dont buy a valles caldera lottery ticket next year, boycott it untill the ethics are put in the lottery. I would really like to see NM get taken to court with the crap they pull by allowing more tags alloted to non-res that can afford(or want) to use a greedy outfitter. Why is this? what happened to the days when a guy could take his sons elk hunting in any state without being a rich person. Tradition needs to be upheld, elk hunting should not be a money making buisness on federal land where the common man is priced out of hunting. All non-res should be drawn from the same pool and get their babysitter outfitters afterwards. I have no respect for big outfitters that think that the federal lands should be their private hunting grounds. The way things are going hunting will be only for the rich if we dont start fighting for the right to keep the money out of elk hunting.
Just an example,the Federal government (all of us)purchased the Baca ranch, or Valles caldera area or new mexico. The ranch is holding its first hunt this year for huge bulls. They had a lottery at 25$ per ticket, no limit on the amount you could buy, one winning tag per person regardless of how many times his name is pulled. Heres where it gets ****ty, they allow the winning ticket winners to transfer or sell thier tags to anyone. So what you have is the outfitters submitting multiple tickets in every family and guides names to draw tags to sell on e-bay for 6-15k$ I saw one outfitter bragging that they aquired several tags this year!
Then to make things even less traditional to the sport of hunting, The ranch auctioned off 10 tags to the highest bidders in the best part of the ranch, that averaged 20,000$ from what i was told. Is this what are elk hunting on our(federal) land has become? I am sorry, i am not rich, or do not need a outfitter. I have nothing against them but i feel that if you want to use one that is fine, but it should not give you better odds at hunting on public federal land.
The only time an outfitter should have any advantage to a drawing is on private owned property.
Any one agree??