The remaining tags go to the 1-2 pass, 1-2 being first and second choice. Your bonus points get you extra random draw numbers and you keep the lowest number. If your number is pulled, they look at your first choice, if there is a tag available, you get it, if not they look at your second choice, if that is available you get it, if not they pull the next number.
That is my understanding of the draw in Arizona, so to answer your question, yes if you were assigned the lowest draw number, you would receive your first choice in the 1-2 pass, regardless of draw odds or how many bonus points you had...
This happens a lot during the javelina draw when people put two or more choices down, get drawn for their second choice and there are leftover tags for their first choice.
It all has to do with the number of bonus points you have and the 20% set aside. If you were not in the bonus pass on your first choice but you are on the second, you will draw your tag on the bonus pass before the computer has a chance to look at your first choice again during the regular 1/2 round of the drawing.
You can draw that tag during the bonus pass that has 5% odds if you have enough bonus points to be one of the top point holders. I think what your friend meant is that it won't look at your application again in the regular 1/2 pass if your 2nd choice is one that get you drawn during the bonus points pass of the drawing.
One additional little wrinkle. Your random number assigned during the bonus pass will determine a who gets drawn amongst applicants with the same number of bonus points. This comes into play big time when the sheep drawing comes around. Since all the tags are lumped into the same pool during the bonus round for sheep and there are not enough tags to go around for all the max point holders, the lowest random numbers determine who gets the tags. A low random number helps again during the 1/2 pass of the drawing and the more bonus points you have, the better chance you have to get a low enough number to get drawn. Nonetheless, once the drawing is in the 1/2 pass the lowest random numbers win regardless of the number of bonus points you have.
Heat is correct. While I would not say it is always impossible to draw your first choice if the second choice is 100%, if you have enough bonus points to be in the 20% max point pool of your second choice, but not for your first choice, then he is correct. You will have 0% chance to draw your first choice. The computer will never even look at your first choice and therefore it is impossible to draw since you would have already been issued your second choice in the 20% pass round and you will be out of the drawing before the random drawing (where you would have had 5% chance) is ever even conducted.
And as Nick said, this does happen regularly in the javelina hunts, but it occurs in other hunts as well. There are examples where people were drawn for their second choice and their first choice still has permits left over after the drawing. This is because the hunter had enough BP's to be in the 20% max point pool for their second choice, but not their first, but there still weren't enough applicants in the random drawing to completely fill all of the permits in the person's first choice. In your example, however, there would obviously not be leftovers of your first choice, but you could still easily draw your second choice and never even have a chance at your first.
When I called Game and Fish to ask about this, their suggestion was that I just put the same hunt number for both first and second choice so that it wouldn't happen to me.... That's a fantastic solution. Because of their inability (or lack of interest) to program a system without this problem, they think that we should compensate by giving up one of our first two choices.
Makes things interesting. I don't want to wait until am nearly dead from old age to go archery antelope hunting again.
In the above scenario, all 20% Bonus Pass tags were drawn for the applicants 1st choice, before they pulled his number. They then looked at his 2nd choice and awarded the tag. In the 1-2 Pass, there weren't enough 1st and 2nd choice applicants to completely fill the quota resulting in leftovers.
Creed, the only way you have no chance is if the nr cap has been met. That was the case for 7 archery last year. 18B had one tag for nr and it was drawn by a resident in the 1-2 pass.
Scroll down the page until you get to 2015 Pronghorn and Elk Bonus Point Reports. Let me know if you need a copy of the corresponding regulations.
Wishing you the best of luck Bruce! I learned my lesson that if you want to go hunting you have to just apply and almost forget about all this bonus point crap, especially since you are a resident. Of course it helps to know your odds but the reality is you can draw just about any tag in AZ except a few sheep hunts with 0 bonus points. I've drawn pronghorn twice since I started putting in which was around 2004. I drew a rifle tag for Unit 13A with 8 points in 2010 and then drew an archery only tag in Unit 1 with only 3 points in 2012. Like Robb says, You Gotta Believe! LOL!
