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I’m ok with it. Guides and outfitters are the ones crying about it because they’ll lose a lot of money. Raffle hunters aren’t going to pay 100k in guide fees. Most of the people screaming about it on social media are people that have a monetary interest in auction tags. Bump up application fees a couple bucks and eartag that money for conservation of that species and it’ll more than cover the lost revenue of the auction tags.

I also think getting rid of the auction tags will really decrease the value of the big game banquets. I have only attended a few, but they do bring in a lot of money.

At the end of the day if game and fish ends up losing a lot of money they will undo it and go back to how it was. I got mixed emotions on it personally. Although I don't love the idea of an amazing animal essentially being sold to the highest bidder I accept the reality knowing it goes towards conservation as a whole. It's a blade that cuts both ways I guess.

I care which doesn't matter, the rich get the auction tags and the guides who block off roads and have 30 none hunting gumbies on every point . I have 28 points for antilope and 25 for Bighorn and will probably never get drawn, but being I'm poor I will keep trying and buying raffle tags I know ill never win. And you really think this money goes to the animals , I say it goes to administration and lawsuits. So in my opinion only Jimmy John and Gallo can donate the money if they love the animals that much, and put in like the rest of us. On that now bring the HATE. Im ready

Mike at desert coustom gunsmithing just built my daughters rifle and it came out awesome

I agree with the hurting the guides. This could be one of the unsaid motives. If I can go awhile without running into 30 guides/helpers chasing and keeping an eye on one elk, I would be thrilled.

Wrong! The money goes into a HPC fund which can only be used for certain things, like water catchments and such

They laid out a pretty good estimate of how much the raffles will bring in using past numbers. For all animals but elk, sheep, and mule deer raffles make more money than the auction and for the big three auctions make more but it wasn't a ton more. They also talked about there being a way to switch it back to allowing out of staters to buy tickets. All in all the overall amount of money from auctions doesn't make that much more than raffles so the way I see it, let an average guy have a chance at a once in a lifetime tag instead of the millionaires that can go on any hunt they want in the world every single year.

The commission got rid of the auction tags this morning. They are allowing them for one more year and as of 2026 they won't be allowed. Raffle only after that. They showed the loss of money wouldn't be substantial by just having raffles vs auctions. A big point they made was something like 36% of all auction tags had been purchased by the same 3 or 5 people and how that doesn't fit the North American Model.

No HATE but discussion always good to try to understand a thorny topic. Remember, the auction tags started in 1984. It was a different world then, different problems, different values, different recent memory of events that seem ancient history now to many of the younger members. Computers were rare. There were no cell phones. The country was recovering from high interest rates and high unemployment, and other problems thanks to the social and economic programs of the Carter administration. The war in Vietnam was a recent memory. The conservation-minded critter groups (mainly ADBSS and a few others) thought that the money brought in by auction would benefit not only the species auctioned, but all wildlife, and would also eventually provide opportunity for all hunters due to habitat improvement, translocation, research on wildlife diseases, better access to public land, etc. This all turned out to be mostly true, since there were so few tags, they were out of reach of almost all hunters. Fast forward to 2024, and raffles look more attractive as they are available to everyone (residents), and don't require justifying why some ultra-rich person was just allowed to buy one of the most coveted tags in the country, maybe in the world. This has become socially unacceptable, and there is some justification for that. The tradeoff is, in return for equal opportunity to acquire a super scarce lifetime tag (which are now more plentiful than ever thanks to the auction system of 40 years ago), we may need to tighten our belts in terms of programs for wildlife (some not all). It is what it is, and history will refresh our memory.

The raffle revenue didn't drop "precipitously". It dropped, but not much. Most likely more due to the out of staters not being able to buy them. They discussed the ability to try and get it back to allowing all the states that can legally participate. That would help offset any drops in revenue. There also wasn't DEEP decreases in revenue from deer, elk, and sheep. Yes there was a drop but nothing that's gonna cause some severe problems. In the end, money isn't the only thing that's important. Chances to hunt an animal should be fair and available to everyone.

We have a chance, its called the Super raffle or whatever the name it is now.

That's exactly why they got rid of them. The north American model of wildlife doesn't allow rich people to have more of a chance to hunt an animal than a poor person. And overall, with raffles there won't be a ton of difference in money made.

Huge disappoint in my mind. I am all for the current state of Auction tags, there isnt a need for more, just keep what they have now. The current state of raffles isnt going to come close to what the auction tag raises. Especially since they recently changed it to having to be inside the state to purchase tickets. Maybe im wrong but I just dont see it without them adding a bunch more raffle tags.

I bought 4 calls from Jacob ( IA born's son ) there all just a little different and they sound great . I sent one to my dad ,one to his buddy Aaron in Texas who let's me come out to his place and hunt for free and the other to my buddy Chuck who came out to give me a hand on my dad's and Aaron's elk hunt The last one I kept for myself hopefully I'll get it figured out 100% before I get another turkey tag.

Yep, I wouldn't touch that Mange mutt ...... Can you believe this one is still alive ... not my photo, but them city dogs got it rough

Ahead of it's time, and great quality. Back when Sears was top notch. So versatile. Now how have we improved on that?

Thanks!

Just curious why you are selling? I heard they are very wide eyed at their smallest setting so dont work for a lot of people.

Saw him really close yesterday morn. Almost no hair, really dark skin. Read up on mange, so mange it is.

the bite was good today, caught most of them between 5' - 8' deep. water temp was 62° at noon. seems like the girls are moving up looking for place to bed. The lake was packed today (Tuesday) with bass boats. I guess the word is out that the bite is on. water visibility middle lake was 12 ft., in the Salt end it was more like 7 ft.

No, if I did that she would beat me with that home made crutch

that's a great looking passle of wrecking machines.... I tell everyone who gets a lab pup for the first time, say goodbye to everything you cherish until after the terrible twos...they're like the Tasmanian Devil in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

You can buy the stuff for .75 a round now. You'll have to sell it for less if you want to move it. Or wait till the next ammo drought.

Reminds me the time I was doing load work on my daughters rifle. it’s a Ruger American with true girly pink/purple camo on it. was at a local range at the time and pulled up to it hoping to see no one. well, just about every bench was taken….great! get set up and get her rifle out and the guys started teasing me. (lol) saying all sorts of stuff.. tell them it’s my daughters rifle….right….uh huh…sure. so amongst the teasing (which was in all good fun of course) I set up and started banging the 500 yd steel gong with first round hits. after that they kinda got quiet. it was a good time though.