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Oklahoma bill looks to DOUBLE non-resident cost

NMSbowhunter said:
I know very little about Florida hunting but what I can gather from what Weldabeast has posted is that not only are their deer smaller than anywhere else, it seems that Florida has WMA regs that require you to have a PHD and a slide rule to figure out when and where you can hunt and with what on just about any given day and there are quotas you have to apply for. Seems to be a lot of red tape. I remember reading one of his threads and I thought to myself, if I was him and lived close enough to Georgia, that is where I would go.
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I think it was around 3 hundo for me to get the outta state paperwork for Ga
 
Weldabeast said:
I think it was around 3 hundo for me to get the outta state paperwork
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To me it would be more of a how far do I have to go to hunt a particular area. That is where the real money starts to add up. But 300 is not too bad if you were going to hunt Georgia exclusively and let Florida hunting license slide.
 
GCTerpfan said:
A lot of States don't have the liberal bag limits of LA. I don't hunt out of State often but, this year proved it's a long bow season when you fill your only archery tag the first week of September. I was limited on time and vacation this year so I didn't hunt out of State but, buying a license in neighboring WV definitely crossed my mind more than once.
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WV is pretty limited too. Especially for out of state resident and I think the tag was $146. I'm considering crossing the border to PA which is a 25 minutes drive from me.

But you are not going to find a lot of giants in the states.
 
I'm not exactly sure where I wanna go....seems everybody goes to Kentucky....Virgina Tennessee and the Carolinas were in my radar but Oklahoma is definitely not on the list hahahaha .....I guess it all depends on who off of SH wants to host a couple genuine Florida mans.....they just can't get mad when we show up and kill the big 1s
 
Sometimes we hunt out of state because we don’t have enough tags at home to fill the freezer. Sometimes we go for different hunting conditions, experiences, or to tip the scales in our favor. And sometimes we go for an adventure in an unfamiliar place and the challenge of making it happen on unfamiliar ground. For me, there’s a limit to what I’m willing to pay for meat and experiences.

From the other side of the equation: you’d hope that a state was operating first and foremost for wildlife management that benefits the ecosystem and other special interests. And of course states often look for ways to generate revenue. Personally In my home state id prefer to see resident fees remain accessible to people of lower income. If additional revenue generation is the goal, up charging recreational out of state hunters seems a reasonable way to do so. Unless of course there is some great need to control the populations of deer.

Coming from such vastly different parts of the country, sometimes it’s hard for us to imagine the ways that things are different in other places and under different circumstances. We are all coming from such varied backgrounds and motivated to hunt by different forces.
 
I think a solution might be to charge a use fee on WMA's and public land and make it affordable but universal. Instead of a hunter having to pay $300 for a license and $50 for a WMA permit, make it so that anyone accessing the land has to pay the same amount. I know in a lot of areas you have many people accessing and pressuring public parcels that are not ponying up any money to support the property. All the weight gets put on the hunters and the guys out there riding horses, bikes, and hiking are getting a free ride. Here you only have to pay for the WMA permit if you HUNT. You can go out anytime and play around for free. Everyone is enjoying the use of the property but only the hunters are having to pay to do so. Obviously they would not have to buy a hunting license if they did not hunt but they should have to have a WMA permit.
 
NMSbowhunter said:
I think a solution might be to charge a use fee on WMA's and public land and make it affordable but universal. Instead of a hunter having to pay $300 for a license and $50 for a WMA permit, make it so that anyone accessing the land has to pay the same amount. I know in a lot of areas you have many people accessing and pressuring public parcels that are not ponying up any money to support the property. All the weight gets put on the hunters and the guys out there riding horses, bikes, and hiking are getting a free ride. Here you only have to pay for the WMA permit if you HUNT. You can go out anytime and play around for free. Everyone is enjoying the use of the property but only the hunters are having to pay to do so. Obviously they would not have to buy a hunting license if they did not hunt but they should have to have a WMA permit.
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Mississippi only charges hunters? Alabama requires a WMA fee for anybody utilizing WMA lands. Birders, hikers, whatever.
 
Nutterbuster said:
Mississippi only charges hunters? Alabama requires a WMA fee for anybody utilizing WMA lands. Birders, hikers, whatever.
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There are a few places that make you pay a fee if you want to access boat launches but the WMA's I frequent you only have to pay a fee if you are going to hunt it. If you want to ride bikes, hike, ride horses etc, then no fee.
 
They all have their little rules and regs. Many of the smaller WMAs are highly regulated and you have to draw to hunt them. I don't fool with those. It's too much hassle. Some may require fees, others don't.
 
I don’t think the current strategies are sustainable, or make any sense. They’re based on priors that are no longer realistic(lots of land, lots of critters, not a lot of people exploiting either).

I’d like to see a state do the following:

Give a 2-3 year warning that the new seasons wi be implemented. Give hunters the ability to identify their hunting group, exactly as large or small as they see fit. State tallies up groups, and divides total number of hunters in half. Every group is given an even or odd year hunting privilege.

Keep seasons, bag limits, etc exactly the same.

Now there’s half as many hunters hunting every year. Adjust management strategies (seasons and bag limits and weapon options) as is needed to maintain the resource.

