2009 Hunting Fee Increases

[ranwin33]

ORIGINAL: saoirseglen

 My complaint is not cost as much as principal. It is the fact that a landowner with less than 80 acres is now viewed as not worthy of the same no-cost permit next year that I was worthy of this year, just because I don't have land enough to meet their idea of the "worthy."

Even Kansas charges ALL landowners for permits. To me it is now saying that only landowners with 80 acres should have free permits. Why not simply remove the distinction and charge ALL landowners, regardless of numbers of acres? All the MDC wants is more money so why not just drop the pretense and charge every person that is a resident, landowner or not, the same permit price? I have seen farms on four acres and I have seen untouched tracks that are larger than 80 acres yet the free tags are supposedly for "farms" and "farmers."

As for out of state hunters, I think the fee should be closer to $400 if not $500 for antlered deer hunting with a $300 per deer doe permit.

What I thought made Missouri nice, at least when it came to hunting, was that most landowners enjoyed an extra reward for building wildlife habitat, farmer or not. Now I see that with the move to trophy deer management being the new paradigm we need to change with the times. So be it.

I can understand the principle thing and I can get behind you on that.  I would not have a problem either way, either charge all landowners or don't charge all landowners.  There has to be an acreage distinction though, otherwise every Missouri homeowner would be entitled to free tags.  I think it used to be five acres, and to me that seems reasonable.
 
But a landowner is a landowner - and I don't think I should be penalized because I chose to settle down three miles west of the Missouri state line and my brother chose to settle down one mile east of the Kansas line.  We both own Missoui land - I suppose if I was less than honest I could use his address, or I could use my daughters address and get the free tags, but that wouldn't be right.  And I really don't mind giving MDC the money, it's just a brother thing.
 
As for high out of state hunter fees - that would encourage only trophy hunters to hunt the state.  And given the boost to the Missouri economy out of state hunters bring, I doubt it would serve the state well.
 
Times do change - I remember as a kid walking out my back door, down the railroad tracks and having 1000's of acres to hunt - the farmers didn't care.  Now most of those same lands are off limits and I've even seen some of them on TV shows.  Good or bad, those are the times in which we live and we just have to deal with them.

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: saoirseglen

As for out of state hunters, I think the fee should be closer to $400 if not $500 for antlered deer hunting with a $300 per deer doe permit.

 
I don't think I like you very much. [:D]

[saoirseglen]

ORIGINAL: JPH

ORIGINAL: saoirseglen

As for out of state hunters, I think the fee should be closer to $400 if not $500 for antlered deer hunting with a $300 per deer doe permit.

I don't think I like you very much. [:D]

Well, the trend is toward trophy hunting. Might as well put it on fast forward, it is for the children don't you know...


I have no person grievance against you, in all seriousness. What I do have a problem with is that I see more and more hunters with a trophy rack mindset in hunting rather than hunting for meat or hunting to simply enjoy the outdoors. The image I am given, even in Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine, is that the rack size is all that matters anymore. Even when talking about deer health, it call comes down to what will give the biggest racks.

If that is going to be the future of hunting, why not make it cost as much to hunt deer on public land or out of state owned land as it costs to go to a game farm? If that is what so many hunters want, then lets just stop dragging our feet and put it where it seems hunters want it to be, a sport of rich men just like hunting in Europe and Africa is.

[JPH]

I was just messin' with you saoirseglen. I know it's not personal.

But I simply do not agree that hunting is selling out to "antler lust" just because the state and many hunters are evolving in the way they manage the deer herd. It kind of seems to me that you have your mind made up about why this is happening and nothing is going to change it.

If your primary reason for hunting is to gather cheap meat, then I have an idea for you. Quit hunting and take up hiking/photography. Get in touch with some QDM landowners and offer to take whatever does they do not want. My guess is they will be happy to find a place to donate for free. They have a place to take the meat that is produced from their management and you get plenty of meat at no cost.

But my guess is that like many anti-APR, anti-QDM types, you would not go for this because you DO care about killing deer. You DO care about taking antlers, but you are upset that the little antlers are off limits now.

[GTOHunter]

Personaly I think they could drop the new requirement of 80 Acres to about 25 or 40 Acres minumun to make it easier on Land Owners that have smaller tracts of ground.The 5 Acre limit was way too low in the first place and most people abused that by actually hunting on other property then the 5 Acres...besides how in the world can someone manage and hunt a Deer on only 5 acres? [8|]
 
It these tough times with prices going up on gas,milk,eggs,produce and everything else it is like another punch in the stomach to the supposibly decline numbers of Hunters? [:@]
 
I like the idea of raising the price of a Deer Tag to Out-of-State Hunters like the cost of Hunting in Illinois,Iowa and Kansas. [:D] [;)]

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: GTOHunter

I like the idea of raising the price of a Deer Tag to Out-of-State Hunters like the cost of Hunting in Illinois,Iowa and Kansas. [:D] [;)]

Man! I'm loosing friends left and right! [:D]

If the prices begin to rival Iowa (and they are not far off as of 2009) I will honestly consider changing my residency. I have a cabin on the property, and I could shift my status to there. Drivers license, taxes and jury duty would become a pain, but I cannot afford to pay that kind of money to hunt land that I OWN!

Iowa is a lottery for non-resident hunters! Some guys who own land here (but reside outside the state) do not even draw a tag!!! That is not fair!

