Wyoming NR Elk draw change, hallelulah
Elk
Commission voted to create regulation changing the NR Elk draw to coincide with the May Antelope/Deer draw. App period will still open in January and the regulation will need final approval.
Bob: How is that helpful?
It sounds worse to me, but I could easily be missing something.
Yeah I think that sucks if it’s moved to May
The way he worded it, still starts in Jan. I don't understand the jest of the post though. Is the app period extended through to the same end date as Antelope?
Ummmm yeah.... I’d say that’s NOT a good thing. IMO.
That kinda sucks. I’d like to know if I drew or not much earlier than that for planning my fall.
Charlie, changes to quotas and seasons will now be made before the draw. We'll be able to benefit from Elk quota increases. The area 45 archery change proposed last year after NR drew licenses was the tipping point.
Where did you see this? I’d like to see if they are going to change some type 9 units such that the type 1 tag holders cannot hunt in Sept.
None of that stuff has been discussed yet. This was part of the nr license allocation review process that started in November 2017 and last discussed at the Sept. Commission meeting.
I can't say I support this. It was nice knowing if you drew WY elk in February before the other draw deadlines. If they change the quota plus or minus a few tags before the draw that doesn't affect many people anyway.
Ya can't turn in tags and get a refund in Wyo. If folks drop out of the draw, I'd consider that beneficial to me personally.
I really like the timing as is. Really helps from a planning perspective (vacation and work).
Not good . Is this done deal, the final word. I hope not. Any supporting link?
Here is the deal fellas. Like Bob mentioned, the Unit 45 deal was the tipping point. I, like many others drew a unit (not 45) on a type 1 where I had already purchased the archery permit and was planning on only bowhunting during September. Then in the unit I drew my type 1, they proposed changes FOR 2018 that would not allow a type 1 tag to be used during the archery season. I filed a license change request for a type 9 pending the regulation change detailing my dislike with the proposal noting that my intent was to bowhunt. They called me 3 weeks later and told me they would not give me a type 9 but would refund my money for my tag and my points so I agreed and turned my tag in.
In the end the commission did not approve the change and I could of bowhunted this year. That said, I felt like the route I took was the most conservative and will hopefully result in less hunting pressure. Additionally, my wife broke her leg in July and with two little ones at home, I have not been able to get out yet so fortunately I turned that tag in.
I can see the issue some have with moving the dates but after going what I went through, I'm glad they are. It was a PITA to deal with after the tentative reg changes were issued. I will say the WYGF was awesome to work with on it though. I still can't see my reinstated points online but they have assured me both via phone and email they will show up in October.
If your targeting 45 which a lot of people do, you should welcome this change. I would also say you should anyway because your target unit could make the list next.
Thanks for the post, Bob. Good to know.
IMO, these draws should be be done within two weeks of the closing of the app periods. The app periods should be in the winter or early spring. There's no reason they should take so long with modern computer systems. CA does their draw in under two weeks. If CA with it's ridiculousness can do their draw in 11 days, so can everyone else. Utah takes 3 months.
I really liked WY's early elk draw. I like them as early as possible. I drew an AZ strip tag last year and the notification that you won a tag till the first day of the season was 5 weeks. I already had plans. I barely got to hunt it and had no time to scout.
They need to get these draws done sooner and faster. Not later.
Is it a done deal? no
Will it pass? most likely
The separate nr draw is a costly pain in the rear for the dept. Elk count submission meetings take place in March.
Correction on my part: they posted the changes to the regs during the application period at which point I had already submitted my app. I found out after the application period closed and draw was complete.
It'll be interesting to see if draw odds for general elk tags improve with this change?
I agree with you, Ike. The draws could be faster in most states. Utah as you know is flipping ridiculous.
^^^ What Ike said! Ridiculous it takes so long and is done so late in to the spring.
I am not fond of the Proposal.
I totally like having my Wyo results in February so I can decide on my other Elk States.
No way I am applying in January for mid-June results! haha
I kinda think they could have moved it to March 30/31st after the Winter Range counts and had the draw done by end of April, including ressy and Non-ressy, Elk, deer and antelope. Ya know back up the Ressy appl. from end of May to the end of March.
