Just out of curiousity. Does the landowner get a kickback like they do/did in Wyoming if they let someone hunt on their land?
There's a "Landowner Preference Program" has kind of a back-channel setup. Landowners get "vouchers" ahead of time that are like pre-issued tags that they can give out to hunters. You need 160 acres or more to qualify, and you get one voucher for every 160 acres you include in your registration. There's also Ranching for Wildlife where you're not allowed to charge fees.
Neither of those is really what I mean. I mean that it seems to me like somebody did some very successful lobbying to beef up trespass fee revenue. Look at this list below. If you're hunting public land elk, you need to specify cow or bull when buying most tags. If you're a landowner, you can get an either-sex tag for nearly any GMU with almost no competition because there are so many available:
Further down the same list, here's one either-sex public land tag that's actually still available. It's still available because in that area everyone knows by rifle 4 the elk will be down into the private ranch land by then and you're lucky to pick off a straggler. Compare that situation to the two private-land tags. Not only are there more available, but you also get a choice of either first-crack (P1R), or "oh yeah, they're in my west alfalfa field today, go get 'em boy!" (P4R).
Currently (12:30pm same day as the leftover sale, as I write this) there are zero deer tags left for DF027 or DM027, which cover GMUs 27 and 181 near Kremmling, a very popular area for hunters. But there are 78 DE017P2R / P3R tags left, which is a private-land-only tag that covers either sex, with a much wider hunt zone as well (18, 27, 28, 37, 181, and 371).
Note: Anybody can buy these tags, they aren't just for landowners. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it does seem a little... friendly... how heavily subsidized the set of tags are that can only be used on private property. These tags also have very wide date ranges. Check out this one:
Yep, that's right, if you are willing to pay a trespass fee you can hunt that tag for three months. You get a month of rifle before anybody else even gets into the field.
I'm not necessarily complaining, and I'm sorry if it sounds that way. I'm just observing a trend here. Landowners pay a ton of taxes and I like to eat their food. I don't begrudge them a few extra bucks if they can make it. It just makes me wonder how many ways people abuse this kind of system. It feels too easy to have the best options be driven by "I know a guy," which makes it harder for new hunters to get into the sport, I guess is how I'd wrap it up...
