Mindless voters

Outfitter lands

(let me say the mindless voters was a bad title, I think this forum has very well informed members, it's just that I continually see people/friends/etc that vote on issues/politicians and have no idea what they are really voting for)


http://www.emwh.org/issues/public t...P/2015 private land leased outfitters map.pdf

So pre I-161 (that's the Montana initiative a few years ago that basically said outfitters are not guaranteed tags since being guaranteed the tags meant they are evil and they leased up everyones private lands). Yeah lots of people I know we're misinformed and jumped on the bandwagon thinking somehow they would have renewed lands open to hunting.....SO WE Went from under 7 million leased acres by outfitters to over 18 million leased acres by outfitters after the bill passed

Yup that bill worked out.

I am sure Ted Cruz will work out just as well, and then we will have no where to hunt, fish, camp, hike etc.. Unless you pay a small fee.

I am and was no fan of I-161. I was also not a fan of the Outfitter Sponsored Licences. The problem with I-161 is that the backers mistakenly thought that they could put a dent in leasing with out any pain from resident sportsman. If the cost of getting rid of the Outfitter Sponsored licences had fallen on resident sportsman and not average Joe nonresidents it may well have worked as advertised. I-161 may not have passed though.
I would like to think that commercialization can be reduced with out resident sportsman taking a hit in opportunity or the pocket book. The reality is that it is not going to happen. As long as we keep the current season structure and funding model commercialization is going to continue to expand in Montana.
My fear is that in the near future we will see ether very poor quality or very limited hunting on public and Texas model hunting on private land. In some places we may be there already.

I think your pretty spot on, had the cost increase been put on residents I doubt it would have passed. The reality is although average non resident Joe's now pay more its the opposite for those using outfitters. They used to pay $1250 for outfitter guaranteed now they pay a lot less. I theorize it had an opposite effect in that now it's cheaper to go with an outfitter then before therefore there is a higher demand, hence the increased leased up land. IMO.it's stuff like this why I fear Cruz So much. I tell friends/family who support him of his plans and they are like "well I had no idea about that I just thought he was a good Christian, etc..."

If anyone wants to see what the future is like with outfitters growing and public access shrinking go spend a weekend hunting in White Sulphur Springs. Its heavily leased and the Forest service is packed with hunters. I am sure there are many more places like that but it's just one example.

shotgun, the map is wrong, there is no way we have went up 3x's in leased acres. If you read the map it says "potential"...well that would take in every private acre in Mt, as there is the potential to lease every private acre in Mt....I see several areas/ranches on the map that I know that no outfitter has a lease on...some are in Block Management, some are just not leased out.

Certainly there is less access than there was 20-30-40 years ago...unfortunately we are not going back to the old days. Landowners today do not want the public at large running about unsupervised on their land. Until there is a way found to work with landowners and give them an incentive to open their gates we are going to see less and less access to private property as we go forward.

Make the public/accessible lands have the same quality as the inaccessible and the issue would be null and void. for 2 reasons...one, nobody would want to go and ask permission to hunt private land if the had as good of quality on public land, and if the public land looked like the private land...what outfitter would pay a high dollar lease when he could hunt the FS, BLM, ect., for considerable less....and not have to deal with the landowners family/friends/banker/mailman/ect....just something to think about.