Plus 3 Iddy----look at Nv. 48 hours after tag quota's are set and results are made available....
Play the cards they deal us fella's
Good luck, Robb
Let's just draw straws in freaking august. We can all pack bags and find out if we have tag before we head out the door. Seriously this is stupid.
Their Feb NR draw was obviously great for multi-state appliers. Still you can't fault Wyoming in their logic for making this change. Hopefully we can modify our apps right up to near the draw date in May. The May draw time frame could allow for at least NM, AZ, & CO results to have come out beforehand.
It will be nice to know the actual tag numbers before applying but the results could come much earlier than freakin June!
I am not in favor of this change at all.
Life just got suckier!
Now the Montana app deadline is after the Wyoming draw results.
Bob can you clarify.... will I know if I have an elk tag before I need to consider applying for deer? I can’t hunt both the same year.
Convenience or not this is not a good thing for hunters. What else do they have to do with their time?
If hunting WY is something you want to do, I'd suggest spending a few minutes figuring out what's going on over there. All Commission meetings are live and posted to youtube. All Commission meetings have "notebooks" posted so you can see the meeting and presentation materials prior to the meeting. Pretty easy to find, right there under the "Commission" link on the front page. The reality is, not 1 in 100 will make the effort.
Public will have an opportunity to comment on the app date change. If you don't like it, say so.
Mule, all this proposal does is change the NR Elk "draw" from February, to the May Antelope/Deer draw. Nothing else changes. The "app period" would be Jan 1 - May 31 with results late June. Results for all 3 species will be released at the same time, as they currently are for residents.
This is not cool..........
I certainly is nice having a draw deadline after the regs are complete so it's possible to research and know season dates, quotas, type 9, and other details before the deadline. I've been upset several times when seasons were changed or new seasons added after the nonres deadline! One of the few negatives I see is draw results are posted months later so it's tougher making plans.
What if the WG&F made a compromise and moved the draw deadline a little later for nonres and a little earlier for Wyo residents.....making certain the draw deadline is after season dates, quotas, etc are written in stone for the upcoming season? I bet both res and nonres would be tickled pink with this compromise?
Jims ... "tickled pink" NOT ....
Hope this does not go through..... As others have said, this sucks, big time! I can't hunt 2 states in the same year, so finding out if I drew WY, prior to the other state applications has always been great.
I would like to know draw results early for planning purposes as well. However, I would also like to know the tag quota and any regulation changes are final before throwing my name in the hat. Your not going to have both at least in Wyoming anyway.
It looks like I’ll have to make my decisions right from the start. Will I burn my deer points? At least that’s something I only have to think about every 6 or 7 years. I can handle that. But most likely I’ll never hunt Montana again. I’ll be either a Wyoming license or a leftover Wyoming license.
I do not like this at all. I get one western mountain hunt a year and it’s really really nice to know before Montana or Colorado if I drew Wyoming. Doesn’t completely screw me but I prefer to hunt Montana if I don’t draw Wyoming. I still can but I don’t like dropping 1k on a backup plan that I don’t use. Colorado OTC I guess.
This will really screw up planning hunts.
There’s a reason the overwhelming majority on here are against this. They haven’t all got it wrong.
You guys need to be letting WY Game & Fish know how you feel though. Don’t just gripe on here.
I’m calling them tomorrow, and I’m going to send out emails as well.
Let's get some links posted as to where we can call and email
Nice to know that for the majority on here planning which tag to apply for is more important than issuing the correct number of tags. I'll remember that the next time I have to speak to the Commission regarding how many tags NR's should get.
As I understand it, it's not so much issuing the right number of tags as it is getting the correct number of NR vs R tags. Is that correct?
This will definitely completely change my application strategy. It was nice knowing the Wyoming results early so that I could plan around it. It's tough as a NR when you are applying for draws while awaiting the results of other draws. Wyoming will probably see less applications from me as I'll likely be applying for easier to draw tags elsewhere now just to ensure I have a hunt locked in somewhere early. Whatever happens, I can roll with it.
Looks like this may increase my draw odds!
I like the earlier drawing. Ken
Here is an article. It says it passed. I assume this is final.
“Voted to consider” doesn’t sound like a done deal.
Bowfreak's article is almost funny.