Give hunters the ability to swap years, so long as they sit out a year, and there’s a corresponding group wanting to swap into their year(this will be incredibly easy and likely in 2024).

Half as many hunters, something like half as many people breaking laws. Half the need for enforcement.

Adjust license and use fees as is necessary to compensate.

Market harder to non hunting folks who can and should be using our amazing natural resources. Charge them for it.

I would love to have 18 months to prep for my next hunt!
 
kyler1945 said:
I don’t think the current strategies are sustainable, or make any sense. They’re based on priors that are no longer realistic(lots of land, lots of critters, not a lot of people exploiting either).

I’d like to see a state do the following:

Give a 2-3 year warning that the new seasons wi be implemented. Give hunters the ability to identify their hunting group, exactly as large or small as they see fit. State tallies up groups, and divides total number of hunters in half. Every group is given an even or odd year hunting privilege.

Keep seasons, bag limits, etc exactly the same.

Now there’s half as many hunters hunting every year. Adjust management strategies (seasons and bag limits and weapon options) as is needed to maintain the resource.

Give hunters the ability to swap years, so long as they sit out a year, and there’s a corresponding group wanting to swap into their year(this will be incredibly easy and likely in 2024).

Half as many hunters, something like half as many people breaking laws. Half the need for enforcement.

Adjust license and use fees as is necessary to compensate.

Market harder to non hunting folks who can and should be using our amazing natural resources. Charge them for it.

I would love to have 18 months to prep for my next hunt!
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Heck no! You'd loose half your life's hunting opportunities. Plus, my wife would divorce me during the first off year because I would be impossible to be around. No matter how many people you have out there, hunter success will still fall within a Pareto distribution. 80% of the animals will be taken by 20% of the hunters who can actually hunt. Make access open and people's skill, drive and willpower to succeed will sort the rest out.
 
My fav wma limits 65 permits and each permit holder can take a guest. U have to go to a physical location and get a physical permit each day of the 3 day hunt if u win the lottery to get to hunt there.....I've asked if they have ever had all 65 show up and they say no. Most I've ever seen was maybe 30 but normally 15 to 20 actually show up to hunt and all those quotas are a waste.
 
Weldabeast said:
My fav wma limits 65 permits and each permit holder can take a guest. U have to go to a physical location and get a physical permit each day of the 3 day hunt if u win the lottery to get to hunt there.....I've asked if they have ever had all 65 show up and they say no. Most I've ever seen was maybe 30 but normally 15 to 20 actually show up to hunt and all those quotas are a waste.
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Yeah, they do things a little different. Lotteries, 3 day hunts, checking in every day.
 
The ODWC receives ZERO dollars from Oklahoma's general tax revenues.
 
LAKY said:
The ODWC receives ZERO dollars from Oklahoma's general tax revenues.
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Same for Alabama. It's all license sales and PR/DJ funded.

I'm all for Kyler's idea about copy/pasting PR/DJ to include other outdoor recreation categories. Camping, hiking, birdwatching, etc is all consumption use. Visit a heavily used park and tell me otherwise.

Only 4% of the population hunts. 67% camps. A tax on tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks would go a LONG way towards a state DCNR budget.
 
In Oklahoma to do anything on many of our WMAs you have to have a valid hunting or fishing license, or purchase a permit to use the department managed land. But the properties where that applies seem to be only the ones that are owned by the state. None of the Corps of Engineers properties I hunt have that requirement. So at least they are gaining some revenue from the non-hunting/fishing users.

And I do have to say I'm impressed with the acreage they keep adding to the public land catalog. Seems like every few years there is another WMA opening up, or an addition to an existing property.
 
OSUTodd said:
In Oklahoma to do anything on many of our WMAs you have to have a valid hunting or fishing license, or purchase a permit to use the department managed land. But the properties where that applies seem to be only the ones that are owned by the state. None of the Corps of Engineers properties I hunt have that requirement. So at least they are gaining some revenue from the non-hunting/fishing users.

And I do have to say I'm impressed with the acreage they keep adding to the public land catalog. Seems like every few years there is another WMA opening up, or an addition to an existing property.
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There is the olap program as well, though I haven’t been on an olap property yet. Most of it is in western Oklahoma and I’m in the north east.
 
Welp… it passed.

www.oklahoman.com

Gov. Stitt signs bill simplifying, increasing Oklahoma hunting, fishing license fees

Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill Tuesday raising the cost of most hunting and fishing licenses for the first time since 2003. Hunters and anglers lobbied for the bill despite the price increases.
www.oklahoman.com

$708 minimum price to hunt deer in Oklahoma as a non-resident.. effective July 1st.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Well, that stinks. Not that I ever planned to go there, but it still stinks for folks who do. If I were living in a neighboring state, hunted Oklahoma, and did business with Oklahomans, they might wonder why the cost of everything they buy just went up, lol.
 
I hate to say this but I hope it backfires on them. Not out of spite because I don't have any intention of hunting there, but to keep other states from following the same course of action. Politicians making wildlife policy is a bad idea. Their overarching concern is staying in office.
 
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