SB196 challenge

[Doe Nob]

Hopefully they'll rule one way or the other on this soon, like to know what the heck is going on with the draw 6 days away!

http://www.denverpost.com/latin/ci_20224021/western-outfitters-court-over-nm-hunting-law

 

[jay]

I feel for all you non-residents but on the other hand, I don't understand where the problem is requiring the outfitter to be NM based. It only makes sense to get an outfitter from the area you choose to hunt whether its resident or nonres. In my opinion these outfits are only in it for the $, most probably have little to no knowledge of the areas they are sending clients to. Yeah from there they probably hire a local outfitter or guides to do all the dirty work and just collect on the sidelines. I see how commercialized the sport has gotten and how it has affected the hunting priveledges for your everyday guy or local people. Of course if you can sell a tag for ten grand to a nonres rather than sell to a local for even a third of the price, who would you sell to, I'm sure most hunters can't afford these outragious prices. I'm not only speaking for nm residents as I'm sure in every state hunters have seen this happen. NM offers soo many great areas to hunt but most of the time unless you have a FAT wallet you can't touch these areas. I understand people making a living off of this but there has to be a limit. Everyone is local to a state so run your outfit out of your home state and give others the chance to prosper as well! Sorry for the rant but greed is the root of all evil, why can't everything be even and fair. Applying as a non-resident in any state isn't easy I guess we just have to deal with the laws or fearless leaders vote in...p.s. none of this is directed towards you Doenob, don't take offense to it, like I said just ranting!

 

[Doe Nob]

The way I heard it said best is "we are all non residents in every state but one." I think most eastman subscribers get their name in the hat in more than one state, I think its outrageous to have a restrictive quota then gouge us on the tags as well. In my thinking it
should be one or the other - either set a restrictive NR quota, then make the NR tags 4-5x res prices OR make them expensive and don't set a limit on it.

Quite a few of the NM outfitters that are harmed by this live just over the border in CO or AZ, so spend as much time in the units as residents and are good guides. AZ is hard as hell to get a tag in compared to NM, so many have had to do both. A lot of piggy backing going on this year, but I think its mostly established and well regarded guides running their business through a NM resident, seems like an awful easy hoop to jump thru, the law makes little sense to me.

Update: The judge ruled the 5 outfitters suing could get in the outfitter pool this year, but not if they were an LLC, only individuals, something about the commerce clause protecting individuals but not corporations. That makes a whole lot of no sense, so I think that further lawsuits will bring forth more changes in the outfitter pool.

My opinion is do away with the outfitter pool altogether, just make the NR pool 15%. I think everyone would be happy with that except the guides, but I don't think the government should be subsidizing their business anyway. Most guides worth their salt do a healthy trade in landowner tags already to make sure they can be booked enough to make a living. The reason that will never happen is NR have no place at the table and the Guides and Outfitters have more political clout than any of the other groups.

The whole things a cluster, I threw my name in the hat for a bunch of long shots (except elk), maybe I'll have better luck this year.