Hunting in utah

H

Hoopermat

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Jun 8, 2016
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I don’t know if other states are like Utah. But

Can any one tell me why utah land owner tags are valid for the entire unit and not limited to the land owners land.

For instance we drew a unit that has 12 LImited entry tags available to the public. But the number of land owner tags seems to be 2 or 3 times the public draw tags. Then the land owners sell the tags to guides and outfitters and they hunt the public lands. Now we have all these other hunters and thier guides hunting the same areas.

It seems to me that the land owner tags should be for the land owners lands. If it was this way could this allow more tags to be issued to the public draw system and help with the point systems and the point creep we see every year.

This is just a question that me and my friends have talked about. And we don’t see the Benefit of allowing the land owner tag holders to hunt the pubic lands.

It does just seem like the land owner tags are just a way for the land owners and guides to make money. But it really doesn’t have any benefit to anyone else

Maybe I’m missing something I would like to know more about this.
 
Nevada does the same thing. The landowner tags are valid for the entire hunting unit even though they may be over a hundred miles away from those private lands.
It needs to be changed to make them valid for only those properties.
 
Hoopermat said:
It does just seem like the land owner tags are just a way for the land owners and guides to make money. But it really doesn’t have any benefit to anyone else
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I am sure that is probably part of Utah's intention with their tags. In many states the tags are not transferable but the premise of the landowner tags is to offer a form of compensation to the owners of large contiguous pieces of land since these properties usually provide a contribution to wildlife.
 
BuckRut said:
I am sure that is probably part of Utah's intention with their tags. In many states the tags are not transferable but the premise of the landowner tags is to offer a form of compensation to the owners of large contiguous pieces of land since these properties usually provide a contribution to wildlife.
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I could see that the private land does offer a benefit to the wildlfe. And maybe they should be compensated with some tags. But why would those tags he receives be valid out side of his land.
They also get dep tags for compensation of loss of crop value and those tags are only for their land. So why are the other tags valid for the entire unit.
 
It’s not fair if the landowner can’t hunt the same elk he’s been feeding all winter because they are now on public ground.
 
Wyomuleskinner said:
It’s not fair if the landowner can’t hunt the same elk he’s been feeding all winter because they are now on public ground.
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Did you say that with a straight face? Not fair? Really? How about the "fairness" of large landowners making HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars running outfitting businesses on their land using a PUBLIC resource (with guaranteed tags) to make all that money? How about ranchers being able to feed their cattle on public land for next to nothing and THEN getting landowner tags on top that? I am not an expert on UT but in CO decent sized ranchers in elk country profit immensely off of elk and deer. Add into that real "stand up" guys like the puke bag whose land abuts the piece I hunt.......for the last 3 years they have run 2-300 head of cattle off of their private, back onto public and up the most game rich park in the area at about 0800, through several camps and back onto their land about 2 miles away on the second or third day of 2nd season and not feeling like ranchers are currently getting over on John Q Public is pretty hard, especially when the authorities are given pictures and video of the high-jinx and do NOTHING.
 
It's a rip off. I drew a Pausaugunt mule deer tag in UT and watched how the mule deer migrated down to private land blocking entry to Dixie Nat Forest lands. I met the "poor" rancher on the road. Explained how I had drawn a tag and what he would charge for a trespass fee to cross his land, not hunt. His response was, "$8,000.00". This was in 2000. Probably more like 10-12 thousand now. Bastards!!! GJ
 
I gotta say. Some of these states do know how to treat their residents. Although as a nonresident, it makes my plans for hunting those western states even more difficult, I have to admit to some jealousy outside of any related to hunting. My state cuts no corners nor squanders any opportunity to screw over every one of its residents within it's borders in any way possible, at all times - no exceptions. So given the alternative.... better to have a state protect it's own, I guess.
 