[ranwin33]

ORIGINAL: JPH

If your primary reason for hunting is to gather cheap meat, then I have an idea for you. Quit hunting and take up hiking/photography. Get in touch with some QDM landowners and offer to take whatever does they do not want. My guess is they will be happy to find a place to donate for free. They have a place to take the meat that is produced from their management and you get plenty of meat at no cost.

I hope to have a couple of does I could donate before the end of December get's here.  All anyone has to do is come and get it.  Otherwise it will go to Share the Harvest - if in fact I'm fortunate enough to shoot them.

[ranwin33]

ORIGINAL: GTOHunter

Personaly I think they could drop the new requirement of 80 Acres to about 25 or 40 Acres minumun to make it easier on Land Owners that have smaller tracts of ground.The 5 Acre limit was way too low in the first place and most people abused that by actually hunting on other property then the 5 Acres...besides how in the world can someone manage and hunt a Deer on only 5 acres? [8|]

It these tough times with prices going up on gas,milk,eggs,produce and everything else it is like another punch in the stomach to the supposibly decline numbers of Hunters? [:@]

I like the idea of raising the price of a Deer Tag to Out-of-State Hunters like the cost of Hunting in Illinois,Iowa and Kansas. [:D] [;)]

I don't have much opinion on the acreage limit, other than to say 80 acres is too much.  No you can't really manage 5 acres, but that would eliminate most homeowners in towns and cities who really don't have any land to hunt but got the free tags anyway.  As you say many of them probably didn't hunt the land the tags were supposed to be used on.
 
I can understand the need for price increases, MDC like everywhere else has been hurt by increasing costs, and with declining tax revenue within the state from depressed home/business values there is less tax $$ to go around. 
 
I just wish the increases were a bit more evenly distributed.  For someone to have to pay $500 for deer tags to hunt on land they own, that just isn't right.  To me, these increases would seem to push non-resident landowners out of the hunting they do, and if they're not hunting then they may well not be doing much with the land they own.  The "C" in MDC stands for conservation, and if the MDC drives out of state hunters away, then it may well be hurting conservation efforts within the state. 
 
Missouri benefits from the $$ and efforts out of state landowners such as myself put into the state.  I easily spend $7500+ a year in Missouri I wouldn't normally spend if I didn't own the land, and you could multiply me by several thousand other non-resident landowners spending money in the state.  As to the work I do on our farm and the benefit it provides Missouri conservation efforts, I'm not sure you can even put a price on that.  So I say, why penalize us, we're a resource the state should value. 
 
My final rant: when the state says we want you to shoot more does, then decides to more than triple the cost of doe tags, well that's just stupid.  I won't be spending the $$ on doe tags next year, my brother and his family can shoot them.  $25 doesn't mean a whole lot to me, but as saoirseglen said, its the principle of the thing.
 

[saoirseglen]

My less than 80 acre tract holds over a dozen deer, if not more, so long as I don't startle them any more than I have to. They generally bed down on my land because they have a pretty safe place near a year round creek and there are lots of funnels for them to move along. There is no guarantee that they will be on my land at any certain time of the day or night, but I know I have seen that many at once during key times of the year before hunting season.

Deer are competition for my dairy goats as they both eat the same foods, at least when the goats aren't eating goat feed and hay to supplement their browsing diet. Instead of thinking narrowly, I know there is enough for the deer and my goats, though I do watch out for how close the deer get due to possible transspecies transmission of diseases. That, and the fact that at least one deer hopped into the pen with my milking does once to partake of some feed. Cute, but possibly deadly to my livestock.

I know there has to be a balance, but if the difference is that I might end up having to ask for a nuisance cull tag to shoot the deer throughout the year as they pose possible health threats to my livestock rather than going with the normal hunting seasons and using the no-cost landowner tags.

Personally, I say 20 acres, at least in the Lake of the Ozarks region, would be enough land for someone to safely hunt with a rifle and have enough land to hunt on even if they live on it and have neighbors on similar sized tracts. It could be as small as 10 acres if one is in the right area, but 10 to 20 acres at the low end would be a decent compromise for most people.

My view is, we either need to be more reasonable with those who own acreage or we need to totally eliminate no-cost tags for all landowners. As for out of state hunters, well, it is like this, if the border states did not charge so much for out of state hunters, Missouri would not be as motivated to charge more for out of state hunters here in return. In fact, I recall why they added surcharges that were state specific, mainly to match what those states were charging Missouri hunters to hunt as out of state hunters there.

I may displease some because of my views, but if I get treated with hardball tactics as an out of state hunter, why would I not ask my home state to return the hardball stance upon those out of state hunters who want to hunt here? Missouri, if I remember correctly, is one of the few states that doesn't lottery out of state hunters. Then again, in Kansas landowners, if I remember correctly, can sell their landowner tags for profit to a guide service for use by their guided clients. I think there is more risk of trophy hunting taking over in Kansas than there is in Missouri. I think I would have a better chance of hitting a Kansas deer with my truck than I would of getting an out of state Kansas deer hunting permit.

[JPH]

saoirseglen, you are talking yourself in circles. You bash the concept of QDM because of the focus on doe harvest and you claim that your season was a bust b/c of the APR, then you turn around and claim to have a need for nuisance tag.
 
And you are incorrect, Missouri is in the majority with its "over the counter" non-resident tags. I also should make it clear that as an Iowa resident, I consider it wrong that non-resident landowners must enter a lottery to hunt THEIR OWN land here. Yes it reduces my competition, but it is unjust.