Am I misguided? MT non-resident tag cost.

[COlineman78]

Where did you find these numbers? mtmuley

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks :: Harvest & Hunting Reports
http://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Hunting/BigGame/Statistics/Elk/2016StatewideElkHarvest.pdf

 

[Casual Poacher]

Why not just ask the residents to pay a little more for a tag in Montana? Then you could give a few NR's a break. I know it would cause a mutiny to pay more than a tank of fuel for a tag though.

Pretty much every state is expensive for NRs by the time you play the point schemes, buy licenses and then tag fees, fuel, food, drinks, an occasional strip club, equipment, etc.

 

[Btaylor]

I have a much bigger problem with the guide requirement for non-residents in some states on federally owned land than I do the tag cost.

 

[JPHuntingAUS]

I have a much bigger problem with the guide requirement for non-residents in some states on federally owned land than I do the tag cost.

That's a whole other topic, I agree that hunting should not be an elitist endeavour. I'll never be able to hunt Alaska for that reason.

I'm assuming your more talking about those wilderness areas in WY type issues though?

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[mtmuley]

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks :: Harvest & Hunting Reports
http://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Hunting/BigGame/Statistics/Elk/2016StatewideElkHarvest.pdf

Don't believe those numbers. Just sayin. mtmuley

 

[swampokie]

It amazes me that people will pay whatever price they ask even for a cow or raghorn. I wont apply there as many have stated for the crazy price for elk and deer

 

[Jon Boy]

While you and your buddies may live within a reasonable drive of the border, I'd still be willing to bet that you're well in the minority. Other than the folks on this forum, whom are a minority, most folks in the west will only hunt their home states due to the difference in cost. There were 18,168 non-res elk hunters and 26,486 non-res deer hunters in MT in 2016, so dozens is far from a majority.

Interesting stat though from the MT report: non-resident elk hunters were 27% successful while resident hunters were 20% successful. Similar for deer where non-res was 74% and res was 65%. So even though non-res hunters hunt less days they seem to be more effective; or at least less willing to eat tag soup.

You're missing the point. Montana isnt worth the money to do a 5 day trip to. Colorado and Idaho are. That doesn't mean that montana should lower its tag fees, it is well worth the price when you factor in season length, number of units open, trophy potential and public land. If you want to chase rag horns for 5 days with a significant amount more pressure, than buy a 600 dollar Colorado tag. Montana's tag price is an absolute bargain is you use it to its potential. I havent even touched on the included fishing, upland and small game, license

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[johnsd16]

If the family of the OP would choose either deer OR elk the tag cost would go down by hundreds. As stated, the MT combo license includes fishing and small game; the seasons are also crazy long. Having a deal for first degree relatives of residents is a joke. It favors people with big families and just makes no sense. Where do you draw the line? Parents? Siblings? Cousins? Step parents? Step siblings? Now that I live within an hour of MT, I plan to draw the big game combo whenever I can.

 

[COlineman78]

You're missing the point. Montana isnt worth the money to do a 5 day trip to. Colorado and Idaho are. That doesn't mean that montana should lower its tag fees, it is well worth the price when you factor in season length, number of units open, trophy potential and public land. If you want to chase rag horns for 5 days with a significant amount more pressure, than buy a 600 dollar Colorado tag. Montana's tag price is an absolute bargain is you use it to its potential. I havent even touched on the included fishing, upland and small game, license

Completely agree and I probably didn't make my position clear. I don't think MT should change their pricing; I think that it's good for the system if some states have higher costs and/or lower tag counts and manage for trophies as it helps keep the balance. My earlier point was that duration of season isn't a great justification for cost as most people don't hunt that long anyway. That being said, I think that less crowding and bigger animals is a great argument and have no problem with that. Also agree that for someone that wants both a elk and deer tag in their pocket it's a wash in comparison to other states (if you can even get a deer tag in CO). I'm not sure that I agree that it's not worth the money for a 5 day trip as the same arguments still apply.

CO has also raised their prices this year for NR where it is 664 this year instead of 629 last year for elk, so that gap has gotten smaller. Deer is now 399 for NR in CO (was 379), so it is certainly cheaper to hunt MT combo. Another thing that isn't discussed anywhere in here is that CO resident fees are already double that of MT and they just got approval to double them again in the next 5 years.

