Taking advantage of AZ's 365 day license
Elk
I'm going to put my dad back into the AZ race because of the change.
When buying his license and doing his application this year, in order to use the same license next year for next year's draw, I would buy the lic and do the app on Feb 9th this year, correct?
I read where some guys did this last year. Sounds risky to me. You have to bank on doing everything at the last minute, and hope it all goes through. One slip up and those with a loyalty point could end up losing two points if something is wrong. Good luck...
Yeah, I'm not doing it on my app, but mainly because the 2nd year you can't apply for deer and sheep. I'll just be putting my dad in for elk though and he has no loyalty point to lose since I haven't put him in the race in AZ for a couple years.
So what unit do you like 9, 3a?
For Dad? Heck no! :)
My dad would shoot a raghorn in 9. He's going in mid-tier units.
It worked for me last year, I only had one point so there wasn't much at risk.
Are you saying your dad doesn't deserve a nice bull?LOL!
Tough to practice drawing on an animal that tastes that good without proper follow through! I think your dad and I would get along great!
Mine expires on Feb 18, 2016 so I will have applied before that date this year----
I'll buy my new one for Sheep/Muley's in June...
Good luck, Robb
You guys will need to confirm the app deadline for 2017. I seem to recall it's set as the 2nd Tuesday in February which would put it at Feb 14 in 2017. The 365 day license will not work under that scenario. Season opening dates are set to kick back in 2017 also.
"Antelope & Elk Regulations >>
This booklet includes season dates, bag limits, hunt types, open areas, drawing application details, and other information for pronghorn antelope and elk only.
The pronghorn antelope and elk permit application deadline is typically the second Tuesday in February."
I planned to take advantage of the 365 year license last year but when their servers crashed and they extended the deadline I got scared because technically my previous license would no longer be valid on the new end date so I bought another license.
I was afraid the server crash story was a ploy to force those of us who were playing the game to buy another license but I guess it wasn't. Better safe than sorry I guess...
Unfortunately it won't work for those of us who apply for the various species in the other two application periods each year.
If it is 2nd Tuesday in February then it won't work next yr, but should work in 2018 for a 2017 lic bought on the last day.
I'm gonna just buy a lifetime license to solve this problem... Ed F
Thought it said you had to have a valid license on the draw date not the deadline date. I must have read that wrong. I do that a lot.
If im not mistaken, when I called AZ fish and game last year they said that from this year going forward you would have to buy a license each year to be eligible for the draw. For the amount of points I have invested in, the $165 or so for the license isn't worth losing the points over. Better safe than sorry.
I do this. Although I'm only buying points. If you use the dates right you only have to buy a license every two years.
So, if you do submit under last years license and manage to draw a tag, you then have to purchase a current year license before you hunt? (which would be like Utah does)
The way AZ is I would never take the chance. They are liable to change everything on you and you lose points and don't get a chance at a tag that year. Look how they screwed the faithful points buyers like me this year.
No Bark, yes if you draw you have to buy a current 2016 hunting license.
NJbuck, I heard the same thing.
The license only needs to be valid up the the application deadline. Same as last year. Extensions have no effect. If you bought on February 10 2015 you are good for the 2016 draw.
The printed 2016 Pronghorn Antelope and Elk Hunt Draw Information booklets are expected to be available next week at department offices and license dealers statewide. All applications – paper or online – must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. (MST) Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016. Postmarks do not count.
Good luck, Robb
I'm surprised we cannot apply online yet...tic toc
I just applied! 23N here I come.
There ya go, have a fun hunt.
Norseman, last year they came out on a Tuesday, but, the year before was a Wednesday, so I'm sure it will be a Thursday unless it's a Monday this year because of the Leap year thingy. I just know it! ;)
Still seems beyond dumb to me that we have to apply 4 months apart for different species in the same fall. I can't use the 365 day loophole as I apply for Deer, Elk, and Sheep and AZ has decided that it is way too complicated to have all applications within the same window.
I agree Trevor. That goes for any fall draw in any state. It bad enough the amounts of money we invest in applications, fees and licenses. they should be consecrate enough of our time and all have all draws on the same application at the same time.
