. Also with all the new attention being given to hunting thru new publications and the 100's of blogs now out there, hunting started to become more of a competition amongst ourselves. With all the emphasis in the new magazines and t.v shows, on going after giant specimens of each respective species hunting began to morph itself into a competition to see who could do the best at harvesting these giants. In comes the money at this point to fuel the flames of that new competition created by guess what, hunters themselves. This all started when the average jo wanted to start making money of the sport, a luxary given to very few people prior to the late 80's. All this feeds on itself as more and more blogs pop up and magazine start ups continue. If all the hype went away overnight, we would see alot of the unwanted changes we see coming now go away as quick as they came. I remember buying gas for 1.00 for premium down by asu in college in the early 90's, things change. I think that we as hunters should blame ourselves for hunting changing into what it is now, shine a spotlight on anything these days , then throw in everyone trying to make money of anything in this world with the spotlight to boot, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster in the making. How can we blame these big ranches for imposing the new fees. They hear us hunters down the way at the ranch pond fighting over a blind placement, or who gets to sit that waterhole because of the 400 inch bull coming in. They see 10 200 dollar cameras sitting on that old tank on the back 40 acres, and see what we are willing to do now so we can make into the new magazines to recruit new hunters to our new competition. Why wouldn't the ranchers want to capitalize along with all of us hunters trying to capitalize on it monetarily. by the way we hunters started all this, and we want to get mad at the ranchers. They see and hear what the governors tags are selling for and the animals are on their private land. On a positive note our young hunters these days have specific junior hunts available to them now. Theses were not available in the 80's , now there are multiple options for our kids. In my opinion it's become much easier for a kid to get into the sport with all these new hunts available now, not harder.

[couesmagnet]

Also, and it's sad to say but we need less recruits to our sport of hunting. Draw odds don't care about hurt feelings and what is right or wrong, or tag fees. Draw odds are a function of numbers of applicants and nothing more. You guys want better draw odds for yourselves or better yet your children, then we better start figuring out how to lessen the numbers of applicants in the system, and whether you like it or not raising the price will do that to some extent. It's not about getting mad at the game and fish for raising prices cause just like the rancher they see what we are willing to pay to buy cameras and all the gear that goes along with the pursuit of giants instead of what it used to chase, which were 3 point deer and 320 bulls in the 80's. Again we as hunters are to blame for all of theses new changes, and we desperately want to blame everyone but ourselves for what hunting has become. I say all this with respect, cause i'm also guilty in the evolution of hunting into what it has become.

[CEI]

Couesmagnet,

 

100% agree with you, we ALL have a role in this evolution of the hunting society.

 

I do believe hunter levels will drop because of the cost in the future. Only X amount of people are going to value it enough to do it on a consistant basis and this will cause price increases across the board.

 

We will see Public Land Access programs and fees take hold in the future. It maybe 5 years from now, or 20, but it is coming.

 

I believe the DEMAND for the higher quality hunts will only increase (even if hunter numbers drop) and this will NOT change with out a different price structure or a change in management philosophy.

 

Here is my final thought...

 

Hunting is what YOU make of it. If you want to go kill a big buck, than go do it. It you want to kill a yearling, than go do it. Nobody has a gun pointed to anyone's head saying, "you MUST kill a big buck or die."

 

In 2006, I got caught up in the game of trying to keep of with the Joneses. After that season, I said what the heck am I doing... I hunt for myself and I don't care what anyone thinks.

 

The web is a great place and really allows everyone to have an opinion, where as 20-30 years ago, there was only a few media outlets that fed our brains.

 

Best,

Craig Steele

 

Hunting should be celebrated, but we all are filled with jealousy and envy, which leads to nothing but excuses.

[couesmagnet]

Craig, i would like to compliment you on your publication, as i enjoy reading it. However i don't know how if numbers of applicants drop for a given high demand hunt , how the draw odds wouldn't get better as a function of the lesser numbers of apps. Most people put a swing for the fence high demand hunt as their 1st choice these days. If on a given year 500 hunters dropped out of the draw for price increase reasons for any given high demand hunt how do the odds get worse in that scenario. I never bought the big argument that we as hunters have been told for eons with regards to the fact that we need to bolster hunter numbers to the sport to somehow defend the heritage itself. There will always be enough hunters around to defend the right of hunting to exist, and with nominal increases over the last 20 years we would have done fine defending that right. Just my opinion, but the whole argument that's been pushed on us for decades that we need to increase new hunter recruitment to save the sport was one big lie told to us for the sole reason of increasing hunter recruitment to sell more hunting related goods and services(ie; cameras, camo clothes, more magazines,more hunting licenses, ect.). Half of the new recruits coming to hunting these days aren't joining the sport for the same reasons we all hunted for in the 80's anyways, but instead join just for the fact of all the new competition and hype surrounding the sport itself. It's the snowball effect. The more people joining the sport more dollars spent, but meanwhile the animals haven't changed in a 100 years. I just feel lucky to have been around before all the crazyness started in the late 90's, and i got to experience what it was like to get drawn all the time, and for what it was like to drop a load in my pants when i saw a spike with a rifle and a tag in my hand. What a rush those 6 inch horns gave me back then.

[CEI]

Most people put a swing for the fence high demand hunt as their 1st choice these days. If on a given year 500 hunters dropped out of the draw for price increase reasons for any given high demand hunt how do the odds get worse in that scenario.

 

FYI-That's why I believe there needs to be a change in management strategy and pricing structures.

 

I do believe we need more passionate hunters involved in our way of life. I think it starts with us though and not with an organization. It starts with hunters being selfless and taking their kids. It starts with hunters taking non-hunting family members. It starts with teaching and not always trying to compete.

 

I always have the debate with myself as to if we need more hunters, but sometimes, I think that comes from me wanting to get a quality tag every few years in my home state.

 

I am not perfect, as I get caught up in the hype as well, but I always fall back to hunting for my own personal reasons.

[ThomC]

AZ population:

 

1960 1,302.161

 

2012 est. 6,553.255

 

AZ is not bigger

 

Available hunting land is smaller.

 

Does anyone see the problem?

[wildwoody]

tree huggers keep applying for tags also

[CEI]

ThomC, you are 100% correct! The access and crowding issues are not going to get better, it is impossible.

[rph]

If the AZG&F needs to increase revenues, I'd much rather see modest price increases on tags and licenses than see more tags and additional hunts being offered which I feel reduce the quality of the hunts.

[4Falls]

As a lifelong skeptic, I don't believe there is much of a future for hunting on public lands. Access will continue to shrink and it appears to me that G&F agencies have already started to make commitments to non-hunting based wildlife management.

 

And as hunter recruitment goes down and more and more weekend warrior hunters move on to other hobbies, the dept will have no option but to raise fees exponentially to keep feeding its beauracratic machine.

Then you have the issue of supply and demand. A larger population means more guys wanting those early bull and late deer tags.

There has also been talk of antelope tags becoming once in a lifetime, as that species continues its steady decline due to habitat loss.

 

My daughter has her first deer hunt this fall and I hope to enjoy as many as we can while we can.

[THE RIFLEMAN]

Poaching is cheaper ; As long as you dont get caught! ....No season , go when you want , shoot what you want! ..... Now that silencers are legal it will make it even more difficult to catch poachers!