SFC B said:
Did you say that with a straight face? Not fair? Really? How about the "fairness" of large landowners making HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars running outfitting businesses on their land using a PUBLIC resource (with guaranteed tags) to make all that money? How about ranchers being able to feed their cattle on public land for next to nothing and THEN getting landowner tags on top that? I am not an expert on UT but in CO decent sized ranchers in elk country profit immensely off of elk and deer. Add into that real "stand up" guys like the puke bag whose land abuts the piece I hunt.......for the last 3 years they have run 2-300 head of cattle off of their private, back onto public and up the most game rich park in the area at about 0800, through several camps and back onto their land about 2 miles away on the second or third day of 2nd season and not feeling like ranchers are currently getting over on John Q Public is pretty hard, especially when the authorities are given pictures and video of the high-jinx and do NOTHING.
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Cry me a river...not so funny when its on the other foot, and they get what they wanted.

SFC B said:
I got what I wanted
Click to expand...
 
Landowner tags are BS IMO. I have opportunity to hunt private land as well. If you live on freaking big game winter range then that should be part of your cost of farming or ranching. Many of those landowners don't allow hunting, they don't haze the elk, they just lobby fish and game for money.
 
Idhikker said:
Landowner tags are BS IMO. I have opportunity to hunt private land as well. If you live on freaking big game winter range then that should be part of your cost of farming or ranching. Many of those landowners don't allow hunting, they don't haze the elk, they just lobby fish and game for money.
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Only if you don't think about it, are landowner tags BS.

Private landowners are partners in game management and a lot of them are very tolerant of both big-game and hunters.

Maybe it would be better if landowners all constructed 10 foot wire fences around their private where big-game animals have been wintering for hundreds of years? How would that work out for our deer, pronghorn, elk, moose, etc?

The answer is to try some cooperation and set some parameters on the landowner tags...like for starters, making them non-transferable to anyone except within the landowners immediate family. No peddling them to the highest bidder.

But, there is a valid argument to making tags unit wide to the landowners...many times the most crucial habitat is on their bottom lands that support wintering wildlife. Pretty dumb to give a landowner a tag, then never have animals for them to hunt until after the seasons are closed. I suppose another option would be to extend hunting seasons so LO could kill them when they are on their land trying to survive the winter.

I don't know, IMO, giving some landowners, a non-transferable LO tag, is a pretty decent trade to encourage increased tolerance of the States Wildlife using their property.
 
BuzzH said:
Only if you don't think about it, are landowner tags BS.

Private landowners are partners in game management and a lot of them are very tolerant of both big-game and hunters.

Maybe it would be better if landowners all constructed 10 foot wire fences around their private where big-game animals have been wintering for hundreds of years? How would that work out for our deer, pronghorn, elk, moose, etc?

The answer is to try some cooperation and set some parameters on the landowner tags...like for starters, making them non-transferable to anyone except within the landowners immediate family. No peddling them to the highest bidder.

But, there is a valid argument to making tags unit wide to the landowners...many times the most crucial habitat is on their bottom lands that support wintering wildlife. Pretty dumb to give a landowner a tag, then never have animals for them to hunt until after the seasons are closed. I suppose another option would be to extend hunting seasons so LO could kill them when they are on their land trying to survive the winter.

I don't know, IMO, giving some landowners, a non-transferable LO tag, is a pretty decent trade to encourage increased tolerance of the States Wildlife using their property.
Click to expand...

Don't see what you are getting at with the quote about me getting what I wanted.....I believe, taken in context, that was SPECIFICALLY related to 2 Supreme Court Justices. The issues we are talking about are almost entirely state issues.

And what is the shoe on the other foot comment even about? I don't control huge tracks of land and don't go about harassing hunters on public land.

In your quote I included there are a few things I agree with. I have no problem with giving landowners and immediate family members tags. I also have no problem with giving them a special season when animals are reasonably on their land.

