Senate Bill 566 allowing outfitters access to public land hunting areas.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

dennishoddy

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
84,447
Reaction score
61,523
Location
Ponca City Ok
The legislature passed SB 566 that allows outfitters access to our public land hunting areas by two votes.
If you like hunting public land or have no other choice you should be outraged that this is going to happen.
Imagine opening day of deer season with a wall of orange across a hunting area and outfitters driving deer to their hunters. It's not a pretty picture with the public lands being already crowded.
Oklahoma is gaining a reputation as a big buck state and people are willing to pay big bucks to an outfitter for a chance at one.
Legislators are only looking at the tax money they can apply to the Ok budget that they can squander on hunters shoulders.
I sent this request to veto the bill to Governor Stitt via his web page. Remember, it only passed by two votes!
https://redirect.viglink.com/?forma...66&txt=https://www.governor.ok.gov/contact-us



As a lifelong outdoorsman in Oklahoma, I'm against allowing outfitters to use our public hunting grounds for private enterprise and profit.
Hunting public ground is very difficult with the majority of hunting land in Oklahoma privately owned.
Currently only 2.1% of the land mass in Oklahoma is available for public hunting, which allows only .2 acre of hunting land per registered hunter using current numbers.

I offer this internet link as proof of my statement: https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/public-hunting-land/

Having hunted public ground in other states where outfitters are allowed access to public lands, there are many shysters out there only interested in taking your money and not producing a quality hunt.

Inquiry's to legislators have produced responses to their constituents like this where they are only in favor of gaining tax money from the outfitters for the state and are not concerned with the people that have hunted and fished these public lands and still support them with our license fees and money from the Pittman Robertson act that taxes sporting goods, ammo, tackle, ect, and redistributes it to the states.
An example is below:
I wanted to reach out to you in regards to SB 566. It was a hard call but I voted in favor. The reason I feel better about it is the Department of Wildlife is neutral on it and will actually be responsible for promulgating the rules. There is also going to be anticipated revenue from this bill that will help out state budget. There were numerous other groups behind it as well as the NRA! Not a perfect bill but one I feel much better about now.

Respectfully,
Danny Sterling



Representative Danny Sterling
Representative Danny Sterling I District 27
Phone: (405) 557-7349
E-mail: [email protected]
Capitol Building: 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd. Room: 328B, Oklahoma City, OK 73105

Governor Stitt with all due respect, I ask that you veto this legislation and return it to the people as a vote in the next General Election as a State Question so the people and not the legislators can speak.

Thank you for considering my request and I hope you think of the individual hunter in your response.


Feel free to copy, edit, or use any part of my response so we can get this BS stopped.
 

dennishoddy

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
84,447
Reaction score
61,523
Location
Ponca City Ok
Another thing I need to add is that one of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Commissioners Bill Brewster from the south central part of Oklahoma is in favor of this lobby that will allow outfitters on public land.
I don't remember the name but I was approached as a land owner several years ago by a Tx group that was advocating more trespass laws and I kind of brought into them because the OK laws at the time were very weak with small penalties.
Found out later that they are an outfitter group that is in favor of big leases and high fence hunting.
I can't say that Mr Brewster is a member of that organization with any proof, but If you don't like what is going on, contact your legislator and express your opinion. Mr Brewster is not voting as a wildlife commissioner to benefit the Oklahoma outdoors hunters and fishers.
He can be removed with Oklahoma statute title 51 impeachment.
This isn't something to do next week. It needs done now.
 
Last edited:

Coach_1

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Messages
1,236
Reaction score
1,306
Location
Duncan
Can’t say that I’m surprised that a high ranking government official is trying to get bills passed that benefit him. As a public land hunter I’m very frustrated by this bill. The public lands are already overcrowded. Now this will make things so much worse. The waterfowl hunters are really gonna hate this because the “good spots” we will call them so we don’t name any will be overrun by outfitters. I can’t express my frustration enough.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom