quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
More changes: Wyoming votes to liming NR tags to 10%.

https://blog.eastmans.com/wyom...oull-read-this-year/

Congrats to Wyoming for taking care of their residents, as they should be.

You guys sitting on 20 points still like the preference point system?

I would imagine that the random will increase from 20% to 40 or 50% in the future.

What I would do if I was any state wildlife management agency is this.

30% of all tags are in the preference point program, whoever has the most tags gets a tag.

40% of all tags are in a bonus point lottery. This insentivizes the purchase of points

30% of all tags are open to the public without points.

At 10% cap on non-resident tags.

At the 23 points level and above in Wyoming for bighorns there are 106 people in the non-resident pool for sheep. So traditionally up until this new law change there would have been 5 years worth of applicants in that 106 people. So now only the folks at the 25 year mark and up will be insured a tag.

This year there were 39 non-resident bighorn preference point tags. Next year there will probably be 19.

There are only 6 non-resident non-bonus point tags for sheep in 2022.

So that will give 23 tags back to the residents.

quote:

ou guys sittin

quote:

Congrats to Wyoming for taking care of their residents, as they should be.

You guys sitting on 20 points still like the preference point system?

What kind comment/question is that?

How would you like it if you were “sitting” on 20 points? I didn’t choose this point system and never liked Wyoming’s point system either.

Utah’s system is terrible as well, for non residents.

I’m sitting on max points for deer and elk in Wyoming. After applying all these years yeah, it’s a little
irritating that they want to change the rules now.

Wyoming raised their prices to $100 from something like $15 about 15-20 years ago. Then made it $150.

I got out of it and then got back into it because I thought that at some point it would equal a tag. I had a very candid conversation with the Wyoming Fish and Game person (I wish I could remember her name) who manages point programs. As my father wanted to know if he could give me his points. So I inquired, and she basically told me that the state was very careful in laying out their program so that no one could give or buy points from someone else.

Their points program has always been a house of cards.

She told me what I have repeated many times. There is nothing in a Wyoming statute or game commission law that says if you have X number of points you will get a tag.

I remember saying to her "is this really just a program to ensure the state creates revenue, and if someone gets a tag they get a tag" and was told by her yes it was.

No one in the state ever promised you a tag.

About 5 years ago when I finally got a little more serious about doing the math, I came to the sinking conclusion that I would never draw in a pure preference point system. So I stopped playing the game. I had 10 or 12 points when I realized at the age I was it was mathmatically improbably to get a tag through the preference point draw before I was in my 90's.

Consequently Wyoming is actually the last place that I thought would actually take care of residents. They have always treated non-residents like a cash cow (excepting the protection of outfitters on wilderness areas).

We are only talking about losing 20 sheep tags and 30 moose tags. Point creep in my mind is the bigger problem. Everyone of these sheep units have gone up at least a point if not more every year for the past 8 years. Then you get to the people that started buying points in 2020. There are over 600 of them per year. Point creep will be 3-4 points per year. If we go back to 20 years ago that is 2046 non-resident hunters that anyone who started buying points 20 years ago is competing with for a tag. 2046 people divided by 20 tags in 102 years. Before this change it was only 50 years. So even at 20 years you didn't have a guaranteed tag before this change, and you damn sure do not have one now.

At least Utah has changed the way they do things to keep residents from buying points every year. So on the resident pools it will eventually limit things.

If you are at max points go get a sheep or moose. If you are at less than 20 points, and you are in your 50's like me you should have done some math and figured out it was impossible for you to draw a tag in your life time.

WYOMING BIGHORN SHEEP PREFERENCE POINTS GOING INTO THE 2022 DRAW

Chart
Preference Points Resident Nonresident Total Sportspersons Total Points
1 2521 2151 4672 4672
2 1636 1089 2725 5450
3 1271 900 2171 6513
4 1087 805 1892 7568
5 914 631 1545 7725
6 827 556 1383 8298
7 708 502 1210 8470
8 631 406 1037 8296
9 554 393 947 8523
10 531 408 939 9390
11 483 379 862 9482
12 451 310 761 9132
13 427 305 732 9516
14 408 333 741 10374
15 359 306 665 9975
16 355 264 619 9904
17 326 263 589 10013
18 324 345 669 12042
19 301 332 633 12027
20 234 342 576 11520
21 219 314 533 11193
22 158 282 440 9680
23 110 34 144 3312
24 108 37 145 3480
25 120 19 139 3475
26 40 12 52 1352
27 13 4 17 459

I’m 50 and have no sheep or moose points.

Elk and deer is it for me. I’ll apply for all I can, for several states and hope for a
random tag and I’ll use my Colorado preference points. I might just buy a hunt when I do not draw.


I wish the points system was never created.