MT does offer the "come home to hunt" and "nonresident native" licenses that are essentially covering what the OP is asking for (assuming his family members were born in MT) and more than generous for them to offer at a discount.

 

[Jon Boy]

Completely agree and I probably didn't make my position clear. I don't think MT should change their pricing; I think that it's good for the system if some states have higher costs and/or lower tag counts and manage for trophies as it helps keep the balance. My earlier point was that duration of season isn't a great justification for cost as most people don't hunt that long anyway. That being said, I think that less crowding and bigger animals is a great argument and have no problem with that. Also agree that for someone that wants both a elk and deer tag in their pocket it's a wash in comparison to other states (if you can even get a deer tag in CO). I'm not sure that I agree that it's not worth the money for a 5 day trip as the same arguments still apply.

CO has also raised their prices this year for NR where it is 664 this year instead of 629 last year for elk, so that gap has gotten smaller. Deer is now 399 for NR in CO (was 379), so it is certainly cheaper to hunt MT combo. Another thing that isn't discussed anywhere in here is that CO resident fees are already double that of MT and they just got approval to double them again in the next 5 years.

MT does offer the "come home to hunt" and "nonresident native" licenses that are essentially covering what the OP is asking for (assuming his family members were born in MT) and more than generous for them to offer at a discount.

I gotcha! Just misunderstood you. For the record, I plan on hunting colorado this year or next year and have plans to elk hunt (and hopefully take a bull) in every western state. Through my extensive research I've found each state has its pros and cons, and each one has its own set of unique experiences. That's what I love about hunting.

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[maninthemaze]

Don't believe those numbers. Just sayin. mtmuley

I agree. They only pool a small number of tag holders to get their average for all tags. I hunted Montana last year with a deer/elk combo. They called me about the deer tag. Asked what area I hunted, days in the field and if I was successful. When I spoke about the elk tag, he informed me they were only asking about the deer.

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[COlineman78]

I agree. They only pool a small number of tag holders to get their average for all tags. I hunted Montana last year with a deer/elk combo. They called me about the deer tag. Asked what area I hunted, days in the field and if I was successful. When I spoke about the elk tag, he informed me they were only asking about the deer.

CO is ruthless. They call endlessly every other day for like 3 months until you answer. I certainly believe their numbers. They also include a sample rate and a response rate in the first paragraph and table. They got a 50% response rate for those selected and sampled 110k elk hunters (about 10% of all elk hunters). So the number of responses they got was about 5% of all hunters, which according to their math (I hate statistics, so I trust their statistician calculated correctly) they have a relatively small 95% confidence interval; anywhere from 2-6%.

 

[jmez]

I hunted Montana last year with a deer/elk combo. They called me about the deer tag. Asked what area I hunted, days in the field and if I was successful. When I spoke about the elk tag, he informed me they were only asking about the deer.

Same thing happened with me.

Also same with their harvest statistics. 3 of us have hunted there for 6 years, between us, 1 call on harvest stats.

 

[dotman]

Completely agree and I probably didn't make my position clear. I don't think MT should change their pricing; I think that it's good for the system if some states have higher costs and/or lower tag counts and manage for trophies as it helps keep the balance. My earlier point was that duration of season isn't a great justification for cost as most people don't hunt that long anyway. That being said, I think that less crowding and bigger animals is a great argument and have no problem with that. Also agree that for someone that wants both a elk and deer tag in their pocket it's a wash in comparison to other states (if you can even get a deer tag in CO). I'm not sure that I agree that it's not worth the money for a 5 day trip as the same arguments still apply.

CO has also raised their prices this year for NR where it is 664 this year instead of 629 last year for elk, so that gap has gotten smaller. Deer is now 399 for NR in CO (was 379), so it is certainly cheaper to hunt MT combo. Another thing that isn't discussed anywhere in here is that CO resident fees are already double that of MT and they just got approval to double them again in the next 5 years.

MT does offer the "come home to hunt" and "nonresident native" licenses that are essentially covering what the OP is asking for (assuming his family members were born in MT) and more than generous for them to offer at a discount.

Getting a deer tag in CO is easy, plenty of 0-1 pt units.

 

[Bowhunter65]

Montana's coming home to hunt program--------I believe this program was intended for family members that were born in Montana and wish to come home to hunt. You have to prove where you were born.