Non-resident outfitter license (MT) Bill is up for hearing 2/2/2021 (SB 143)

[BuzzH]

AGAIN......we have the clients.......but if said clients can’t get the tags it doesn’t work well.....for us anyway.

Sounds like you're just lazy to me...go out and find clients with tags, Montana issues a metric shit ton of NR licenses.

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

AGAIN......we have the clients.......but if said clients can’t get the tags it doesn’t work well.....for us anyway.

Tell them to start building points

 

[Wildabeest]

AGAIN......we have the clients.......but if said clients can’t get the tags it doesn’t work well.....for us anyway.

So please explain to us why your clients should be guaranteed those tags when the rest of us unwashed masses have to play luck of the draw?

 

[Hunting Wife]

AGAIN......we have the clients.......but if said clients can’t get the tags it doesn’t work well.....for us anyway

With all due respect, a client is someone with a tag. There are 17000 potential clients, with tags, every year. Seems to me the real problem is you guys are failing to market to the client pool, and are hung up on past clients. If you are unwilling to market to new clients who are able to buy what you’re selling, that’s on you. I can understand an earlier draw to help that. I do not understand how it is the states responsibility to compensate for your failed marketing by setting aside tags for your past clients.

When we’ve drawn tags, we often get mailings from a few outfitters who I presume are mailing to all who drew. Targeting those in a position to buy. Smart.

 

[Eric Albus]

How would hunting be in Eastern Montana if it was all public land and no private? I have seen what happens to private once it is enrolled in block management. The deer get pushed to the adjacent private land and off the block management after the initial slaughter. There is more to managing the herd than just making sure that the outfitters and landowners don't get set aside tags. Hey, maybe we can shoot 5 mule deer does each on the forest again, that will help.

Rich

It would look the same as the accessible land in four to five days of hunting.

 

[Eric Albus]

Sounds like you're just lazy to me...go out and find clients with tags, Montana issues a metric shit ton of NR licenses.

Buzz,
Lazy? Really? You are going to attempt to label me that?

Those people wanting to book a hunt with an outfitter have planned 1-2 years out. The pool of hunters who’ve applied with out booking a hunt have a likelihood of about 2-4% of them booking with an outfitter after the fact.
So I say public land get ready to be inundated with another 5-7000 DIY guys. Unless some of the guys I know get really lucky in this draw this what we’re looking at.

 

[BuzzH]

Buzz,
Lazy? Really? You are going to attempt to label me that?

Those people wanting to book a hunt with an outfitter have planned 1-2 years out. The pool of hunters who’ve applied with out booking a hunt have a likelihood of about 2-4% of them booking with an outfitter after the fact.
So I say public land get ready to be inundated with another 5-7000 DIY guys. Unless some of the guys I know get really lucky in this draw this what we’re looking at.

If they "planned" 2 years out they should have the points to draw.

2-4% of the total number of NR hunters in Montana sounds like more than enough to sell a few deer hunts to.

I thought you said you had too many clients and were handing them off to other people?

I can't keep up with all your "facts"....

 

[Nemont]

It would look the same as the accessible land in four to five days of hunting.

Eric

I was pondering your asking me to look at my business and put myself in the position of not being able to supply the “product” due to outside issues. It hit me that I have a issues like this many times.

long term care insurance is difficult to place for instance, complex life insurance case also, self funded plans require a large staff which I don’t have. When these cases walk in my office I reach for the phone and talk to another broker who does them. We both split commission and are better off as is the client.

There has to be, every year, outfitters who over draw and have to turn away a client with a tag. Why doesn’t MOGA set up a broker/hunt exchange or what ever you want to call it and let over drawn outfitters send their tag holding clients to the guys struggling to get hunters drawn? If the concern and aim is to stabilize the industry it would seem to me that MOGA would be the perfect organization to help with that by members helping members.

I am just throwing it out their to see why that wouldn’t work. I broker cases a lot.

