Well, Wyoming just helped me break my record.....so this year, it was 6 states..22 hunts...2 tags drawn...and one of those was a guaranteed tag. I'm going to go postal.....wapiti7

Bummer dude. You must pick some hard to draw hunts. Sounds like our family in NM last year - 28 total applications, 3 tags.

Well, since it seems everyone wants to hunt a public land trophy managed area, what else would you expect???

Idaho will have a second draw in August for leftover Elk and Deer tags from the controlled hunts. There are a lot of non-resident tags left for the open hunt areas for deer and elk. Depending on where you go, you might invest in a bear and/or cougar tag. The open hunt areas maybe aren't the super-trophy hunts, and maybe the animals aren't all clumped up, or maybe they're just pretty rough country, but any hunt trip beats the heck out of most anything else.

For Antelope, check with Duck Valley Indian Reservation. If you go there, bring your fishing tackle!

Wow that would suck.

Playing the odds, but got skunked anyway.

How much were 22 tags in 6 states?

Are you applying for mt goat in Idaho. For non-residents this is one of the easiest tags to draw. And Bison in South Dakota's Custer state park is an easy one to draw too. Most of the bison they will let you shoot are Booner's.

D99, It really depends on the state. This year I had about $7500 out in apps. I was not aware of the Mtn Gaot hunt in Idaho. I wouldn't even know when the draw is. Any help for next year would be appreciated. Might as well add a 7th state!!.......wapiti7

wapiti I presume $7500 is what you would spend if you had been successful in all your draws?

What are the 2 tags that you did get?

Yep... Too much trouble for me... I've about given it up too... I fully understand.

For $450 a year I've joined a GREAT hunt club here with a 22,000 acre lease.

I can hunt that lease any day I want year round for something and it's full of trophy bucks for our 4 months of deer season.

I am also VERY sick of the out of state draw hunts game.

Too bad it has to be so crazy difficult.

$bob$

Well, some states require that you submit the entire lisence fee up front. Others require just the fee of a few bucks. With the sheep, mtn goat, moose and other higher stuff averaging anywhere from $1200 to $2500, it doesn't take long to add up. The way I figure it,I'm 37, so I'm trying set myself up for the future. I've been applying like this for the last 6 years, so hopefully over the next 20 years I will be in position to draw some great hunts!..........wapiti7

Alberta, I drew both tags in New Mexico. An oryx tag on WSMR and a Javalina tag....wapiti7

I'm thinking of taking up camera hunting when I can't hunt with a rifle. No seasons, no draws, no flying with a rifle and the fears of getting it stolen, no out of state license fees, no guides, no outfitters, no crazy aggravation over narrow time windows that can be messed up by my real estate career, weather, family emergencies, etc....

Just grab the camera and go whereever and whenever you feel like it...

It's so much easier, less frustrating, and cheaper.

Does that mean that the bunny huggers are finally winning?

$bob$

The draw system in the various states is part of the reason I have pretty much quit hunting down there. I use to put in for various hunts in a number of states, but now the best areas are so hard to draw in I simply can't be bothered.

It may sound snobby (is not meant that way)but after you have shot dozens of run-of-the-mill mule deer and antelope and what not, applying for a zone that is easy to draw in to do it all over again holds little appeal. In some states and management units getting access is getting harder and harder. The access in one of the areas I use to hunt in in Wyoming is so tied up by outfitters that you are wasting your time putting in for it. You will draw, but good luck finding a place to hunt.

Money is an issue for most of us and quite frankly I do not have $5,000 or $10,000 sitting around most of the time to use on applications. Sure you get most of it back minus the application fees, but you still have to have it sitting around in the first place and when it is all floating around in the various state draws you can't use it for anything else.

