Ryan Rothstein: In Oklahoma, more of the same wrong thinking about nonresident hunters

Because I’m running the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m going to apologize in advance for recently beating this topic to death. But in my own defense, I wouldn’t need to keep writing about it if states would stop locking out nonresident deer hunters.

Earlier this year, I wrote about proposed nonresident restrictions being contemplated by Missouri’s Department of Conservation. Now, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation is putting the boot down on out-of-state hunters.

Prior to this year, a nonresident deer hunter could buy a Sooner State whitetail rifle tag over the counter for a not-insignificant fee of around $300. While still cheaper than many Western states, $300 for a whitetail tag is not pocket change. However, at that price, the quality of the hunt was worth the cost, which I gladly paid for a few years.

This year, after hearing plenty of complaining from resident hunters, the ODWC decided that nonresidents were too many in number, and so it raised the fee for a whitetail rifle tag to north of $700. Archery hunters received the same treatment.

While most other states have simply restricted the number of permits available and implemented a draw system, I have to hand it to the ODWC: Pricing out nonresidents might be an even more effective strategy to keep those pesky out-of-towners away.

Don’t get me wrong; I fully understand that state game agencies have bills and staff to pay, and that must be paid for somehow. Game management and public-land management have never been and will never be free, and as someone who probably hunts and takes advantage of public lands more than the average hunter, I’m happy to contribute toward the cause.

At some point, though, I think we can all agree that there’s some price gouging going on across the country. Is the quality of the hunt and the experience worth a premium cost in many Western states? Sure, I can’t argue with that.

Is it worth spending more than a shoulder mount just for the privilege to pursue deer? Debatable, especially when residents in nearly every state are getting a smokin’ hot deal and can pound the public land as often as they please. Who’s paying their fair share here?

READ MORE COVERAGE FROM RYAN ROTHSTEIN:

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As if the fee increase weren’t enough of a poke in the eye, the Oklahoma state Legislature asked the ODWC to hold their beer while it works to pass a bill that would require nonresident hunters to pay an additional $100 fee – just to hunt on any state-managed wildlife management area or national wildlife refuge. Before setting food on the ground, a nonresident will have shelled out over $800 to the state of Oklahoma.

Adding insult to injury, the bill would also require nonresident hunters to obtain written permission from the ODWC to even step foot on public land. What happened to “public?”

Just to make sure it sprinkles a good bit of salt in the wound, the bill reserves the right of the ODWC to implement a draw lottery “as needed” for nonresident deer licenses. Why not just ban nonresident hunting outright while you’re at it?

When asked about the bill currently working its way through that state’s Legislature, state Sen. Warren Hamilton, the primary sponsor of the bill, was quoted as saying that passage of the bill is about “safeguarding Oklahomans’ access to our state’s wildlife management areas.”

I’m not saying I’ve seen all there is to see in Oklahoma, but I will say this with confidence: Of the several years I hunted Oklahoma’s rifle season across a handful of public land units, I can attest that Oklahoma public lands receive substantial pressure – and Oklahoma license plates outnumber nonresident plates in the parking lots by at least 5-1. Maybe Sen. Hamilton has a secret spot that only the nonresidents have found …

The broader picture being painted here is that it’s getting tough for a nonresident to hunt whitetails (or just about anything else) on public land west of the Mississippi. Year after year, more states jump on the bandwagon to further restrict access for nonresident hunters. This does not bode well for the future of America’s hunting heritage.

More bothersome to me, measures such as this are not actually solving anything. As with many of our modern problems, we choose to treat symptoms rather than causes, often patching bullet wounds with Band-Aids.

If you followed the online threads from complaining residents and subsequent actions taken by game and fish agencies, you’d think America was overrun with hunters. On the contrary, hunter numbers nationwide haven’t been this low in decades.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, long considered the gold standard for estimating involvement in the outdoors, about 14.4 million people hunted in 2022, the latest year with available data. Contrast this with 1975, during which 20.5 million Americans hunted.

The problem is not the overall number of hunters. For decades, the cost of land has been prohibitively expensive for your average American. Hunters who can’t afford to purchase private hunting land are naturally forced to utilize public land.

In a state such as Oklahoma, where approximately 4.2% of the state’s land base is public, of course public lands are going to get crowded during hunting seasons. Folks shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to hunt simply because they can’t afford to buy private land.

To someone like me, the solution seems obvious: Implement state and federal policies that prioritize purchasing new public lands from willing private sellers. After all, Minnesota has a particularly effective model that does just that.

Unfortunately, most states currently have no funding mechanism to acquire new public land, and to do so would probably require new taxes that would be politically toxic. Instead, state legislatures will continue to follow the politically convenient path of scapegoating nonresident hunters and raising fees that will price out your Average Joe.

While this feel-good exercise might score a political point with residents in the short-term, the long-term ramifications will make losers of everyone. Game and fish departments will eventually need to either raise fees on residents or cut back on services (i.e., habitat management) as fewer nonresident hunters travel to these states to help fill the coffers.

Ultimately, this is not a resident versus nonresident issue. This is a land-access issue. Unless and until the public land base is increased to allow hunters to spread out, hunters are going to be rubbing shoulders across the country.

Oklahoma is about to be the latest state forced to look in the mirror and realize it isn’t nonresidents who are crowding up their public lands.