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I feel that a nonresident landowner that actually owns enough land to hold deer on, loses crops to deer, and pays taxes should have more preference points than a regular non resident. They should also get doe tags cheaper than $150. I also feel that the price of non resident tags is WAY OUT OF LINE. The state has made it a rich mans game to come here and hunt. Ten years ago my MN buddy could come and hunt for $100. Then this kid kills a world record deer(the Albia buck) and overnight the state rapes a non resident. These other states penalize me if I want to go to their state and hunt with the reciprocancy license fee. What kind of rewards are Iowans reaping from raping the nonresident with a $500 fee to deer hunt here? I haven't seen any great public land purchases bought with the $500 nonresident fee. If they are, how about publishing a report on how this nonresident deer tag fee is helping IA deer hunters. Larger pay scales, new, fancier DNR trucks, and more DNR employees isn't benefitting the IA deer hunter. Tell me guys, where is all of this revenue going that a $100 nonresident tag fee wasn't covering? Us guys that like to go out of state get raped right back because you pay whatever the fee for a nonresident pays in your state. It sucks. Keep the same limit of non-resident tags like we have been, make it easier for a landowner nonresident than a non-landowner non resident to get a tag, and lower the price of nonresident doe and any sex tags. BTW, most non residents that own land in IA are investors and don't hunt any way. I have tons of farmer buddies and this is what they tell me. An investor buys ground strictly as in investment. They are not buying it up so that they can deer hunt. These investors are in for making money and most could care less about hunting.
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I don't agree with your last statement at all. Like you said in your last sentence, they're investors, and investors see a dollar value in whatever they're involved in, especially when it comes to leasing hunting rights. I have yet to hear of an out-of-state investor/owner that doesn't either hunt the property, allow his business partners to hunt the property, or lease it out for monetary gains. What they're doing is totally leagal, and from an investment standpoint is probably a good idea, but let's not sugar coat anything here. Investors don't buy property to allow resident hunters on it when they can make X amount of dollars per acre to lease it.