What I DO have a problem with, and I suppose what you think I am "crying" about, is landowners/ranchers making HUGE amounts of money using our public resource as their own all the while whimpering about how hard it is to have a 50,000 acre ranch that they inherited all to themselves. Let's be honest LOTS of folks work very hard for their livings, ranchers don't have a monopoly on that. NOT a lot of us are lucky enough to have been born into such land wealth (MILLIONS AND MILLIONS). Further, NOBODY in present day is going to be able to "work hard and buy their own ranch" on that scale. Most states save these benefits for landowners on that scale effectively making it a "rich get richer" scheme at every hunter's expense.
 
Fish and game should give landowners fencing materials to help keep the game out of crops and leave it at that. There are no good reasons to give landowners tags. Fish and Game has no need to do so and it's become way out of hand. The landowners bought land on deer and elk winter range. They should deal with the costs. There is no legal basis in property rights for landowners to be paid for their loss. It is not a taking to have costs from animal depredation (see seminal cases Lucas and Penn Central).

You may argue that it's best to have a working relationship with landowners to benefit game and handouts to landowners facilitate that. The fear is landowners will develop their lands. It's unlikely that in most cases what landowners receive from fish and game is going to stop development. To stop that, conservation easements would likely be necessary. Spend the money when needed not on a general handout program with landowners having no solid justification for demanding handouts.
 
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SFC B said:
Don't see what you are getting at with the quote about me getting what I wanted.....I believe, taken in context, that was SPECIFICALLY related to 2 Supreme Court Justices. The issues we are talking about are almost entirely state issues.

And what is the shoe on the other foot comment even about? I don't control huge tracks of land and don't go about harassing hunters on public land.

In your quote I included there are a few things I agree with. I have no problem with giving landowners and immediate family members tags. I also have no problem with giving them a special season when animals are reasonably on their land.

What I DO have a problem with, and I suppose what you think I am "crying" about, is landowners/ranchers making HUGE amounts of money using our public resource as their own all the while whimpering about how hard it is to have a 50,000 acre ranch that they inherited all to themselves. Let's be honest LOTS of folks work very hard for their livings, ranchers don't have a monopoly on that. NOT a lot of us are lucky enough to have been born into such land wealth (MILLIONS AND MILLIONS). Further, NOBODY in present day is going to be able to "work hard and buy their own ranch" on that scale. Most states save these benefits for landowners on that scale effectively making it a "rich get richer" scheme at every hunter's expense.
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Yep, you're still crying. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop a landowner from either outfitting and/or charging a trespass fee to enter their land to hunt. Just the way it is, and the only solution to that problem is to trample private property rights, which isn't going to happen. They don't have to let YOU or YOUR wildlife on their lands at all. They can build a 10 foot wire fence around their property and, in spite of the age old, "well the wildlife will just go somewhere else"...that's just true. The less available habitat a species has, the less wildlife you have...again, that's just a fact.

So rather than throwing a hissy fit on a hunting board about LO tags and throwing landowners under the bus, maybe try to influence positive change. You know, something unheard of in the "I got what I wanted" era...some reasonable compromise.

When I read stuff like this, its no wonder that landowners view a large part of the hunting public as a pain in their ass. If you believe that you're going to help the situation by doing away with landowner tags, or trying to force LO to let you on their land, well, you're going to be very disappointed.

Just this last week, a landowner, a large one, stopped us in the field and gave my 3 buddies permission to shoot elk on his land, land that his family has had for 100 years this year. I didn't know this guy from Adam, only that he had elk using his land, and that he offered the permission because we had a civilized conversation with him. I wonder if he would have granted that permission if I busted his balls about getting 2 landowner elk tags that he gives to his kids and grandkids? Or if I told him he was a rotten SOB and he's just getting richer off our States Resources? Let me think about that for .12 seconds...NO.

I wont waiver from my opinion that setting solid LO tag programs, no transferable tags, acreage requirements, etc. that will help facilitate them being more tolerant of my/our wildlife using their land, is a huge benefit to wildlife and the future of wildlife.

