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WY NON-Res Elk apps up 10%

I'm not complaining, I'm not Bitc*ing, I'm not whining, just thought it was an interesting bit of information.

From the Wyoming Game and Fish Department --- Non-residents submitted 23,080 full-price elk applications for the 7,250 total licenses allocated by Wyoming state law. Up 10% from 2016.

So if 23,080 applicants each purchased a PP at $50.00, that's $1,154,000.00, Not bad for the first month of the year, and that's JUST the non-residents.

I didn't pay $50. I payed quite a bit more. They gave me my $50 back.

"“We saw almost a 1 percent increase this year in applications for full-priced elk; the bull or any elk license. These applications primarily came from hunters who had preference points and were invested in a Wyoming elk hunt,” Doering said.

Interest in reduced-price cow/calf licenses also grew with 4,486 non-resident applicants--over a 21 percent increase in the past year, and a staggering 43 percent increase since 2016. Cow/calf licenses do not require preference points and are allocated through a random draw."

Interesting...

I will send in my $50 this summer

Me too Dan

I got my $50 credited back too--------->

I wonder if it was fellow hunters bailing out that had the increase?

Good luck, Robb

Inshart- The profit of 1 million-plus that you mention is not correct because it doesn't take into account the on-line merchant fees that Wyoming has to pay for credit card processing for applications. I don't know the percentage fee Wyoming pays, but as a high-volume on-line merchant myself, my fees for "card not present" transactions are about 4% of the total purchase (typical rate for cash-back/points style cards that the majority of people use). On-line transactions are considered higher risk, thus higher fees. The fees are generally not refunded to the merchant when the transaction is reversed. In fact, there can be an additional fee for processing refunds. So it's possible, depending on the mix of special/regular apps, that Wyoming could be just breaking even or possibly losing a little money on non-resident elk applications.

Well here is one guy that bailed and pulled a tag in the special draw. figured I could draw it in the special draw or wait three year and pay another 150 and maybe ...maybe if there isn’t more point creep draw a tag. I figure my first loss is my best Loss ...I am done. No more WY points for me. Cashing in deer and lope in the next three years. Giving up on sheep and moose with a dozen points. I can’t imagine I am the only person thinking like this so I can see a 10%increese in applications.

I was 1 point short of max points for deer and elk this year and I decided not to buy points. Not sure if I will drop out completely or buy a point every other year. I know I will not be able to hunt for 10 years or so and not sure if Wyoming is worth the investment. Mostly wanted to hunt Wyoming because it was new and holds a lot of intrigue for me. AZ is my home state and has been good to me so may just end up staying here and spending here. I will continue to buy points for WY antelope as I plan on going in the next 3-4 years.

For those of you that stay in Wyoming points game, good luck.

After my initial post I went back in and read through more of the info that WGF posted and agree with Robb, I think there were quite a few that cashed in their points to hunt this year rather than try to keep up with the point creep.

As Watipi pointed out - a 21% increase in RP cow / calf. Not sure, but I'm thinking that this may be due to a lot of guys, just not willing to pay the increase price hike this year??

Good luck to those that drew - keeping my fingers crossed for next year.

I believe this is the "calm before the storm" in Wyo! I wonder if the WG&F will report the loss of applicants in the coming years when those that cash in their points no longer apply! I bet it will be similar for deer, antelope, and other game. It will be interesting to see what happens with sheep and moose since it's even more expensive to apply for those pref pts with horrible draw odds if applicants don't have close to max pts.

Cow-calf license apps may become the future bottleneck for drawing, especially with the aging of hunters for whom "hunting" and elk meat becomes more valued than spending big money and waiting many years to hunt antlers.

That 43% increase in cow-calf applicants will likely jump way up in coming years.

There was a 30% increase in RP cow/calf applicants in the unit I applied for.

Maybe the 'Horn Porn' fad is dwindling

Stick, In January the dept presented a proposal to eliminate the "pay up front" in order to get away from a bunch of the transaction fees but it hadn't been vetted well. I believe the change we will see for 2019 is that the customer is going to pay that transaction fee. We may pay on the front end or it may be a transaction fee on both the app side and refund side. Dept pays the fee on both ends of the transaction (application and refund) and the projected savings from the initial proposal was about $950,000.

Too bad that didn't go through.

Why not just go the CO route and hit cards after the fact?

I don’t believe WY will see a loss of applicants...

They might not see a loss in net applicants but the rate of increasing applicants will slow or plateau in the years to come. I'm really depressed about not drawing only because my go-to favorite hunt sold out while I was waiting for the Wyoming results...and I didn't pick one up before the Cowboy state gave me the shaft.

It's a bit anecdotal, but one outfitter I'm familiar with saw a jump in the points required to draw NR in his area. I think a lot of guys with just under max are starting to get tired of the process and looking to hunt some of the other areas.

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