Lots of good points on here, some are opposing, it's all about your point of reference.
I like to shoot mature animals, so opportunity isn't my top priority, that is until I can't hunt every year!!
My best friend is not a resident, though he's trying very hard to get his wife to agree to a move. So, even as a resident that has seen a lot of new pressure from people from CA/WA/OR/UT and so I wouldn't mind making my life easier, but it's at the cost of my best buddy, so no win win.
It's a little embarrassing how I feel sometimes when I see the WA and UT plates, in particular, parked at my trailheads. Mostly because I know these guys don't have "our" access to hunting and are here leveraging off "our" herds because they choose to live somewhere that can't provide them the opportunity we have. I think, over time, you have to realize, how do we not end up there ourselves. Well, the new rule is meant for NR's, and as a resident that sounds fair, but eventually it's unlikely it doesn't hit us. Well, maybe it has.
I have bought a second tag, strictly for WT, about 8 of the last 10 yrs. I couldn't this year, as none were available. I was SHOCKED! Do I buy a second tag to be greedy and kill 2 deer. Hell no. I've never killed 2 deer in a year and that's by design. There very different experiences for me and as I get pickier about my MD, and frankly it get's harder to hunt them where mature deer live, I like the more relaxed opportunity WT give. But, things changed, first with a shorter WT season, and now with no season at all, past 11/3, with my Reg Deer Tag. So now I have to choose to hunt MD or WT. Sounds trivial to the guy from WA complaining because he can't drive over the border and shoot a WT, when he has NO option to hunt in his own state, but what is really fair? I don't know, but it isn't gonna get easier.
I don't know what the solution is, but it is highly unlikely we will see less pressure from general demand to hunt. What is also at hand and impacting our hunting experience is a drop in deer numbers, and what may be a future drop in elk. Why the drop, well I'm not positive. My uneducated, but experienced guess is that the many many fires across our wintering grounds has dropped carrying capacity. Add that to some bad winters, and the deer are struggling to recover. More guys, myself included, are more adept at spotting and killing deer and elk farther away as well.
I hate change, with a passion, and I have the gray hairs to prove it. But, it's coming one way or another so we better find a way to embrace it, adapt to it, etc.
I know that, like I started out saying, I think a lot of you are right, in what you think. I don't think most of the people who complain on MM are right in general though, because it seems most think there is a simple solution for IDFG to make to fix it all, such as: Point system or limit tags or raise NR fees or raise Res fees or something. Yes, there are some changes to help distribute opportunity or limit take and they should be debated and some made, BUT the biggest thing that we will have a difficult time fixing is Mother Nature.
Noxious weeds, bad winters, disease(bighorns), etc have more impact on our herds than anything else. Unless we stop expansion of our civilization, that too will forever increasingly limit our herds. So even if we could stop growing the number of hunters in each state, we won't stop the long slow decline of our hunting opportunity, so prep yourself.
The good news is that, unlike MANY other countries where the idea of big game hunting on public land is a "myth", we have lots of it and we will see upswings in herds, at times, so we need to understand that and take advantage when we can, when the herds experience some upswings, when you can draw a tag, when you are still young and healthy.
So, my point, keep up the debate, but prep for change and don't take what you have for granted!