True random draws, that would be amazing.

I hear people in New Mexico bitch all the time about the totally random draw.

95% of them don't apply for anything other than mule deer and elk.

I apply every year for every species as a resident. 2 years in a row I have got tags. The first year I got a javelina, 16C rifle elk, and a Valles Vidale bear tag.

Last year I got a mule deer rifle tag in 34.

I think we are moving to Idaho in a few months. Still waiting on job stuff for it. I already applied for New Mexico and it is totally random, so we will see what we end up with. Hoping for a 16 D or 16 A elk tag, 12, 13 or 15 antelope and a Iraq veteran oryx. Those were the only tags I applied for with decent odds (1 in 25 is decent for New Mexico), as I am in the disability pool. Anything on top of that would be amazing. Ibex, bighorn sheep, 28 Barbary sheep tag or a good deer tag would push it over the moon. Odds suck for all of it, lowest chances are for sheep, ibex, 6b elk and 5b deer.

The only positive as you said against the random draw and for the preference point programs is like you said your ability to plan.

I am going to cash out Wyoming deer and antelope this year. I have 7 and 9 points respectively.

Good luck in the draws.

Where are you moving to in Idaho?

Thank you, to you as well.

Not sure, somewhere between Dubois and Pocatello in about a 50 mile wide swath. It depends on what my work schedule is.

I heard an interesting theory the other day. It went something like this:

quote:

Around 30 years ago, a bunch of guys who had sway with the game departments sold the idea of preference points. And it was an easy sell “reward the guys who have been putting in the longest by issuing them tags first(win for hunters), and now you give guys an incentive to purchase points for hints they may want to do ”some day” and those same hunters are more likely to come to hunt your state if they are researching the state and dreaming of hunting there.(huge win for the game department in the form of increased $)

But there was another hidden reason the “powers that be” wanted to implement preference point systems: all of them would get in on the ground floor, therefore they wouldn’t have to complete with all the new hunters who put in for the draws each year. Effectively, they were guaranteeing themselves a tag during their lifetime, that statistically they were very unlikely to draw...

I’m not sure how much truth there is in that theory, but I can’t help but notice that Wyoming is talking about scrapping the preference point system just as the max point holders(including the guys who put the system in place) have all drawn their coveted tags.

And now those same guys will have a better chance of drawing a tag in the bonus point drawing than they would have if the system had stayed preference points(because they lost all their sheep/moose points when they drew, and will never have enough points to draw again).

Maybe I am all wrong, but it seems rotten.

I’ve always wondered how hunting writers( Boddington, Shockey, etc) always seem to end up with tags that are BERY difficult to draw year after year. Just lucky?? I doubt it…."

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
I heard an interesting theory the other day. It went something like this:
Maybe I am all wrong, but it seems rotten.

My Dad used to guide the One Shot Antelope hunt in the 1970's. He had a bunch of really interesting "dudes". For the most part they just got tags through the govenors office. Not sure if it is still that way or not.

I think Boddington has had 3 to 5 lower 48 sheep tags. Arizona, Wyoming, Montana and I think a California or Nevada. Also done well on moose and goat draws.

He is a points guy, talks about it, has been talking about it for years. He is a $200,000 a year income kind of guy. So I doubt he is buying auction tags at twice that. That and who bought the auction tags is public knowledge and I am pretty sure he isn't one of them.

I've heard Boddington joke that he hasn't applied his whole life for all the different tags, but only since he was old enough to apply....

quote:

Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
More changes: Wyoming votes to liming NR tags to 10%.

https://blog.eastmans.com/wyom...oull-read-this-year/

Congrats to Wyoming for taking care of their residents, as they should be.

You guys sitting on 20 points still like the preference point system?

I would imagine that the random will increase from 20% to 40 or 50% in the future.

What I would do if I was any state wildlife management agency is this.

30% of all tags are in the preference point program, whoever has the most tags gets a tag.

40% of all tags are in a bonus point lottery. This insentivizes the purchase of points

30% of all tags are open to the public without points.

At 10% cap on non-resident tags.

At the 23 points level and above in Wyoming for bighorns there are 106 people in the non-resident pool for sheep. So traditionally up until this new law change there would have been 5 years worth of applicants in that 106 people. So now only the folks at the 25 year mark and up will be insured a tag.

This year there were 39 non-resident bighorn preference point tags. Next year there will probably be 19.

There are only 6 non-resident non-bonus point tags for sheep in 2022.

So that will give 23 tags back to the residents.

THIS ... is exactly why I don't participate in the western states draws / points systems. If you can make heads or tails out of what he's saying here, more power to you.

For a guy on a budget it allows someone to get out and do some hunting, for species they don't always get to see in Wisconsin.

It takes a pretty solid learning curve, kind of like baseball stats.