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Nothing against non-residents, I have been a non-resident hunter in a few different states. One thing to think about is that if all non-resident landowners would be guaranteed a tag every year, then that would entice even more wealthy non-residents to buy Iowa land. This would displace many of us resident hunters who hunt our neighbor's properties or pay some of our neighbors to hunt. It would also make it even less likely that any of us that would like to buy some of our own land will get the chance due to increased competition and skyrocketing land prices ( already there ). Do you own land in Illinois? If you do, then you probably have a great opportunity there to connect on a nice buck. Why do you feel the need to hunt in several states every year when many Iowa residents can only afford to hunt here? If you don't own land in Illinois, then why not? Too much competition? I am not trying to upset anyone, but many of us do not have a ton of money to spend on hunting and are simply trying to make the best out of what opportunities we do have. I understand your frustration especially if you don't have opportunities in Illinois, but we do not want to end up frustrated without a place to hunt either.
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Excellent post.
Game management isn't in the constitution which makes it a STATE's right. The supreme court says it's constitutional to charge non residents more for tags and or limit their numbers so every state I know of does just that.
It only makes sense that a state charge as much as the market will pay for a limited number of tags and that's just what Iowa does.
It wasn't until some time in the early 80's that NR's could hunt deer here at all and when the DNR started NR deer hunting it was with the intention of doing so in a limited enough way that deer hunting by RESIDENTS was not impacted.
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FYI, there are 3500 NR antlerless tags, they are sold first come first serve and usually just barely sell out.
Also, the "State" doesn't own the deer, the people of the State do, we entrust their management to the "State" because we clearly proved that "the people" couldn't manage game populations on our own. (how many deer were there in Iowa in say 1900?) So next time you want "the State" to pay someone for their car go on over and pay them for it because it's as much your deer as anyone elses. Or maybe "the State" can raise taxes to pay for it, in which case the 90 some percent who don't hunt will decide eradicating the deer is a cheaper alternative and then you'll have no deer to hunt at all.
We ARE the State.