>>So when the Wyoming Game and Fish Department spent several months asking residents across the state if they wanted to change a formula to allow more licenses go to nonresident hunters, the answer was a resounding no.<<
Duh. Did they anticipate a different answer??? And I would feel the same if I was a Wyo resident.
It's not. Legislature has to approve.
Any updates on this? Is it a done deal?
The reasons to support this pale in comparison to what NR lose due to the later draw date. Who cares if they adjust the quota 1 animal higher. Really?
From: Bowfreak 24-Sep-18 It's not. Legislature has to approve.
That is incorrect, as the Legislature only has a vote to change the 7,250 total full price license that is now a Statute. The change to not have the NR elk draw early and make it match the later one for deer and antelope is strictly voted on and either approved or voted down by the Commission. At the present it appears the early draw date will continue for 2019 and then change to match the later dates in 2020.
I was just repeating what my friend from Wyoming said. It's possible he was mistaken.
The draw date change is a Chapter 44 Regulation and has to be approved by the Commission. The Commission voted to move the date, but the regulation particulars have to be written, presented, and approved. I was told "maybe" at the April season setting meeting but could be as late as the September meeting. This has been festering internally for a number of years and a cpl mis steps the last cpl years on both the nr and resident side gave it the final push.
Yes it does! There has to be a better solution.
Leave the quotas alone after the early draw and make up for it the following year!
That's great. Maybe they'll rethink it and keep it early so Wyoming stays the one place you can actually make a plan on at a reasonable time of year.
Wyoming has been great. They have the earliest deadline. They process our applications and execute the draw faster than any other state. They announce draw results earlier than any other state.
It seems that all good things must come to an end.
From: c3 07-Dec-18 That's great. Maybe they'll rethink it and keep it early so Wyoming stays the one place you can actually make a plan on at a reasonable time of year.
Nothing to rethink since it's already been voted on and approved. As WB stated in his post, they now just need to rewrite the Regulation to the later date to match the deer and antelope application dates and draw. That is why the change can't be done to take effect for the 2019 season and why it' won't be effective until the 2020 season.
hopefully they are getting enough push back form NR so they rethink their folly
The dept had been violating the resident quota statute and finally got called on it. As such, this had been in the works for months before it was presented. Other than convenience for the resident outfitters, there was no reason for the January time frame. Once the dept agreed to keep the app period opening date at Jan 1 the Outfitters signed off and it was a done deal.
While harder to draw, AZ is only 2 weeks after WY for both the app period and results.
Wondering how this will affect the demand for NR elk tags starting in 2020. For multi-state appliers, Wyoming will become either a last resort or a last chance. I'm assuming we'll have until May 31 to submit/modify/withdraw our WY Elk apps. In that case we'll have already seen the draw results from most of the other significant elk states (AZ, UT, NM, NV, CO), and can tailor our WY apps as needed before the new 5/31 deadline. Hard to say whether this will increase NR demand, and make hunts harder to draw than ever. Or, do just the opposite, since results won't come until the end of June, which is getting really late in the year for a lot of guys. Some might elect to set up their fall plans much earlier and lay out of the WY draw. Until the draw is run on this later schedule for a couple or three years and we see how it trends, it will definitely be tougher to plan than in the past.
wapitiBob: >>The separate nr draw is a costly pain in the rear for the dept..<<
Could you explain this? I would think the nr elk draw is a money maker and we know nr elk hunting is a huge money maker. The computer time is fixed regardless of when it takes place. Paperwork the same. By having the elk draw early I would think there would be more applications. I'm having a hard time seeing the PIA for anyone except for hunters like NativeOkie
The elk counts aren't done until after the draw so they have to go off the previous years data and guess if they want increases or decreases. After the counts are done, if there was a decrease, it came from the resident side, in violation of statute. They got called on that a cpl years ago and now have to increase the license allocation on the resident side for those hunts, something the bio's didn't want to do. That and losing the ability to remove hunts because the nr draw was done, and they can't ask for licenses back, were the tipping points. Conducting the draw, they do a test draw, audit the results by hand, then run the full nr draw, and again hand audit the results.
I understand the reason, but it's a bummer it's being moved.
As far as changes being made after the draw, there's not many changes made from year to year and they're usually not that big. Still, I understand it.
