Sheep Show in Reno
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Labman
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Ya, it is.
Here’s what’s hard to justify…flights, hotels, meals, rental car/uber, banquet tickets (the only expense the WSF sees a portion of), child care, dog boarding, the list goes on. For what? 1/600 or worse odds at a sheep hunt. If there was another reason to attend then I could see it. But after you’ve been there a few times how do you tell yourself it’s worth it to go every year? If you’re playing odds I think you’re far better off finding a raffle that has a limited number of tickets and buying a dollar amount that you would have spent on the expenditures listed above. It tears me up a bit, but that’s life I guess.
Who wants to hunt desert sheep anyways…
ismith
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Buy some XRP, better odds of being able to afford some sheep hunts in the future.
I totally understand what you are saying. My wife has two brothers that live in Northern California and they come over to Reno for three days so it works out as a mini family vacation for all of us. I don’t think I would be going every year if it wasn’t for that.
Jape
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No, but this is the ram JJ shot in NM last year. I think he paid $600k for that tag. Grossed out at 208. Not sure what net was. My guess is there is a bigger one that is being watched day and night by an outfitter for $1.3M.
Bambistew
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I can't wait to see how many less sheep we have this year.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
I'm sure this year will end up with more sheep inesead of half as many as we did 10 years ago.
MT issued the fewest number of sheep tags last year sine 1970.
#auctiontag$$ave$heep
#it$forcon$servation
What would we do without the wealthy sheephunter foundation and their backpack races?
How many fewer sheep is there in NA than 30 years ago? 50% less?
Still waiting for the gloves er I mean oven mitts come off.
Keep sending in that money its sure keeping sheep on the mountain.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
I'm sure this year will end up with more sheep inesead of half as many as we did 10 years ago.
MT issued the fewest number of sheep tags last year sine 1970.
#auctiontag$$ave$heep
#it$forcon$servation
What would we do without the wealthy sheephunter foundation and their backpack races?
How many fewer sheep is there in NA than 30 years ago? 50% less?
Still waiting for the gloves er I mean oven mitts come off.
Keep sending in that money its sure keeping sheep on the mountain.
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That sucks for you but the rest of us in the room cheered for you not being there.....Sorry!
Labman
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That’s fine, I’ll save my celebration for when I put my 3rd Colorado rocky on the wall.
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Jape
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@Bambistew that seems to be my observation as well. The only state I can find that has really good transparency is Arizona. I keep researching and still haven’t seen any hard data linking these auction tags to more sheep and thus more tags. If anybody has some I would love to see it.
This is from the Summer 2023 WSF magazine article on auction tags by Craig Boddington. Unsurprisingly, he thinks that auction tags are necessary and good. That said, I'd guess the data set looks even worse for some states if you pulled the time horizon back to 2000 or 1990. We know Nevada has fallen behind their 2020 and 2010 tag allocations since this was published. And I'd argue that programs like Kuiu's Conservation Direct have done more for sheep in the last few years than auction tags have done in most of these states. But obviously they're doing work in states and herds that don't have a guaranteed 200" ram to shoot when you stroke a check.
Food for thought.
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Carnage2011
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I understand both sides of this argument, but I think questioning the numbers alone is a flawed metric. Have sheep numbers dropped? Yes they have. Would the numbers be worse if we didn't have conservation orgs working on them? Also Yes. Is the WSF getting the most out of the money that they bring in for conservation? I don't know that answer. I think there are really good orgs out there doing good work, but I don't know if we can quantify what effect they are having in this case.
Jape
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You make a great point. It’s also multifactorial so sometimes tough to delineate between cause and effect. I would love to see more transparency to see what effect organizations like WSF is having as compared to other organizations and game/fish departments. WSF has raised over $100million and it just seems like that amount of money would lead to more significant gains. Maybe I’m wrong.
MaybelNellie
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Tough deal right there. And agree totally at Hunt Expo.
The way I justify Reno money-wise is the free draws (except for sneaking in good odds raffles like the Stone hunt when my wife isn't looking). This year there where 6 "free" draws with great odds - Tough Sheep workout (cost $100), IMF4 (for those of us that hunted Stone's pre-covid and are still broke), Desert at life member, Rocky in Alberta on one of the dinner nights and a Desert just for buying a show ticket (might be off on the last one). Then there's the <1 if you qualify (cost $45). That's enough for me, and almost everyone knows or heard of someone else who drew one of these.
Besides that, the energy at <1 which everyone goes to for the unlimited beer is INSANE! And, I feel the people at Sheep Show are the absolute best, the backpack races, circle bar time, talking with the old-time outfitters, etc, etc... And, I wonder how many attendees even killed a ram. This again makes the hope and wonder of the whole event that much better. Only downside is the culture shock I get back when I fly home to Denver.
The way I justify Reno money-wise is the free draws (except for sneaking in good odds raffles like the Stone hunt when my wife isn't looking). This year there where 6 "free" draws with great odds - Tough Sheep workout (cost $100), IMF4 (for those of us that hunted Stone's pre-covid and are still broke), Desert at life member, Rocky in Alberta on one of the dinner nights and a Desert just for buying a show ticket (might be off on the last one). Then there's the <1 if you qualify (cost $45). That's enough for me, and almost everyone knows or heard of someone else who drew one of these.
Besides that, the energy at <1 which everyone goes to for the unlimited beer is INSANE! And, I feel the people at Sheep Show are the absolute best, the backpack races, circle bar time, talking with the old-time outfitters, etc, etc... And, I wonder how many attendees even killed a ram. This again makes the hope and wonder of the whole event that much better. Only downside is the culture shock I get back when I fly home to Denver.
Bambistew
Well-known member
No doubt there are some orgs that have helped some populations and its doubtful it was because of auction tags. I'm jaded because the Alaska W$F hasn't done shit. They could go away and we'd actually end up with more sheep on the mountain becuse they pimped fewer via auction, raffle and donated hunts... We'd save at least 10 rams a year in AK, about 50 N/A wide or more. Right now W$F efforts result in a net decrease of sheep. Thats more ram tags than some states issue.
I'd genuienly like to know how many raffle, donated and auction tags are issued a year. I bet my 50 estimate isn't far off...25+ years of "helping sheep" by selling them to the highest bidder, here's the result.
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