The fact that there are more than one drawing for different species in AZ has nothing to do with Arizona finding it "way too complicated to put all the drawings in the same window". It has nothing to do with their inability or unwillingness to combine them into one drawing. They separated them into more than one drawing at the request of the bowhunters!
Elk, deer, antelope, sheep, and other fall species used to all be in the same drawing. However, after years of lobbying bowhunters and others convinced Game and Fish to separate them. In the past, results for antelope would come out with sometimes as little as two weeks before the hunt would start! Elk wouldn't have all that much longer at a little over a month. That didn't leave much time for planning. Therefore, it was requested that G&F move back the drawing dates by a few months for those species that are archery hunted in the summer and very early fall, like elk and antelope. If they moved all species back to those early dates, you would have to apply for hunts like December bighorn sheep nearly a year ahead of time.
The added benefit of the split application periods is that you know if you drew a (time consuming) antelope or elk hunt before you have to apply for all the rest of the fall species. If you already drew one or two tags, you have the opportunity to just apply for points for deer, sheep, etc. The additional benefit of moving the elk and antelope applications dates forward was to give those that apply in Arizona time to make other plans once they received the results of the drawing. Prior to that, the results came out so late in the year that it was too late to make plans to go anywhere else or apply in any other state.
I think it's great just the way it is! Just because you can't find a way to exploit the 365 day license "loophole" does not make it "dumb".
There's still the problem of getting deer archery results right before the hunt starts in AZ.
Personally, if I had an archery deer tag in AZ and a sheep tag, those two hunts wouldn't even have the slightest of influences on each other.
Personally, I'd be happy to apply for anything in January for a December hunt. If I did all my apps in January and they were done in February, I'd be ready to do 2017 in February.
The bigger issue is how long it takes the G&F depts to do the draws. They should be done 2 weeks after the deadline with results posted.
Every state in the Union that has a draw could have all their draws done between January and March and we'd have plenty of time to plan between draws and plan our hunts if they didn't wait 2 months from the application deadline to post results.
We're still operating like it's the 1980s. This should all be done by computer and be very easy and fast.
Some people still take cash into a bank and give it to a woman on the other side of a big wooden bench. That's fine. Nowadays, they still take the money and enter it into a computer. These draws should be no different. It can be done quickly. The few paper apps don't take 2 months to enter. The depts just haven't had their hands held to the fire and they're govt bureaucracies which means they'll continue to do things inefficiently till someone forces their hand.
Then again, there's no reason these draws couldn't be done completely online. Anyone with the mental capacity to hunt can fill out an online application or ask their 9 year old grandchild to help them with it.
Ike... you've never met my hunting partner....
but then he gets me to do it.... so yeah, ya got a point... just think of me as your 9 year old grandfather....
The issue hasn't nothing to do with exploiting the loophole and all to with saving time and energy and making one single application. I can care less when they draw each species.
I'm with Robb.
On page 8 of the 2016 Pronghorn Antelope and Elk hunt draw information under qualifications it says "An applicant must possess a license that is valid on the last day of the application deadline for that draw."
I have bought my hunting license each year on the 18 or 19 of March, applying for elk and sheep each year and have no problems with bonus points.
The purpose was to enable families to budget and schedule their license purchases, as their individual finances allowed. Buying multiple species licenses for a large family right after Christmas can be a challenge for some.
My Christmas is my license purchases :)
Some states don't hit your card at the draw and don't make you send in the tag cost with the app, but rather, allow you to buy the tag after you've won the application. Seems like a good way to look out for the few resident folks who would struggle with resident tag fees for the family. Check a box, opt to pay by a deadline.
Junior licenses and tags don't cost much. I can see this being a consideration, but not a big problem. If you're hunting out of state, you can afford the tag. If you're doing it for AZ residents, make junior tag's costs due by the hunt start date; easy fix.
Another reason the main fall drawing is held later also has to do with the Dept working through the harvest and population data collected from the recent fall hunts plus surveys to propose this year's hunt regulations (numbers of tags for each species/hunt) which have to go to commission approval before they are set. This is why the it is June before that drawing. Elk and Antelope data is usually in earlier so the process can happen in Feb.
