Would You Be Willing To Pay More For A Non- Resident Hunting License ?

[Sixes]

IMO the cost of non-res licenses is based mostly on how much whining the residents do.  It is a zero benefit situation money wise for the State as a whole.  When the fees get extreme they eliminate many who would come in and spend plenty on other things.  The game departments make the same on one guy paying $500 for a tag as ten guys paying $50 for a tag but the residents eliminate nine competitors and are happy.  Politics trumps all.  Answer to the question is no.  The cost of non-resident tags is way too high now in many places.  Double the price of resident tags if you really want to fund turkey management.  That would cause some screaming.

As a resident of GA, I do not want you to come here to hunt. The only exception would be if you have a lease here or hunt on private family lands.

There is no way that residents of ANY state should have their licenses increased to appease NRs.

I am not against out of state hunting, but NRs should have ZERO say in anything dealing with state resources.

As far as your comment about spending money on trips, I understand that, but GA ran a budget surplus of 3.7 Billion last year, NR spending is a drop in a bucket in revenue generation.

I know I sound like a jackass, but our state has become too overcrowded in general and our game populations are being hammered. Too many move ins and too many hunters all over the state. We have a ton of NRs from surrounding states that have the need to fill their limits.

[joey46]

Living in south Florida and witnessing the Osceola circus every March I understand your frustration.  You missed the original posters point.  He appears to want more revenue for turkey management.  Raising non-res fees won't do it since you'll price out so many that would be a zero sum game.  Georgia priced me out year's ago so your state is safe from me.  Almost all the southern states are heading in this direction.  Btw - many Florida resident hunters think a non-res tag in the Osceola's range should be a minimum of $500.  Even at that betting the public WMAs in south Florida would still look like an out of state parking lot in early March.  So many now have Grand Slam fever.
Bottom line - if you want more revenue you raise the license cost for everyone.  Raising only the non-res is a fool's errand that does no more than make the residents happy since it limits their competition.  In almost all states the cost of a resident's license is minimal to the point of being laughable when game departments cry "no money".  Florida worse than most since they give away licenses to residents over 65.  Everyone here appears over 65. Lol
Thank you for confirming the last sentence of my first post.   

[Sixes]

I don't care if GA raises resident license fees, I bought a lifetime license the first year that the state made them available. Raise them through the roof, it won't effect me and would probably help me in the long run.

I'm one of the few that hates hunter recruitment. The less the merrier in my opinion.

[eggshell]

increasing NR cost is a poor management strategy, in my opinion. NR Turkey tags are not a significant revenue source in most state wildlife budgets. Deer and big game on the other hand drive the bus, in most states, in regards to NR dollars. After working a long career in Ohio's Division of wildlife I have seen these very discussions many times. As a rule hunters will pay up if the opportunity is good for a quality hunt. game levels, not cost, drive this bus. Hunters want to have a high expectation of success, they will shy away from place where probability of success is low. However, there is a limit where people won't pay up. When expectations run low and cost go up hunters don't come. I saw Ohio raise cost and NR tags would drop for a year or two and then recover. when you consider a hunt the cost of a tag is one of the least expensive things on your trip budget. For example, I hunt Ky. every year and my license cost me $235.00 (I think) and between gas food and lodging I estimate I spent about $400.00 and most of my trips were one day driving hunts (I live 1.5 hrs from one of my spots). Then I hunted South Dakota and spent $125.00 on a tag and an estimated $1500.00 on gas, lodging and food. Now the SD trip was also a visit to my daughter, but if it had been solely a turkey hunt the cost would be the same. Sure some money could be raised to help turkey management, but not enough to justify the burden on the sportsmen and women. Like others have said, there are better strategies.

[rakkin6]

IMO the cost of non-res licenses is based mostly on how much whining the residents do.  It is a zero benefit situation money wise for the State as a whole.  When the fees get extreme they eliminate many who would come in and spend plenty on other things.  The game departments make the same on one guy paying $500 for a tag as ten guys paying $50 for a tag but the residents eliminate nine competitors and are happy.  Politics trumps all.  Answer to the question is no.  The cost of non-resident tags is way too high now in many places.  Double the price of resident tags if you really want to fund turkey management.  That would cause some screaming.

As a resident of GA, I do not want you to come here to hunt. The only exception would be if you have a lease here or hunt on private family lands.

There is no way that residents of ANY state should have their licenses increased to appease NRs.

I am not against out of state hunting, but NRs should have ZERO say in anything dealing with state resources.

As far as your comment about spending money on trips, I understand that, but GA ran a budget surplus of 3.7 Billion last year, NR spending is a drop in a bucket in revenue generation.

I know I sound like a jackass, but our state has become too overcrowded in general and our game populations are being hammered. Too many move ins and too many hunters all over the state. We have a ton of NRs from surrounding states that have the need to fill their limits.

I agree NR should have zero say in other states management or prices. I do hunt GA on Fort Benning for hogs. But that's all I hunt for in GA. Fort Benning is overrun with hogs has I am sure a lot of the state is. And having done a lot of training on Benning I know the land/terrain pretty well which helps me.

Here in my home state of Tennessee I do not know if throwing more money at TWRA would solve anything when dealing with the decline of Turkeys. Honestly they would probably divert that money to other projects. Just good common sense regulations. They did move the start of the season back two weeks beginning in 2023 and dropped the limit of birds down to 2. Has far has NR I am for a quota/lottery system. I think it is fair and allows the TWRA to base it off of numbers. Just my
.02.

