Sheep and goat stats
Colorado
Did you guys see the increase in apps this year? I'm glad people thought the new system wouldn't bring in new applicants for the big three.
If you've been in the draw, you have three years then you'll have no chance??
I don't think anyone thought that applications would not skyrocket upwards with not having to put the money up front.
I also don't know anyone who didn't think apps would go way up. Basically went from 18,000 sheep applicants to 41,000. Might go up more since I have spoke to a lot of casual hunters who didn't know what was going on until they applied.
Goat went fron 12,000 to 33,000
Some thought it wouldn't effect the resident pool much
Anyone have a link to that?
Orion- After this freshman class of 0 point holders reach 3 points I do think weighted points will be worthless. Just the sheer number of applicants will overwhelm the top point holders and we will see more random numbers low enough to be drawn at 3 points. There are more people at now at 1 point then the sum of all the people from 1 point to 3 and 7 weighted. There are now more than 3x the number of people at 1 point than all the people at 3 and 8 Plus to 3 and 17 combined. Colorado bighorn sheep is now in effect once in a life time if you draw you best make the most of it. The now overwhelming odds are people getting in the draw or currently in 3+ point pool will never draw with only 200 ish ram tags per year. We need more sheep and more sheep tags!
Sandbrew
They are going to need to up the points needed before entering the draw, and don't doubt if they eventually go to lifetime tag similar to moose. If things don't change by 2020 odds of drawing are going down nearly 70 percent. That doesn't bode well for people like me that have gone 20 years without drawing. IMO anyone that wasn't willing to loan out 250 dollars for a few months for the chance to draw these tags doesn't deserve it. They should keep the full price of tag in place for the first 5 or 7 years of applying then go to just applicant fee. I know it was done to save the DOW some money and maybe that would be a compromise. A lot (not all) of the Big 3 Applicant fees they needed to reimburse would go away.
You guys are talking about all the newly minted applicants. when I looked at the statistics for the hunt I put in for and some friends put in for it’s unbelievable how many more people with 3+ points already in the bag suddenly jumped onto certain units. Double to quadruple the 3+ points holders applied so point are ALREADY watered down. Guessing guys with points saw writing on the wall and put in for lesser units or stopped doing points only.
They need to do something because this new way is definitely screwing us guys with lots of weighted points as Sandbrew pointed out.
I expected an increase, but certainly not double or triple the applicants. Wow!!
You can count me in agreement that weighted points aren't going to do much for us in the future with all these new applicants. I think they need to look at raising the cost. I'd be willing to pay $500-$1,000 for a resident sheep tag if that at least gives me a shot once in my lifetime. That, or square the weighted points so it gives higher point holders stronger odds.
I knew applicants would increase this much. No surprise there.
I hope Colorado changes this soon to something else.
But there’s gonna be so many people that apply and aren’t that serious. Just applying just to apply for The heck of it.
Vids I agree that I would be willing to pay more to hunt sheep. goat, or moose. From a selfish reason I would agree with you. With that said there are a lot of people out there simply don't have $1000 if they draw a tag with all of life's responsibilities. Not getting tags sucks. But I also like to think of hunting a blue collar guys sport. Already in to many ways it has become a rich mans sports. It is tough to get on good private land without paying for access. The fact is there are going to be 200 or so sheep tags and whole lot more than that want to hunt them. I am not sure what the answer is but I don't think giving them to the guy with the most disposable income is the answer.
Maybe it's time to go back to a random draw and once in a lifetime harvest.
Or JDM why not the opposite and give to the guy with the most points. Does the guy applying for 20 years not have more claim to a tag than the 12 year old applying for the first time. Granted you would have to come up with a motorized wheelchair to get a bunch of old guys up into sheep country.
It is random at this point. And pretty much once in a lifetime now days
JohnMC - I'm not talking about giving tags to the guys with the most disposable income, that's taking my idea of raising costs to the extreme. I'm talking about weeding out the folks that threw in an application and weren't serious enough about it before to manage their money so they can float $750 for a couple months at application time.
This makes me wonder how many people are just throwing in an application since it's cheap now, and will think twice once it costs $250 to buy the tag? Will we see an uptick in returned tags? That would stink as well since last minute tags = less time to prepare.
I think the best solution is to more heavily weight the WPs by squaring them.
If you stopped giving new points today and started awarding tags to the highest point holders until everyone had their chance, many folks wouldn't live long enough for their chance to come up. There just aren't enough sheep.
How about auctioning off all sheep, goat and moose tags to the highest bidder. With the proceeds cover the cost of non resident elk and deer tags. Then boot out all non resident hunters. ;)-
Yea I don’t think every tag should go to the highest point holder. But maybe if you have multiple tags in a unit. You give one to the highest point holder and one to random draw. That way it weeds out the higher point guys.
