This is a long one.
Bath water is cold now, but.....
The state made an agreement with LL holders and should honor it.
If you buy a life insurance policy that guarantees to pay off, would it be right 30 years down the road if the company you bought it from doesn’t have enough money to pay you off, or just doesn’t want to pay you off cause they want new customers, and wants to change the rules? No!
The state made a deal and had no problem taking our money, so they should live up to it, not try to find a way to wiggle out it. It’s not our fault they don’t have enough product (deer). But the product they already sold should be delivered first, before selling more product.
It seems quite simple to me. You sell something, you deliver to those you already took payment from first, then the others. If you don’t have enough product to sell to everyone, then you make more product (opportunity), not try to screw those you already took payment from so that you can make new sales.
When I bought my LL it took a $500 gamble that it would pay off in the long run. $500 was a LOT of money for me then. At that time there was no guarantee our deer herd would suck 30 years down the road. It could have gone the other way and deer numbers could have drastically increased and licenses could cost $10 now and deer quite plentiful, with few hunters wanting to hunt. Or I could’ve died a week after buying it without getting anything in return. It’s not right to try and change the rules now. If there were unlimited deer tags in this state now, nobody would be wanting to refund me my $500 with the gains it could have returned invested.
The honorable and right thing to do is for the UDWR to provide that deer tag they sold me 30 years ago, without an effort to try and screw me so they can sale it to someone else. It’s their job to create more product (opportunity/deer) to sale, if they want to sale more.
I know LL holders are a small minority and might be easy targets to take tags from, but my hope is that there are some old schoolers in the line of command who will honor that agreement made decades ago. I personally am not asking for a Henry Mtn. or Pauns tag, but when I handed over my $500 I had my choice as to where I wanted to hunt in about 85% or so of the state and I believe that is what should remain.
That’s my 2 cents on the subject.