I was under the impression that bonus points were immaterial after the bonus pass and even with zero points you can draw a tag. So not so then?
In all seriousness though, all draw hunts have a 20% set aside so whether they have 0 or 20 points for javelina, applicants are going to draw 20% of the tags in the bonus pass.
In the 1,2 pass it goes by lowest random number so yes you can draw a tag with 0 points or with any number of points. You get a random number for your actual application plus an additional random number for each bonus point you have. Only your lowest random number ends up in the draw. Bonus points increase your odds to have a lower random number but that doesn't always coincide with draw success. It's random. There is an element of luck!
Things get a little more complicated when you throw the up to 10% for NR rule in the mix. I can see how it might appear that bonus points don't matter outside of the 20% Set Aside Bonus Pass portion of the drawing for Non-residents since they were hitting their max during the Bonus Pass, making the 1,2 pass almost non-existent. This is not the case for residents since there are plenty of tags in the 1,2 pass for residents to draw. This is one benefit of the new rule change. NR's will stay in the mix during the 1,2 pass now when on most popular hunts under the old rule, they were out if they didn't have at or near max points for that hunt code.
Hope that helps!
I always hear is that it takes x amount of points to draw a unit and am having a hard time figuring this out.
Thank You for the info in this thread.
Thanks again for the info and explanation of this quirk in the draw. It would explain how in the past I have drawn a 2nd choice elk tag when I thought I had enough points to draw the first.
As Nick said, there is a 20% max points set-aside for those with the max points in every species and every hunt number (although it works a little differently for sheep and buffalo, which we won't go into here). Therefore, if you go into the javelina drawing with 2 bonus points, you could easily be in the 20% max points for most of the hunts. For example, if you apply for archery unit 21 for first choice, that has much more demand than a unit farther from Phoenix might have, the 20% max for 21 might be filled by people with 3 points or more likely other people that also have 2 points. When your application comes up, 21 has filled it's 20% pass and it looks at your second, easier to draw unit, and gives you that permit because 2 points is enough to be in the 20% max points round for many of the lower demand units. Therefore, you never had a chance to draw 21 in this instance.
Guys, just to complicate things for you a little further, your application doesn't just get random numbers assigned to it the one time. When your application is first entered to the system, you are given one random number that will represent your application. You are then given an additional random number for each bonus point your application has, only the lowest of all of these will then represent your application during the 20% max point pass. After those are all issued, the computer will go through each remaining application and assign all new random numbers to represent those applications in the 1-2 pass. Then, once that phase is done, it will go through all the remaining apps. and once again assign all of them new random numbers to represent them in the 3-5 pass. Therefore, if you get rejected in the drawing, you were actually even more unlucky than you thought, since you failed to draw a good random number at least three different times!
The only thing I have heard from G&F as a possible fix for this problem is to possibly only include the application's first choice during the 20% max point pool pass. I'm not sure how I feel about that option. I'm am sure they could probably fix the programming to work properly with two hunt choices, but it would be very complicated. It would have to include programming that would allow you to still be considered in the 1-2 (random luck) pass even if you had drawn your second choice in the 20% max point pass, and then "return" your unused second choice permit back to that hunt's max point pool to be drawn by someone else.
G&F seems to think it only occasionally happens with a few javelina hunts, so they don't seem inclined to bother fixing it. However, it can easily happen with almost many species where there is a significant gap in the number of bonus points it takes to be in the max point round between your first and second choice.
For example, if you apply for a very difficult elk tag, and apply for a far easier tag for second choice each year, you will always reach the 20% max point pool for your second choice before you do for your first choice. Therefore, if you don't get lucky during the random draw portion before you reach max points for your second choice, you will eventually reach a year where your second choice is chosen in the max point round and you had zero percent chance of getting your first choice that year, just like in the javelina example. It's just that this occurs with higher numbers of points for elk than it does in javelina so fewer people notice it, but it's the exact same issue.