Wildlife has a very grim future without the hunting public embracing and cooperating with private land owners.
 
Should sportsmen be considerate with landowners? Yes. Not sure why anyone assumes that any posters here are suggesting being rude to landowners. The question is whether they should be given tags.
Should Fish and Game give landowners tags? No, there is no reason. The landowners legally can't hunt the wildlife on their land without complying with state law. The landowners have no legal recourse for crop loss because it's not a taking (which requires loss of nearly all economic value of a property). Also, proper fencing can prevent much of the crop losses. And, the likelihood of fencing that would prevent deer and elk from entering the large parcels where landowners are given tags is unlikely.

I think that following Buzz's suggestion to make landowner tags non-transferable, having acreage limits, etc. would be a huge step in the right direction in solving the current mess.

Think of the access issues that could be solved with the money that's given as handouts to landowners at this time between tags and reimbursement for crop losses.
 
Idhikker said:
Should sportsmen be considerate with landowners? Yes. Not sure why anyone assumes that any posters here are suggesting being rude to landowners. The question is whether they should be given tags.
Should Fish and Game give landowners tags? No, there is no reason. The landowners legally can't hunt the wildlife on their land without complying with state law. The landowners have no legal recourse for crop loss because it's not a taking (which requires loss of nearly all economic value of a property). Also, proper fencing can prevent much of the crop losses. And, the likelihood of fencing that would prevent deer and elk from entering the large parcels where landowners are given tags is unlikely.

I think that following Buzz's suggestion to make landowner tags non-transferable, having acreage limits, etc. would be a huge step in the right direction in solving the current mess.

Think of the access issues that could be solved with the money that's given as handouts to landowners at this time between tags and reimbursement for crop losses.
Click to expand...

I think it really depends on the State, Wyoming landowner tags are a much different case than say New Mexico.

Wyoming has some pretty strict regulations, including non transferable, acreage limits, and also animal use days.

What I disagree with is that there is not a need for landowner tags, there is. In particular if they tolerate wildlife use for a large part of the year in exchange for the LO tags.

I somehow also doubt that many access issues are going to be solved via a "cost savings" from not giving landowners tags. For starters, in many states, the Landowners are still charged either the Resident or Non-Resident license fee associated with their landowner tag. Sure, they get tags every year in areas where the average guy may not draw that often. But, what I get from them is that wildlife uses their land and helps support a robust population. When I do draw the tag, I know there is a larger herd there thanks in part to their tolerance of wildlife.

Its also fair to note that if you're going to impact change to the landowner tag program...whining about it on a hunting board will never help that. Best to get your voice heard by those that can make a difference. Also, you wont impact change without having the landowners in agreement.

They have what they want...and its going to be a steep climb to ask them to give it all up. Probably some common ground to improve the program, but it isn't going to go away.
 
BuzzH said:
Yep, you're still crying. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop a landowner from either outfitting and/or charging a trespass fee to enter their land to hunt. Just the way it is, and the only solution to that problem is to trample private property rights, which isn't going to happen. They don't have to let YOU or YOUR wildlife on their lands at all. They can build a 10 foot wire fence around their property and, in spite of the age old, "well the wildlife will just go somewhere else"...that's just true. The less available habitat a species has, the less wildlife you have...again, that's just a fact.

So rather than throwing a hissy fit on a hunting board about LO tags and throwing landowners under the bus, maybe try to influence positive change. You know, something unheard of in the "I got what I wanted" era...some reasonable compromise.

When I read stuff like this, its no wonder that landowners view a large part of the hunting public as a pain in their ass. If you believe that you're going to help the situation by doing away with landowner tags, or trying to force LO to let you on their land, well, you're going to be very disappointed.

