txhunter58

It has come to my attention that there are some landowner tags available in Colorado that are being sold for fairly high prices ($1000 or more). Most of these tags are for units where it is hard to draw a tag and provide a good service. However, some are from areas that are UNDERSUBSCRIBED. I have heard one area that tags have been sold for $1000 that had almost 600 leftover tags after the first choice drawing. Therefore, it would have been easy to draw a tag without paying anyone $1000. These tags are NOT to hunt private land, in fact you cannot hunt the ranch that gets the tags. You must hunt public land in that unit. So drawing a tag is just as good as a landowner tag.

I will not, and no one else can name names, or this post will be deleted, and rightly so. My purpose is not to talk bad about anyone in particular, just to inform you that you should check out the drawing process before paying for any landowner tag. Here is a link that provides data for each game unit including how many applicants and how many tags were available. http://wildlife.state.co.us/huntrecap/

Buyer beware! Good hunting.

gselkhunter

This tags do allow the purchaser to hunt private land in that unit with land owner permision, just like any other open tag for that unit. The deal is they usually are asking for a huge trespass on top of the license fee. And even if you wished to pay these inflated costs to hunt your favorite area, no one in the division of wildlife will tell you who has the tags. You must go pound on doors or know someone that will tell you about who has them. I don't understand why a land owner should be allowed to make this kind of money. When I question the CDOW, this is just the way it is was my answer.
Gselkhunter

txhunter58

You are correct, you can hunt the private WITH THEIR PERMISSION, but they can sell you the tag and NOT give you permission, leaving only public land to hunt.

What they have told me as a reson for these tags is to get more hunting dollars into landowners hands and maybe slow down selling off to developers. However, it doesn't seem right to sell a tag to hunt public land in a premier unit, when I would have to put in for 10-15 years to get drawn. I think all landowner tags should be PLO (private land only) like they used to be.

gselkhunter

OK, so now ask the right question! Landowners are being paid for crop or land damage. And are being given tags to sell and allowed to charge any price for tags or hunts they see fit. But their names are not out there, WHY! Get it yet.
Gselkhunter

willhunt4food

A person can make alot of good arguements for and against private land tags (not to be confused with private land only tags that the public can draw for) that large land owners can apply for from the state. I believe these are essentially vouchers for tags that must then be bought from the dow at regular price based on the hunters resident status. These tags are good unit wide (all public land and any private land that the hunter can secure access to).
TXHUNTER's point shouldn't be lost. Some outfits are reselling these vouchers for sums in excess of $1,000 yet they give no access to the private land that generated the private land tag. If a hunter buys this tag they may be guaranteed that they can hunt that unit/season. If this were in a unit that is always oversubscribed (ie takes multiple years/preference points to draw) this could be a good deal. It could be a great deal.
The point TX is trying to make is that some of these land owner tags are being sold at very high prices in areas that have historically been far undersubscribed meaning EVERYONE THAT APPLIED FOR THE TAG LAST YEAR DREW THE TAG. Based on historical drawings the guarantee of a private land tag in this case HAS NO VALUE.
POINT - DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. The stats are on the websites in pdf format. Sometimes they aren't easy to read or understand but it is well worth your time to not get caught up in this trap because you trust someone's reputation. If you have to, call the DOW and I'm sure they will help you understand the chances of drawing a tag in a perspective unit.
I'll get off the soap box now,
wh

cherokee_outfitters

I have seen landowners refuse a elk fence from the DOW to keep elk out of their hay but yet still raise a fuse and try to get money from the DOW. I think if a landowner is having to get tags for game reduction then they should not be allowed to sell that tag to a private individual and must let a certain number of hunters hunt on their land to recieve monies from the DOW to make it fair. It's a money game nothing else.

The potato farmers have in a ballot with the DOW in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado to have a zero toleration of elk from Alamosa to Monte Vista then north as far as Saquatch. The reason being they claim the elk scatter fungus from one field to the next causing a destruction of crop raising yeld. Okay for all those that don't understand the word zero tolerance that means killing all the elk in at least 500 sq miles. They are claiming the elk herd size around 1000 animals. Okay whats next mule deer, antelope, fox, coyotes, turkeys, anything that walks and crawls in the fields. No if they issue landowner tags to these farmers I would entirely pissed off. It makes my heart sick to watch all these things happen to wildlife in the name of progress.


If this does happen I hope they shoot all them sand hill cranes in the process that they the DOW are so proud of. You never hardly see a DOW officer during elk season but let them damn cranes fly in and you have to wade through the DOW personel just to get down the road.

All that big game animals are to the DOW is money. They don't manage them well at all. All they want to do is sell tags and watch the money flow in.

gselkhunter

To my knowledge the DOW doesn't get a dime out of this, just the landowners. And my guess is the guides are sitting in the wings to prey on out of state hunters. You go to a sports show and guide X tells you, you don't have to draw a tag, you just have to pay this $. Now rancher Y has 15 tags, but guide X can only sell 10. So you blunder into rancher Y and he is happy to sell you a tag for $, but you can't hunt his land because guide X is using it. So they make out just fine. And the DOW does this, so that the Guides Assoc. and the Cattlemans Assoc. won't stop the DOW from making the rules the way they want so they can make $. Understand the game now.
Gselkhunter