MT Bonus Point Question
Montana
Question about Elk Permits, bonus points and group applications. We are applying as a party for a archery elk permit, 3 residents and one non-resident. All of us have 3 bonus points. Looks like last year the unit we applied for was 100% for residents at 0-9 points but only 50% for non-residents with 3 points. Can anyone tell me how the app will be processed or looked at for the draw under this scenario? Thank you!
Im 99% sure with the NR having zero points the party will also be entered at 0 points.
Page 3 in FWP application guide, "The base bonus points for a party are the average of their individual base bonus points rounded to the nearest whole number."
In previous years I have applied as you are describing. The FWP handles bonus points as I quoted above, and residents applying with non-residents will be placed in the non-resident draw if applying as a party.
It takes a good friend to, as a resident, put himself in the non-resident pool to stay with his party.
Appreciate the responses and the reference to FWP section which I must have missed. We all have 3 points and yes my resident friends basically reduced their chances from 100% to maybe less than 50% by including me on the app. if I am reading the statistics correctly. I may not share the info with them! Thanks again.
Your odds as a non res applicant are sometimes better than a res...
Montana doesn't have a separate drawing for res or NR. They only limit how many of the permits (10%) that can go to NR.
Here is a simplified version of what happens: everyone who applies for a permit is given a random number. If you have bonus points, you are given more than one random number based on how many points you have, then they only keep the lowest number, since that is the only one that matters. A party application is basically treated as one application for the purposes of assigning a random number. Then they line all the apps up in order by number and start issuing permits. The best numbers get their permits, and they can now go to Bowsite to gloat and brag (grin). This continues until they either run out of permits or they reach the 10% limit for NRs. If they reach the 10% limit, the rest of the NR numbers are eliminated from the draw... Then they continue down the list of resident applications until they run out of permits...
This works the same as drawing applications out of a hat, but it can be done electronically with a random number generator. Residents and nonresidents are treated the same until they have given out the 10% limit, then all remaining NRs are eliminated from having a chance at the rest of the permits.
