Aug 2nd Fort Collins Sportsmans Meeting
Colorado
August 2nd in Fort Collins will be the next meeting of the Northeast regions CPW Sportsmans roundtable, I am asking for your attendance. See the attached press release for details. I have invited local state representatives, and we will have CPW Leadership in the room. This is your chance to voice your opinion about species management, public access, habitat, hunting or angling, topics that are under evaluation at the wildlife commission like license allocation and upcoming potential fee increases through legislation. Please attend, as comments from regional discussions do feed up to the statewide roundtable discussion occurring on August 5th and can make a difference.
http://cpw.state.co.us/aboutus/Pages/News-Release-Details.aspx?NewsID=6208
Last meeting in Fort Collins the attendance from sportsman was awful. It would be great to have some bowsiters attend, and to see all you guys before the season starts.
If you can make it and are knowledgeable about moose hunting - pull me aside as I need advice.
"If you can make it and are knowledgeable about moose hunting - pull me aside as I need advice." -- Did you draw a moose tag?
Two issues come to mind.
1. Again, the xBow issue is being raised by a Colorado xbow club. Their use being in the archery only seasons.
2, Bow hunters, the wearing of hunting orange in the early season, during ML season. This could be expanded to other seasons where bow hunting and ML hunting overlap
Here's one:
During the recent resident/nonresident allocation issue, it was brought up that around 30% of land owner vouchers go unused.
CO Rev Stat 33-4-103
...(III) The division shall make licenses not used by eligible landowners available to the general public.
It appeared from that meeting that there isn't and has never been a mechanism for making those available to the public per statute. The land owner program has been around for decades, I don't know if that has been the statute the whole time.
Thats a bunch of limited tags down the drain. No one hunted and no revenue generated. These are limited tags that also come with private land access. If that is accurate, it needs to change.
I realize it would be cumbersome to pull how many and which ones weren't used over 40 years and that it may not have always been as high as 30% like the year they discussed. Even at 20%, thats a lot of opportunity we missed out on. Making up all that lost public opportunity from past decades could mean a huge reduction in vouchers until we are square. I'm willing to compromise since I see it as the State's issue and not the landowner's :^)
I heard the same testimony, not sure how you fix that unless you establish a redemption deadline, and the unused go to the leftover list.
That said, the way the draw changed is better than it used to be.
In the old system a 100 tag quota at 15% LO split- meant 15 tags to the voucher quota - used or unused. Now it is draw demand dependent. 10% of the tags to unit wide, but 10% are PLO and in many instances have no demand. In the new system with no or limited demand, they immediately go to the public draw so that may meet the statute as you described.
Gotcha, so if I understand, lack of demand at the application point of the process triggers them to be added to the public pool?
100 total tags
10 LO unit wide
10 LO PLO but only 5 are applied for so the 5 not applied for go back to the public pool
That correct? Thats better than I thought it was working.
I don't think its unreasonable to have a 30 day before season or maybe a certain date (August 1st?) deadline for redeeming LO vouchers. I have to make my limited tag decisions in April. That way unredeemed ones could be made available as the law states. I think right now they have to be redeemed in person so there would have to be a phone or online redemption method. Can't require a guy to drive out from PA to buy his license before the deadline.
Hope you guys can make it tonight, I have an elk hunting access pilot white paper I am going to pass around, looking for feedback and support with CPW.
Landowner vouchers now have to be redeemed in person so the 30 day advance redeem deadline won't work. Used to be you could redeem a voucher on someone's behalf and then mail the license to them or they pick it up from you when they arrive. Mailing vouchers to the CPW to redeem through the mail has been problematic as some get lost or sit on someone's desk too long in Denver.
I don't really want the CPW to spend a bunch setting up a system to follow the statute and get the unredeemed vouchers back to the public but continuing to let that opportunity go to waste isn't ok either.
I imagine the answer is an on-line redemption system. Everyone applying for limited tags will be doing it on-line starting next year and the structure for buying leftover limited tags online is already there. I'm not a programmer but it seems like the way to redeem vouchers without being in CO, handle a cut-off date and get unredeemed vouchers added to the left over list would be an automated on-line tool.
Any news from the meeting?
Yes, they wish to run a bill to increase resident fees again this year. More info as the concepts develop for sure.
One guy is convinced that adding $4 to a resident deer tag will be an extreme hardship for many working-class hunters, and will force them to choose between deer hunting and feeding their families...
Any word on a NW meeting? I have not seen anything and since Denny and BGF are getting in the door here, I am really Nervous about their intentions.
Just want to make sure I am there to level off some of the BA I already heard from The BGF guy.
Also, how many people are currently on the round table? I see only 2 people listed for the NW, but when I served, we had my self, terry, a younger gal, and one more. Now we seem to have Denny and only 1 more.
The NE Caucus in Fort Collins was very well attended, and thanks to all that attended. We also had the state wide meeting this past Saturday (5th) in Canon City. I conveyed in both meetings to CP&W that sportsmen were left out of the loop on the Fee Bill from August 2016 to May 2017, which was a big mistake. Even though sportsmen overall supported the bill, we had no role in setting forth the structure of the bill, much less valuable input on what sportsmen would likely find OK in individual pricing on hunting categories. DNR conveyed that would not happen again, and sportsmen would be involved more so this time presuming the bill process goes again. Also in both meetings I discussed license allocation and indicated sportsmen need be very concerned as to some continuing agendas to change license allocation, (for the intended benefit of NR) mainly by money interests in Colorado big game, including at least one member of the CP&W Commission. By the way, NW Region members of the Sportsmen Roundtable are Dan Schwartz, Jason Eckman, Terry Meyers, Tom Kenyon, Jamie Nogel, Margot Binetti, and Denny Behrens. Each region has 6 members, 4 appointed and 2 elected. Denny did not attend the statewide meeting.
NE roundtable members are Andy Treharne, Bear Miller, Cody DeGuelle, Jennifer Gluck, Tim Brass, Steve Hilde, and myself Kent Ingram. Steve and I are the ones elected and our terms expire in 2018.
Thanks for the response. When I looked up the round table for NW it only listed 2 and I thought there should have been more... Surprised that Denny was not there... He was sure trying to sell the idea of charging premium cost for premium tags the last time I heard from him.