Nonetheless, it's not going to lose them any money. Even if NRs put in for more points and less applications because they already won a tag somewhere else, they're still going to sell every last one of those tags.
These late draws suck though. Especially with the long delay in doing the draws and releasing the results. When I won my AZ strip tag, the season opened 7 weeks from when the draw results came out and I already had plans for the season. Even more importantly, I had work and a trip and zero time to scout.
If hunters had some pull, we could hold these government bureaucracies feet to the fire and get them to get these all done by May.
I've said it a million times: California gets their draw results out about 10 days after the application deadline. It's called computers. If dysfunctional CA can do it, so can the other states. Utah takes like 3 months - it's ridiculous.
There's no good reason that all these applications shouldn't be done online, for the app deadlines to be by mid-March to Mid-April, and the results out a few weeks later. They just don't HAVE to because they're government. And so they don't.
I’ll say this... Game management and licensing is a complicated subject these days and I have to tip my hat to WapitiBob for taking the time to share his infinite knowledge on the subject. Bob you have the facts straight and do a very good job of explaining it to us dummies who just want to draw tags and hunt elk. Can’t thank you enough.
Ditto MP. Not only is he a computer and big game draw applications nerd, he can kill stuff, too!
Right there with you Ike. Could probably go down to Best Buy and get a computer that could hand all of the western state’s draw processes in a day’s time. These long turn-a-round times are evidence of ineptitude.
Horrible news. Now we won't know what we have drawn before other app. deadlines.
Thanks Bob. I like the way it was but the reason makes sense - and is why other states are later. Yes I loved it and them getting results in about 3 weeks is great compared to most states. FL gets gator draws done in a couple days and then a whole new draw starts, results in couple days etc.
There is no reason any state needs over 2 weeks.
Ah well.
It stays the same for 2019, the nr app booklet should be out around the 21st.
"These long turn-a-round times are evidence of ineptitude."
Ineptitude or complacency. Or both.
I agree about Bob being the Western Draw Ph.D - and he shares info readily. I feel I understand the draws pretty well, but I learned a lot of what I know from Bob and Greg. Thanks guys.
I do not support this at all. The primary reason I put in for Wyoming every year is because they post draw results early.
Ditto Ike. I’m pretty good at deciphering the BS on state websites. I outfitted in Montana so I was forced to learn their mess. I find the Wyoming F&G website to be much better but Bob has still taught me the majority of what I know about their system.
From time to time I still have questions so he’s still teaching me. I owe that guy at least one good steak dinner at the place of his choice!
Thanks for the explanation WapitiBob
I guess we've just been spoiled by the early draw.
Bob goes beyond studying the websites....he makes the phone calls.
That's all anybody has to do.
Find out who's running the draw dept and call if you have a question. Find out who's creating the odds reports or who runs the access programs and call. If a discussion comes up on a forum and you don't know the real answer, call and get the info so you do. The key is to find the guy or gal at the top of the food chain, but that's not very difficult. Email works too. All these state agencies will have a singular syntax for their email addresses. Find one email addy and if you have a name you should be good.
So to give you all an update on my situation above, I still have not had my points reinstated after completing the license review and it being approved. I have emails back to March asking about getting my points reinstated with several empty promises. I’ve been keeping cnelk and Midwest posted on this issue.
I’m sending a last email this morning and if I don’t see them by end of day, I’ll be making a phone call. Stay tuned.
It’s government incompetency at its finest as Idyllwild mentions and it’s F’ing ridiculous.
This is interesting. I've been talking to the MT F&G folks about why they do some of the draws early and some late. With respect to doing the antelope draws late, the reasoning was so the bios can do the spring antelope counts prior to setting tag allocations for the later draws. Ok....with that logical explanation....then why don't they do the elk, deer and antelope draws at the same of the year to align the spring counts and summer draws? As an NR....ideally I would like to put in for all the draws at the same time to make trip arrangements. As it is now...if you draw the NR Big Game Combo early, you have to wait to see if you drew the later antelope tag and then you have to put your travel plans together, time off from work, etc. I would think the res's would also like to put in for all the draws at the same time too for the same reason.
Native, I pm'd you an email address.