I also like the idea of the cost being more for the special tags.
I’m a blue collar guy. But I’m willing to pay more for it.
Now everyone is as serious as us guys.
More or less money does not equal more or less serious in my opinion. Some guys a $1000 would mean they are extremely serious for some guys that is peanuts. If you want to weed out the less serious appliers why not require conservational community service in order to apply. By the way I am not supporting that idea either.
Bottom line it is a supply and demand issue. No matter how you do it there is not going to be enough supply to go around.
Any why won't bowsite allow me to put blank lines between paragraphs????????? Now it puts one above this sentence but not the one above that????????????
Yep. There is one pie with 7 pieces and 1000 people standing there with their forks ready. We can change who gets a slice but there will never be enough pie. Now with this change we handed out 1000 more forks. There is no solution that will keep people happy. Anything that helps high point holders takes away from low point holders and vica versa.
the 250 seemed to keep guys who weren't serious out I would pay more to keep the numbers decent. My biggest issue is the worthless weighted points. They need to do something to better the guys with a lot of weighted points because right now there is no advantage and they will not mean anything when 10,000 plus new guys enter the tag pool.
only solution, is get rid of the point system all together. And that goes for elk, deer, antelope too. Or get rid of the option that if you don't draw, you get a point. That will over time, eliminate point creep and eventually eliminate points all together.
CPW is laughing all the way to the bank on this one!
So glad all our representative hunting organizations were so gung-ho to raise all our resident hunting license fees! While still allowing more nonresidents than any other state in our hunting seasons.
Would say the day is not far off when CPW will be making more on application fees at low cost than they do on higher priced tags.
Expect to have to start buying preference/weighted points soon!
As it stands preference points systems are not going to be discussed as a part of the Big Game Season structure setting process. The proposal is to have a "hunting forum" discussion in the August or so timeline, where point systems and allocation between residents and nonresidents would be topics to be discussed. Hopefully more details will be coming from CPW and the commission.
With the "pay later" draw it was suggested 3 million would be saved. With the future generations bill the commission could raise nonrefundable application fees up to $10 per app. Draw odds got worse, finances may improve tremendously by revenue increases and expense savings. With the recent legislation passage, I doubt the legislature wants to see or would support increase any CPW fees for a long time.
COHOYT - how is that solution much less only solution? Same amount of people wanting tags. Only difference is no consideration for those that have waited the longest?
b/c points are becoming worthless anyway. point creep is getting out of hand. you cannot just go to a random draw system, because everyone with points will cry "foul".. The only way to go random is to no longer issue points. Or maybe not issue points for a like 5-10 years and hopefully that levels the playing field as far as points are concerned. Then after a period of time, start the point system again.. Otherwise, this cycle of guys with 20-30 points and not getting drawn will go on forever.
But with no points you will still have guys waiting 20-30 years and not being drawn. But a few guys will draw several times in the same period that others don't draw at all. At least with the system now you have the choice of waiting 20 plus years and hunting OTC or apply for a unit that you can draw each year. You have a educated guess at what you can expect each fall.
Point creep/not drawing tags is supply and demand issue. Short of conquering WY and making their elk country resident CO tags your not going to improve having more hunters than premium elk areas to hunt.
In 2017 there were 1724 “new” 0 point resident applications for bighorn sheep, this year there were 10,159...
They’re going to have to do something
agreed.. something needs to be done.. I don't think any other state has issues like we do in Colorado with point creep and crazy amount of applicants... maybe a fix for example with Elk, is make the OTC units draw units for non-residents and not issue points if not drawn.. that's just an example.. I for one am very disappointed with how CPW "manages" the wildlife. I understand that it takes revenue to run things, however, the tag allocation to non-residents has gotten out of control and now this new system, I feel is going to come back and bite them in the butt.. There has to be a better way..
Treeline I agree with almost everything you ever say, except “cpw is laughing to the bank on this one”
They’re not laughing to the bank, they’ve already spent the money, it’s the bureaucrats in government we’re talking about here...
I agree with Ermine and vids on this one, at least keep the $250, preferably increase that by a bunch.. call me one of the elite who can afford it easily now, but I started putting in for sheep and goat when I was 16, you better believe I wanted it, and kept wanting it to scrape together the money every year with the expectation that I would someday draw, given the new additions it seems like even 3+17 points may not have that happening... Squared points would help.. or how about a serious bump in the draw for people who volunteer for field work? there has to be a way to filter out people who really care from the ones who throw in the pool just because they can.
