>There and plenty of outfitters who
>don't hunt general areas and
>therefore losing LQ non-res tags
>would be very detrimental to
>their business... as a resident,
>I'm all for reducing non-res
>LQ to maximum 10% of
>tags in order to increase
>resident drawing odds in LQ
>areas. Wyoming is to generous
>of our LQ area tags
>to non-residents. 25% is ridiculous,
>and I'd much rather see
>more general tags given out
>and reduce the LQ ones.
>
mntnguide,
I think most res hunters would agree with you. Here is my take, which I already know most probably don't agree with. I think the Gen areas are the units that res hunters need to be more concerned about rather than the LQ units. Most res hunters hunt Gen elk areas far more often than they do LQ areas. Even if 6% more tags were available to res hunters, most of us are still going to be hunting Gen areas. Offering a compromise of increasing the 7250 quota while decreasing the NR LQ allocation will put more hunters into the units that most res hunters will hunt the majority of their lives.
In my 20 years of applying in Wyo as both a res and NR I have drawn a total of 1 LQ tag. I am not surprised or pissed about this as I put in for very hard to draw LQ elk tags given that I can usually fall back to a Gen tag which is outstanding elk hunting. I don't think this strategy is that different from most res hunters. I cant tell you how many people I hear complaining that they haven't drawn a Little Mnt tag in 2o+ years of trying. Adding 6% more tags to the res LQ allocation is not going to substantially change my draw percentage. So in that situation, which tag is more consequential to the res hunter, the tag you draw once every 20 years or the one you hunt 19 out of 20 years? That's my take anyway.