History is made

[Captain]

SC deer season comes in next week and we have NEVER had a limit on deer, either daily or season wide, we never had to check them in or tag anything.
I guess the state figured they were missing out on some revenue so they totally screwed us all this year. Not only do you have to buy a hunting license, you have to buy a big game license that come with NO (zero) tags. So now you have to buy tags also. I got 4 buck tags (the max they will allow a non-resident to buy) and I registered my property(s) for doe tags and got 15 tags for the approximately 700 acres.
What you see here is 458.00 dollars worth of deer tags.
This is stupid. I guess deer meat is sky high these days.
9216

[Thumper]

Well that sucks ... but it's pretty much like that everywhere I've ever hunted. Welcome to the 21st century. ;)

Do you have to check them also? Or just tag & bag 'em?

[Captain]

You know, I don't know. Guess I better read up! The only thing I've seen is it is required to have the tag on the deer at the processors.

[Big Muddy]

Cap, we don't have a tagging system, but we do have a voluntary harvest report, both online and mail-in survey.....however, our bag limits have been reduced, this year, because our DOW says our deer population has been on the decrease for the past three years.....and, honestly, I'll hafta agree with them.....we just aren't seeing as many deer, as in years past.

[quercus alba]

Some biologists say that coyotes kill up to 80% of the fawn crop in some southeastern counties, so the deer herd could be reduced. Looks like wildlife management would hire Big Sky to train an army of predator hunters to thin out the yodel dog population.

[Big Skyz]

Captain, if it makes you fill any better that pile of deer tags for $458.00 is still much cheaper than just one nonresident tag for Montana.

[Captain]

It does sorta Sky, but with a season that runs from the middle of August to January the 1st and you have never had a limit on how many bucks you could shoot a day or the season, limiting a feller like me to 4 a year is painful. Hell I've shot more than that in a morning.
Liken it to your state making you buy tags for coyotes and you could only get 4 tags to use in a year and had to pay an extra couple hundred bucks for those 4...

[Thumper]

Waaaa waaaa ... What a whiny little snowflake! :crybaby

[Captain]

You won't know a snowflake if it fell on your bald head.

[Chicken Dinner]

Good thing the game warden doesn't have the code to the gate!

[Bwana]

Just curious, is the number of doe tags you get tied to how many acres of land you have? If so, you folks must have deer coming out of your ears if shooting 15 does/700 acres leaves a healthy population behind!

As for the price, it looks like you have to pay $24/deer tag, ours are $30/tag but we are limited to a single rifle tag at this time. A person can also buy a bow tag and if lucky (I wasn't) you can draw a muzzleloader tag also.

Welcome to reality and happy hunting.

[Captain]

The buck tags for nonresident cost 50 bucks for the first tag and 20 dollars each for three additional buck tags.
Doe tags can be bought separate but I entered our lands in a doe program which included attaching maps of the land location. The biologist assigns how many doe tags he thinks that land will support. The program cost 50 dollars to register your land. You have no say on how many tags you get.
This is all new to us but seems stupid. As we have never had a limit per day or per season, the season runs 5 months and we never had anything less that a large herd in the state.
Just seems like a way for SC to pull in a lot of dollars.

[Big Muddy]

Cap, your last sentence says it all.....it's all about the money.....and, I'm sure our DOW is headed in that direction in the near future, as well.

[DeputyDog]

It sucks they started that but those prices aren't bad. A nonresident tag in Indiana is $150 for a buck tag and each additional doe tag is $24 each. There is a limit to one buck a year in Indiana. For residents the cost is $24 for the buck tag and $15 for each additional tag. One buck per year for residents too and does are limited by county depending on their determination of herd health in that area.


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[BarryBobPosthole]

I never saw where you mentioned what the state game and fish people said was the reason for this big of a change.

Y'all sure do get excited about what are essentially government goats.

BKB

[Captain]

I never saw where you mentioned what the state game and fish people said was the reason for this big of a change. BKB

Posty I really have not looked into their so called reasons for doing this as I know watching grass grow or paint dry would be a better use of time. First of all I know they are gonna publish a butt load of reasons other than the real reason which is to bring in revenue. They will probably say the deer numbers are down and blame over or increased harvesting, loss of habitat due to logging and urban sprawl, or coyotes are killing everything made out of meat, et al.....
Hell they might have even used that old Northern trick of "harsh winter kill". Ha!
Don't have a clue how they can say more deer are now being harvested as there has never been a tagging or checkin process in the state. Shoot them till you run out of bullets or you got all your truck will haul and take them down the road no tags or checkin.
I'm sure they awarded some company zillions of dollars to do a study as soon as the company agreed to make the results support what the state wanted it to show. Those government employees have to be doing shit to show why their job is important! You know how people that work for the Government are... :D
Someone dreamed up an idea to sell tags to hunters and figured they could bring in a zillion dollars for the state coffers, I bet that guy got a raise for this trick! Damn Government Employees.... ;)

[Chicken Dinner]

The biggest change here lately was last year they split the bear tags off from the other big game tags. It used to be for $24 you got 6 deer, 3 turkey and 1 bear. The bear houndsmen got fed up with bear being taken during deer season by chance and whispered to the DNR that they could make more money by having a separate license. The rest is history...


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[Big Muddy]

Cap, I was just looking at some ballpark statistics, and there are roughly 250,000 paid hunters in SC....assuming an average increase of only $40 per hunter, just for tags, that's a total revenue increase of $10 million for your DOW.....day'um, ALL your GW's gonna be riding in new trucks !!!!! ;)

[Captain]

The cost increase for me personally is $160.00
I bet the average is gonna be a hundred dollars increase per hunter.
Just a buncha BS

[quercus alba]

It's not just the increase in tags and license prices. Arkansas has some of the most ridiculous laws designed strictly for revenue purposes. Case and point A), if the wind blows down some standing corn then you can duck hunt over it without being considered baiting. However, if you stomp some of the stalks down then it's considered baiting.

B) If the guy who has the lease joining yours has corn out for deer and you are hunting turkey within 500 feet of the bait you can be fined even tho you had no idea the corn was there and even tho it's not on your lease.

C) The three point rule. Which by the way has failed every where it's been tried. Texas A&M did a 20 year study on it and it had some pretty conclusive results.

d) On two different occasions (which I have personally witnessed) during a state operated fish kill, fishermen had to stay within the limit of the dead and dying fish they collected

I have come to a personal conclusion and determined that to be employed by The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, you need to be either stupid, arrogant or a dickhead. If you're all three then the AGFC wants you.