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[joey46]

Quota systems don't just magically appear.  As Florida will show you they are a expensive bureaucracy in themselves.  As we have argued I'm 100% in favor of a one bird limit for non-res in any State.  Makes much more sense to me than trying to price the majority of the hunters out all together. 

[rakkin6]

Quota systems don't just magically appear.  As Florida will show you they are a bureaucracy in themselves.  As we have argued I'm 100% in favor of a one bird limit for non-res in any State.  Makes much more sense to me than trying to price the majority of the hunters out.

I could get behind that idea also

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[Roost 1]

What  a lot of people fail to realize is that the majority of states' Fish and Wildlife depts are all they concerned about turkeys, it's all about revenue. Not just revenue generated from license sales either.  Other depts of state govt look at the economics of having all the visitors they can get to their states. They are looking at the revenue generated from hotel rooms, dining out, etc.... If they were concerned about the turkey population many of the states would of already changed season dates and bag limits.

At the end of the day, the reasons above will be why the residents will get to feel the pinch as well.
One bird states don't appeal to many traveling turkey hunters.

Personally, spring bag limits don't matter to me as long as it's not the first or only change made.
These states with the worst declining populations that still allow baiting and harvest of hens(fall or spring) aren't doing anything to help the population rebound by reducing spring bag limits.

[WV Flopper]

 I agree with Joey 46 first post.

You will raise more money for conservative through residents than non residents. But....without the nonres money the economy will suffer in areas.

I am saying this as a non res, I have a lifetime license in WV and the state gets nothing from me. Only the local economy. If you take me out of the non res market it is a loose loose situation.

[TurkeyReaper69]

The government loves to ask for more tax dollars when an issue arises, but rarely does it ever actually get fixed even if they get the funding.

But to answer your question, no I already spend thousands a year on licenses, points, tags, and lotteries I don't want to pay anymore nor am I that Naive that if XYZ state slapped another 75 bucks on my license fee that it'd solve anything. Money would probably go to administrative fees or something. Maybe if it was considered "dedicated funding" I'd be more open to the idea, but if my 200 dollars to the state isn't already good enough I don't know what to say.

I will point one thing out I find ridiculous, I just moved from Mississippi to Tennessee. When I lived in MS I was paying 45 dollars plus a little more for habitat stamp and wma permit for a resident sporting license. I just purchased my resident Tennessee license for 170 dollars, I always thought the extremely high NR licenses in TN were to offset the TN res license price. Guess I was wrong. Needless to say I wasn't very happy spending 170 dollars on my resident license when I've turkey hunted at least a dozen states with cheaper NR licenses than TN's res license.

Oh well... guess with the no state income tax it all balances out.

[rakkin6]

The government loves to ask for more tax dollars when an issue arises, but rarely does it ever actually get fixed even if they get the funding.

But to answer your question, no I already spend thousands a year on licenses, points, tags, and lotteries I don't want to pay anymore nor am I that Naive that if XYZ state slapped another 75 bucks on my license fee that it'd solve anything. Money would probably go to administrative fees or something. Maybe if it was considered "dedicated funding" I'd be more open to the idea, but if my 200 dollars to the state isn't already good enough I don't know what to say.

I will point one thing out I find ridiculous, I just moved from Mississippi to Tennessee. When I lived in MS I was paying 45 dollars plus a little more for habitat stamp and wma permit for a resident sporting license. I just purchased my resident Tennessee license for 170 dollars, I always thought the extremely high NR licenses in TN were to offset the TN res license price. Guess I was wrong. Needless to say I wasn't very happy spending 170 dollars on my resident license when I've turkey hunted at least a dozen states with cheaper NR licenses than TN's res license.

Oh well... guess with the no state income tax it all balances out.

I agree about how the money is spent. No way we would know where that extra cash goes to. Could go to some tree hugger group that is against hunting for all we know. Nothing would surprise me anymore.

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[deerhunt1988]

Wait, so what i'm gathering is that you guys are telling me more turkey hunters = more license sales DOES NOT equal more turkey?!?!

If only the influencers and YouTubers that have helped ruin the sport could face this fact. But they have to continually "recruit more" and exploit the resource to stay relevant and continue to fatten their pockets.

[TurkeyReaper69]

Wait, so what i'm gathering is that you guys are telling me more turkey hunters = more license sales DOES NOT equal more turkey?!?!

If only the influencers and YouTubers that have helped ruin the sport could face this fact. But they have to continually "recruit more" and exploit the resource to stay relevant and continue to fatten their pockets.

No bro! Thats not how it works! If you have more turkey hunters who contribute to more license sales, there WILL be more turkey! But if you keep the same amount of turkey hunters but charge them more to hunt there WON'T be more turkey. The more folks posting #SaveThePoults and Tagging popular Youtubers in their instagram stories of them #SavingTheLegs will create more turkeys for us to harvest! You gotta make it make sense man!

[deerhunt1988]

I've been hitting multiple states each spring for over a decade. Always thought some states were too cheap, but many of those have since been corrected (either by price increases, turkey declines, or both). Spring only comes around once a year, i'll cut expenses elsewhere before I let license prices affect my turkey hunting. The new public land restrictions we are seeing in many states (season and bag limit reductions/more draw hunts) will keep me from buying a license before price will. It's turning into a rich man's sport where you better have access to private land if you want to hunt seasons in their entirety.

[arkrem870]

Loose lips sink ships.  Hunting alone wasn't good enough. Had to wreck it for everyone for likes and pocket change.