I'd rather just take the money and book a hunt where I know I am going.....meaning outfitter allocation or landowner tags, open zone, etc.
Sure I still apply for a few, but I will not apply for anything where I have to lay out the whole licence fee in advance any more. It is a bullshit rip off so that they can make interest on your cash sitting in their bank account.

draw hunts are a fish and game ploy to make as much money as possible.They dont want us to hunt they just want our money.Most fish and game are filled with ainthunting tree huggers who could care less about hunting.I hope one day it changes before its too late.here in Alaska its going to get to turn into a park on the road system so the tour buses will see no fallen game.They now require all bones the heart and liver be taken out of unit 13 and the hides.Alaska is as close to communisn as in gets in the united statesas far as hunting goes.It wont be long only the elite rich will be able to hunt here.

I live here and it is hard to draw. It has changed considerably in the last 20 years. I wish the state would go to a point system for elk, deer, and antelope. I have went 6 years with out an antelope, last limited quota elk was 4 years ago. With a point system I figured at least every other year on elk or at most every two years. Oh well, maybe an out of state hunt is due!

It doesn't matter what the politics are for your fish and game people.

In most states, all the serious decisions come from the governors office and the legislature.

Sometimes they like to have public input meetings but they're always structured to get the input they want and if that backfires they'll just re-do the meetings until they get what they want.

Make no mistake about it... Your hunting and fishing rights are being whittled away until none will be left except for the wealthy and powerful.

When I lived in Colorado the elk were starving because there were way to many for the carrying capacity of the land but they still severely restricted the amount of hunters and made the seasons painfully short and that was in a state starving for revenue and who's second largest source of income was from hunters. (The ski industry was number one).

They were still willing to cut their own throats to make sure that only a minimum number of hunters were able to hunt.

I got so sick of it I came back to Florida where we have 5 months per year we can hunt deer and you can kill 2 per day.

Our deer may not be very big or plentiful but you can really hunt until your happily sated every year and I really like that. It's not about what you kill but the hunt to me. Yes... I'd rather hunt elk and mulies in the Rockies but not for 10 days a year!

It's a huge,sick, and tragic joke to me and there's really nothing I can do about it.

Like many of use here I really live to hunt and the rest of the year is spent in preparation for hunting. Too bad so sad....

$bob$

Man is this depressing! Come on guys, we just have to keep going forward and working the system. I dont have 10k laying around either, but I have a credit card that I only use to apply for hunts with. If you truely love to hunt, you wont let the man get you down....wapiti7

I could afford the 10K but the time to do all the apps and the waiting and waiting for a narrow window of opportunity is way beyond what I'm willing to put up with.

Try this one time. Try asking your game and fish people why the seasons are so painfully short when many states have looooong seasons and still have PLENTY of game.

You'll get answers all over the board but there's no valid or logical game management science behind it.

I can tell you that convenience for wildlife officers and agencies will trump YOUR convenience EVERY time even if you're the one paying all the bills and they're supposed to be public servants.

They take the funds that you spend on hunting and use them against you and to make sure that you get to hunt less and less.

Hunters will never unite. We're like farmers. We're an independent bunch of people that like to do it our way and will be out voted and out legislated every time by the bunnie huggers who are by nature "herd animals".

$bob$

I hear ya...........but I won't do the credit card thing either as those bastards just rake it in on the interest , but to each their own.

I live for hunting. I am fortunate in that I have open seasons at home for deer for 3 months. There is an elk draw and I have drawn every year I put in. I can purchase over the counter tags to hunt moose and black bear as well. Caribou is also an option if I want to spend a few bucks to fly-in up north.

I just find myself staying home more and hunting what I have in my backyard because I too am sick of playing the game with the states that are milking the non-resident hunters. Some of the non-resident tag/licence fees are also getting to be rediculously high.

skyline, Since I live out west, it's just nice to be able to draw. Hopefully in the next few years things will be looking good and I can just go to canada or ak or where ever each year that I dont draw. I usually go to texas and hunt exotics when I dont draw. But a tag in my own state is the cheapest......wapiti7

This will be my 12th year without drawing the Idaho deer hunt if I'm not successful. But I knew it was a hard draw when I applied for it. Someday it will be worth it.
Everyone that is worried about their hunting rights should run (don't walk) and join your local SCI chapter. They do more to protect our hunting rights than anyone else. And while you are running, dash over to the NRA and join them as they fight for our rights to carry the guns we hunt with. Hunters have to unite to win. Join SCI.

