This whole plan was pushed by a small special interest group, the largest 15-20 outfitters in the state. The prevailing attitude was leave prices alone.
That is not correct and simply does not make any sense. Why would an outfitter want to jack up prices knowing they will lose clients due to the increased fees?
I have spoken to many outfitters. None of them support the increase in fees. This is our State government at work increasing state revenues without taxing Illinois residents.
The outfitter tags are the result of a handful of outfitters who got the attention of the DNR Director and it's legal team. Originally, the DNR proposal had a two-tier system where they would charge the outfitted clients a much higher rate than those who went through a lottery.
Tag fees were supposed to be much higher but instead will be increased over a 3 year period.
Thankfully the Farm Bureau, along with other groups and individuals brought some sanity to the situation and persuaded the legislators to lower the original fee structure. Hopefully the legislature will do something next year that will maintain the present fee structure(or drop it back to last year's level). We have a number of Illinois hunters that hunt out of state. They are not gonna like paying reciprocal fees and will raise cain.