Just this last week, a landowner, a large one, stopped us in the field and gave my 3 buddies permission to shoot elk on his land, land that his family has had for 100 years this year. I didn't know this guy from Adam, only that he had elk using his land, and that he offered the permission because we had a civilized conversation with him. I wonder if he would have granted that permission if I busted his balls about getting 2 landowner elk tags that he gives to his kids and grandkids? Or if I told him he was a rotten SOB and he's just getting richer off our States Resources? Let me think about that for .12 seconds...NO.

I wont waiver from my opinion that setting solid LO tag programs, no transferable tags, acreage requirements, etc. that will help facilitate them being more tolerant of my/our wildlife using their land, is a huge benefit to wildlife and the future of wildlife.

Wildlife has a very grim future without the hunting public embracing and cooperating with private land owners.
Click to expand...

First, what we are talking about is NOT about somehow trying to stop landowners from outfitting or restricting them from charging a trespass fee. And while they could build fences that is a ridiculous notion....both in cost and how it would restrict their own access to wildlife.

As for trying to affect change, I do. I give input through CPW regularly. I attend meetings when I can, have volunteered for committees and am on the email distribution to give input electronically. I think what I have talked about, tags for landowner and family, extended seasons, and additionally things like the RFW program here in CO are pretty generous and reasonable. You and I agree about non-transferability of tags being a good idea. That is the opposite of what the OP brought up. As for a hissy fit? You obviously have never seen my hissy fits :) Expressing views on forums like this may be what motivates someone to actually get involved (like some of us have)....isn't that what you want?

I am glad your group had a positive and generous experience with a landowner. I would say that a landowner giving someone free access to go shoot elk is by FAR the exception rather than the rule. At least in CO I can reasonably say that without money being involved your chances of that type of encounter are slim. It is their land and no issue with that but acting like large landowner are generally benevolent to the hunting public is disingenuous. I think the real danger is that as HUGE amounts of money have become involved in hunting is that LANDOWNERS are less likely to cooperate with the hunting public and will keep asking for more.
 
SFC B said:
First, what we are talking about is NOT about somehow trying to stop landowners from outfitting or restricting them from charging a trespass fee. And while they could build fences that is a ridiculous notion....both in cost and how it would restrict their own access to wildlife.

As for trying to affect change, I do. I give input through CPW regularly. I attend meetings when I can, have volunteered for committees and am on the email distribution to give input electronically. I think what I have talked about, tags for landowner and family, extended seasons, and additionally things like the RFW program here in CO are pretty generous and reasonable. You and I agree about non-transferability of tags being a good idea. That is the opposite of what the OP brought up. As for a hissy fit? You obviously have never seen my hissy fits :) Expressing views on forums like this may be what motivates someone to actually get involved (like some of us have)....isn't that what you want?

I am glad your group had a positive and generous experience with a landowner. I would say that a landowner giving someone free access to go shoot elk is by FAR the exception rather than the rule. At least in CO I can reasonably say that without money being involved your chances of that type of encounter are slim. It is their land and no issue with that but acting like large landowner are generally benevolent to the hunting public is disingenuous. I think the real danger is that as HUGE amounts of money have become involved in hunting is that LANDOWNERS are less likely to cooperate with the hunting public and will keep asking for more.
Click to expand...

You sound confused...one minute the rich, greedy landowners are profiting off your wildlife, then in the next post its "reasonable".

Which is it?
 
I found SFC's comment to be reasonable and clear. Keep landowners happy with some tags they personally can use. Yes, that's good. Shut down everything else. The main threat to wildlife is winter range loss due to development. A few landowner tags isn't going to stop a landowner from cashing in on a development. Besides, in many cases, winter range isn't within the sprawl to where development would be as lucrative.

Right now, landowners are ridiculously powerful and pushing around game agencies. In many states management plans they talk about how they have to make sure elk numbers in a unit don't get too high and cause significant depredation. That's backwards and if Fish and Game told landowners to shove it and cut them off from handouts, landowners would have nothing they could do.
 
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