Trying to understand the Utah elk draw
Elk
Contributors to this thread:
I was invited to hunt out in Utah but I was reading threw the regulations and I can't understand the system. I'm from Colorado and usually hunt in state so this non resident thing is new to me. It seemed I had to buy a non refundable hunting licence just to put in for a preference point. Is this correct? Also does anyone understand the odds in central mountains manti for archery elk (or deer) I found the draw stats page but it didn't say anything about points and only confused me further. Thanks in advance.
That is correct. You have to buy a license to get a point. One thing you can do is wait till the last week of the application time frame and buy your license. This way you can use the same license next year earlier in the application period. License is good for a year. I'm sure it will change eventually so take advantage of it while you can.
Utah is a Bonus Point state and in addition, 50% go to the max point pool, 50% random. For Manti, 9 tags total and UT rounds up to the random side. So, 4 tags go to the guys with the most points (11 point pool for this hunt, last year), the others are random but, being bonus points, each point gives you another number, you keep the lowest. For a rough guestimate of odds, those 5 random tags were divvied up between the remaining 122 applicants.
odds report for elk: (Manti is hunt 3007)
http://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/biggame/pdf/2014/14_elk.pdf
Yes, to put in the draw in UT you have to buy a non-refundable Hunting License.
Your odds at drawing a bull tag for the Manti UT with 0 points is about 1.1% not very good, but a chance.
Your odds at drawing a NR archery Buck tag with 0 points is about 97.6% so very likely.
You can also buy an OTC Elk tag in UT and hunt the Manti unit which is designated a cow/spike elk ONLY unit for the OTC tag.
So you can hunt the Manti if you want, but probably not a bull for 11+yrs
The hard part to get straight is that there are two kinds of draws/tags: Limited entry (which is what Manti offers for elk) and general entry (Manti, deer)
For the most part, limited entry (LE) tags are very hard to draw and you get "bonus points" when you apply for an LE tag. Bonus points mean you have another bean in the drawing pot. As stated above, 50% of the tags available go to "max point holders" and 50% go in a random draw. Last year there were 4 max point elk tags and all 4 guys with 11 points got drawn for archery elk (100%), Everyone else was in a random draw for the other 5 tags and if you had 0 points, you had a 1.1% chance at that tags, 1 point was 2.1%, 2 points was 3.0%, etc.
General tags use preference points just like Colorado. In other words, the guys with the most points get the tags. However, there are lots of tags, so it is a relative easy tag to draw.