I am a horrible example, but here's my story.

I have been in the Navy for almost 14 years. I have spent about the last 7 either in combat or overseas.

When Wyoming increased the points buying anti on Moose and Sheep to $100 I was so pissed I dropped 4 points on both animals. Now I really regret it.

I am an Alaska resident, but Alaska treats their own residents like poop on hunting rights. The Japanese tourist are seen as the cash cow and hunters weather they be instate or out of state are seen as a nuisance. The Japanese for the most part don't like hunting, and don't want to see gut piles on the sides of the road. So Alaska has some pretty tough laws.

I haven't hunted Alaska since 2000. I probably won't hunt Alaska again until I move back when I retire.

I hunted in Namibia in 2005, and I thought it was a lot of bang for the buck. I hunted in 2006 in Germany and had a ball there too. You can easily hunt Europe cheaper than any Canadian whitetail, moose, caribou or mule deer hunt. Most Nambia South Africa plains game hunts are cheaper than guided elk and deer hunts in the states, and you get to shoot more animals.

If timelines worked I would put in for antelope tags in WY, MT, ID, NM, AZ, CO, and UT, deer in UT, AZ, WY, ID, and MT, elk in WY, NM, and MT, and moose in ID, MT, and WY, and sheep in ID, MT, WY, OR, AZ, NV, and goat in ID, MT, and WA.

If I lived in Wyoming (or any other western state) I would apply for as many tags as I could afford and schedule my life around that. I would have hounds and horses and hunts lions and bears (where allowed) by hounds in at least three or four states.

Land owner tags are available in Colorado and New Mexico and this can be a really good deal for antelope and deer. New Mexico also has gemsbok oryx, aoudad, and persian ibex. Land owner tags exhist for aoudad and oryx. I probably wouldn't bother with the javalina draw in Arizona and New Mexico since you can hunt them every year without drawing in Texas. Though chasing javalina in tick infested south Texas is shitty compared to the Saguro cactus country of Arizona.

These difficulties you all have discussed is the reason God invented Texas. Same problem here in Arizona. I did draw a cow elk tag for this coming season and that is pleasing.

What needs to happen in wyoming. Is the state needs to place all nonresident tags into an auction and sell them to the highest bidder.
Resident tags could be sold even cheaper and Game and Fish would have plenty of cash to piss away on useless shit,unrelated to wildlife management.

If texas was so wonderful. Texicans wouldn't be running around phucking up the rest of america.

Welcome back to the forums RMK.

MG

Billinthewind, God bless you my friend. Texas is my #1 back up plan.......wapiti7

Sledder, I like your positive attitude man!

Wapiti7...........while I will not hunt behind high fence, I did have a great free range aoudad hunt in west Texas. No, it was not the same as going after a stone ram, but it was fair chase, rough country and a great holiday away from -30 or so mid-winter temperatures.

Some day I hope to find free range axis hunts that are worth doing and I probably will go for a free range nilgai one of these days if I can find a partner to go with.

You guys are forgetting the Golden Rule.

The people with the Gold...make the rules.

quote:

Originally posted by sledder:
What needs to happen in wyoming. Is the state needs to place all nonresident tags into an auction and sell them to the highest bidder.
Resident tags could be sold even cheaper and Game and Fish would have plenty of cash to piss away on useless shit,unrelated to wildlife management.

If texas was so wonderful. Texicans wouldn't be running around phucking up the rest of america.

Sledder, Why do you feel the need to slander Texas and its residence. I for one have no desire to run around America and ruin it. I find it pleasurable to travel to other areas and relies just how good I have back home in TEXAS.

Sledder.....as a Canuck who has been to Texas a few times.......it is a fantastic place to visit.