Jeff

 

[SO7mm]

Jeff,
How would your business model look if you had to rely on a client to draw before buying your insurance package? I would bet that if there was legislation like this you’d be in Helena lobbying against it.
Maybe that’s the way it should work for all businesses. Maybe instead of selling grain to the elevator of choice it should be on lottery. Contractors building houses should be on lottery. This would keep house prices lower because the contractor would not be able to choose who he was building for. Kind of take what you get sort of deal. If your potential clients number is not drawn, you get no sale. End of analogies.

As a contractor/builder I can say the certainty of what and when I build, while it may not be on a lottery, it is very much dependent on permitting. To me the equivalent of what your group is asking would be for local municipalities to start issuing permits to licensed contractors at a faster rate than they do for DIY homeowners. How would it feel if you went to get a permit for a DIY project and you were told you had to wait to next year because they were busy working on permits involving licensed contractors. Using your own justification they could simply say the contracting industry is volatile right now and they want to make sure contractors are able to stay in business during these uncertain times.

 

[Big Shooter]

As a contractor/builder I can say the certainty of what and when I build, while it may not be on a lottery, it is very much dependent on permitting. To me the equivalent of what your group is asking would be for local municipalities to start issuing permits to licensed contractors at a faster rate than they do for DIY homeowners. How would it feel if you went to get a permit for a DIY project and you were told you had to wait to next year because they were busy working on permits involving licensed contractors. Using your own justification they could simply say the contracting industry is volatile right now and they want to make sure contractors are able to stay in business during these uncertain times.

Would that be terrible?

 

[Big Shooter]

With all due respect, a client is someone with a tag. There are 17000 potential clients, with tags, every year. Seems to me the real problem is you guys are failing to market to the client pool, and are hung up on past clients. If you are unwilling to market to new clients who are able to buy what you’re selling, that’s on you. I can understand an earlier draw to help that. I do not understand how it is the states responsibility to compensate for your failed marketing by setting aside tags for your past clients.

When we’ve drawn tags, we often get mailings from a few outfitters who I presume are mailing to all who drew. Targeting those in a position to buy. Smart.

You are somewhat correct......but apparently we have been successful in our marketing if we have the clients putting in for the tags every year, both past clients as well as new. I’ve always thought that repeat business shows signs of success no matter if you sell cars, insurance, real estate, hunts, and so on. I your product is good and your service is good, and people want to be there every year than I think you’ve done a great job. I buy pickups from the same guy every time......but I don’t have to draw a number to do it.

 

[tjones]

Would that be terrible?

This speaks volumes and shows true colors. Also one of the most bizarre things I have read on this forum.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Would that be terrible?

Only if you are a DIY guy who is between jobs and building a house for his family before he goes back to work as a contractor.

Or have any other number of good reasons why you expect to be given equal consideration for the same opportunity.

 

[Gerald Martin]

You are somewhat correct......but apparently we have been successful in our marketing if we have the clients putting in for the tags every year, both past clients as well as new. I’ve always thought that repeat business shows signs of success no matter if you sell cars, insurance, real estate, hunts, and so on. I your product is good and your service is good, and people want to be there every year than I think you’ve done a great job. I buy pickups from the same guy every time......but I don’t have to draw a number to do it.

Again, you made the decision to build a business that utilizes a public trust resource without guaranteed access to the resource.

Your business decision doesn’t put you in the special category that gives you priority to the resource.

 

[shoots-straight]

I do appreciate both Shooter and Eric sharing their points of view.

Looks very much to me like they view their business as deserving entitlement over all others that compete for available tags to a finite resource.

I think that in the mind of many outfitters they figure that to grow their business they'd just lease more private lands. That too is a finite resource.

When you have only a given number of animals and land available for all, and one segment takes more of that finite resource, then what's left go to the less fortunate, or is it just less deserving?

