MO-KS_hunter

That's great whitetailaddiction and I agree, we need a cross-state advocacy group that fights for the rights of non-residents. I also agree that if states want to limit non-resident hunters than do it by a lottery system, not price gouging. Did you ever get a response from the other states you scanned and faxed the email to?

whitetailaddiction

No. Only from MO DOC.

Somethinglike: " When it comes to discussing nonresident issues like this, discussion can become heated on both sides" blah, blah, blah... Bottom line is that they went ahead and raised it and here we go again.

They dictate policy and if you don't pay you don't play. So what recourse is there really? Vote them out? Hah! They're not elected so there's no leverage there. Further, since it's the non resident who is affected, he has no vote anyway. It's really a good scam they have going here.

Mizzouhunter

I think one of the problems is an administrative/enforcement problem. For example, my family (previously) qualified for the no-cost landowner tags by owning thirty acres. However, we didn't just hunt our property - i.e. we had permission to hunt neighbor's property. But the landowner tags were limited to the property that we owned. To legally harvest a deer on the neighbor's farm, we were legally obligated to purchase a resident deer tag.

The administrative/enforcement issue: How many people get free landowner tags for owning 20 acres, but then hunt/harvest deersomewhere else? When they cannot(legally) use theirlandowner tags in that manner! How many people limit their hunting to 20 or 30, 40 etc. acres?

Full disclosure: I know several local hunters whose spouses and/or dependent childrenreceiveno-cost landowner permits and mysteriously harvest/tag/and check-indeer without everleavingthe house.A system with such a low acreage requirement can easily be abused.

Lanse couche couche

Mizzou,

I don't know that folks who only own 20 acres are gonna abuse the system any more (or less) than someone who has 80 acres.In central Illinois you have people who own 200 acre farm without any cover at all on it for deer and they get landowner permits. So, if they tag a deer where do you think it is coming from? If there is abuse in the system, then it is up to the state to better enforce the rules rather than punishing the smaller landowners who should have the same right to get a permit to hunt their land as the largest landowner in the county.

Mizzouhunter

Statistically - Who is more likely to hunt their own land: the 20-acre landowner or the 80-acre landowner?

Does than mean the 20-acre guywill abuse the system? I don't know.

Personally, I don't care if they eliminate the no-cost landownertags. In Missouri, it just returns us to our original permit system. No-cost tags were a creation of MDC. If MDC wants to eliminate them, they have the authority to do so.

Lanse couche couche

Mizzou,

I don't know the statistics on that and I dont know that anyone else does either. One could just as easily say that landowner permits should be limited to people who own 1000 acrs or more since there is an even better chance that they will hunt their own land. I just get the impression that if they are pushing for an 80 acre limit, then somewhere they are getting some backing from somebig shots that own 81 acres.

I don't even really care about free tags, but it would be nice to allow any landowner in a given state to purchase tags at resident prices. If they won't do that, or something like it, then they are dealing with some faulty and arbitrary logic in terms of a particular amount of acreage meriting a freebie while slightly lesser acreage doesn't.

mohunter82

Mizzou.
ActuallyI do! I own 23 acres. but have multiple other pieces of land. and yes i do purchase tags for those pieces of land if i plan on hunting it. as a matter of fact i have sat and watched deer on one piece of land because i couldn't shoot them cause my buck tag was for a different piece.

I will agree that there are probably people abusing the system. But jumping to 80 ares? Oh well i guess i'll go back to paying for my tags. not a big deal as long as the money is properly spent on the areas that need it.