If builders united and forced such BS on the general pubic you'd see a gigantic revolt. Wondering where, and how that mind set would end?

 

[SO7mm]

Would that be terrible?

It wouldn't be what I consider American and I wouldnt want the help. Having the government tip the scales for industries is not good.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I do appreciate both Shooter and Eric sharing their points of view.

Looks very much to me like they view their business as deserving entitlement over all others that compete for available tags to a finite resource.

I think that in the mind of many outfitters they figure that to grow their business they'd just lease more private lands. That too is a finite resource.

When you have only a given number of animals and land available for all, and one segment takes more of that finite resource, then what's left go to the less fortunate, or is it just less deserving?

If builders united and forced such BS on the general pubic you'd see a gigantic revolt. Wondering where, and how that mind set would end?

We actually deliver a product that is a necessity and not a luxury. If anyone deserves priority isn’t it us?

 

[Hunting Wife]

You are somewhat correct......but apparently we have been successful in our marketing if we have the clients putting in for the tags every year, both past clients as well as new. I’ve always thought that repeat business shows signs of success no matter if you sell cars, insurance, real estate, hunts, and so on. I your product is good and your service is good, and people want to be there every year than I think you’ve done a great job. I buy pickups from the same guy every time......but I don’t have to draw a number to do it.

But you appear to be overly reliant on “clients” who are in no position to buy what you’re selling. I see that as meaning you are using a failed marketing strategy. You see that as meaning the government should change the game to make your marketing strategy effective.

Let’s think of it like having a pool cleaning business. You have a lot of repeat clients who like your service but they don’t have a dirty pool currently. Would you then a) say “call me when it’s dirty and I’ll be here ASAP”, then go out and advertise to all the potential clients that exist that have dirty pools or b) ask the state to go pee in the repeat guy’s pool so you can just work with him again?

Plus what @Gerald Martin said out about businesses based on public trust resources.

 

[Eric Albus]

Do the pool cleaning clients have to enter a
Lottery to get their pool cleaner? Bad analogy.

Gerald, shoots, and the others on here whom I respect, I can completely appreciate your points of view. I can understand the fairness argument of guided license vs. self guided draw.
What can’t be argued is who is making the most impact economically with the least impact on the resource. While reducing pressure on accessible land. I hope that I am wrong(bet I’m not though) about this; eastern Montana is about to be over run with DIY Washington, Minnesota, and Western Cali-Montana’s killing our last fork horned mule deer. It’s gotten so bad a warden I spoke with the other day brought this point up, asking if we(outfitter community) would help do something to reduce the pressure.
I’m all for it. Let’s do something to protect our resource.

 

[WIbiggame]

While reducing pressure on accessible land. I hope that I am wrong(bet I’m not though) about this; eastern Montana is about to be over run with DIY Washington, Minnesota, and Western Cali-Montana’s killing our last fork horned mule deer

If this theory is correct wouldn't it make your services even more valuable? If a bunch of DIY hunters are hunting all the accessible lands and outfitters have access to the inaccessible land; than you should have no issue having an over flowing clean pool to get clients from.

The "but my business is the only one that relies on a lottery" argument is getting tired. The draw is not a lottery at all it is 100% predictable. If I am wrong with this please let me know which lottery you are playing that you can guarantee a win every 2yrs at minimum bc I will start playing that lotto.

The draw isn't hard to figure out at all. Market to your clients you have a 70% chance of drawing with no points. If you don't draw you will have 100% odds next year and we can host your hunt.

Or if you don't want to tell your repeat clients that than; it seems like yourself and shooter have a good repeat client base so you guys are good at your jobs and offer good hunts. Go out and recruit to the people who drew, If your repeat clients don't draw. If you can't get new clients it is not the governments responsibility to make sure you do.

I realize an earlier draw would need to happen to give you guys time to get these clients which is a good thing I think and I don't think anyone has a problem moving the dates up.