CPW announces BGSS meetings, See E-News
Colorado
Big Game Season Structure public meetings to begin May 11, continue through June 29, 2023
See CPW E-News on the CPW website for more info. CPW is encouraging the public to attend these public meetings to learn about the current BGSS and the potential changes CPW is considering. CPW wants to give the public ample opportunities to provide input and help inform the BGSS planning process. For more information regarding these public meetings, visit our BGSS EngageCPW page.
BGSS topics being discussed at the public meetings include: 1. Alternatives regarding over-the-counter archery and rifle elk licenses 2. Rifle season date structures for deer and elk 3. Early season (archery and muzzleloader) date structures 4. Adding rifle deer opportunities to the first regular rifle season 5. Adding a second regular rifle buck and doe pronghorn season The topics covered during these meetings are starting points for discussion. Additional topics and options may be considered at future meetings.ore information by CPW Regions.
What comments do you want us to talk about
1 and 3 are most important to me and I will examine the facts, do some research and testify.
Shouldn't we also be looking at the moose draw process. The application process was designed to give higher preference point holders a slight advantage on drawing a license. When the draw process has a percentage of 65% of tags going to lower preference point holders and 35% going to higher preference point holders, this is not how the system was designed. Also there are applicants who have drawn and harvested moose several different times, all in the lower preference point range. I do understand applicants may never draw a tag, but we also have to look at those applicants who have been supporting the system since day one. I strongly feel this should also be looked at and discussed at the next BGSS.
I think the moose system works exactly as designed. It just wasn't designed the way I want.
Archery Moose should start on the same day archery deer and elk, not the same day as muzzleloader as it is now.
I agree with JDM. Starting moose on opening of ML cost me this guy back in 2020.
Moose Draw, PP/weighted points issue: An issue has been raised by a number of sportspersons, at and outside, of the CPW Sportspersons caucus meetings, concerning those with the required 3 PP and a high number of weighted PPs that are not drawing moose licenses in proportion to those that are, middle range PP holders with a lot less, weighted points. This seems to have gotten worse, with the pay-later system, as more and more applicants apply, and with just a slight increase in moose license availability. Sportspersons that now apply for the Colorado moose draw, and have been applying for the last 15-24 years, would like the CPW to reexamine the Moose Draw System and evaluate the current PP and weighted point system, to be more fair to those that have maximum PPs and weighted PP: currently, 3 PP and 21 weighted points equals 24 years of applying for a moose license. The moose draw system has changed many times over the years. It started out with a simple draw system when all applicant's names were thrown into a hat. Then the system went to a Preference Point System, and to a weighted point system, then it had an increase in license fees, then a three-dollar fee for a preference point was added, and now there is a $50 fee for a resident weighted point and a $100 fee for a nonresident weighted point. Many applicants presume that the system was designed so the higher preference point holders should have better odds of drawing a moose license, but this does not seem to be happening.
As an example, in 2017, there were 20,214 applicants for 195 cow and 148 bull licenses, totaling 343 licenses. Five years later, in 2021, and during the pay- later- system, 52,878 hunters applied for 294 cow and 252 bull licenses, totaling 546 licenses. The Colorado Moose draw system, you do not receive more entries in the drawing, it is all math and luck of the draw. In 2022, 271 applicants had maximum points of 21 weighted points plus 3 required preference points. This group only drew 8 licenses. The group with 10 and below weighted points drew 373 licenses, or 72% of all moose licenses allocated. The group with 10 weighted points drew 145, or 28% of allocated licenses. And worse yet, those with ZERO weighted points drew 34 licenses, and those with one weight points drew 72 licenses, and those with two weighted points drew 46 licenses.
Other states use "bonus" points where you get more "tickets" in the lottery and many states like NV and MT square these bonus points, or cube these bonus points, significantly increasing the draw odds of high point holders.
The reality is that we have extremely high demand for a very limited resource....too few licenses and too many applicants. Draw success was .89 of 1% for all licenses this year, including bull and cow. Closer to 4/10ths of 1% for bull only. That means that no matter what is done, most will never draw because they will not live long enough. As time passes and the current massive crowd in the low and mid-point pool becomes the old timers, the cost to them is that the hole gets dug much deeper.
Suggestions to consider from Caucus participants:
1. As with once in a lifetime, bull moose harvests, cow moose harvest should also be once in a lifetime. Currently there are hunters who have drawn two and a few who have drawn three moose cow licenses during the past 30 years. A moose hunter would still have the possibility to harvest a bull and a cow moose, but not multiple cow moose.
2. Create a highbred special draw pool (example 10% of bull and cow licenses) for those moose applicants that have 15 (to be determined) or more weighted points to give some needed advantage to those that have been in the system longer.
3. Increase the preference points needed to be eligible for the draw, from currently 3 PPs to 7-10 PPs.
4. Begin archery moose season on September 2 (opening of archery elk and deer season) and not, currently on Sept 11th. This would allow archery moose hunters, for a time, not to be in conflict with rifle moose hunters.
5. Another caucus participant suggested that: A better system might be to stay with the weighted points but to add more weight to it. This could be done by using a shorter number to start with. For example, if your random number is currently 9 digits, go to 7 or 8. Another possibility is that the number of random numbers is the same as the number of people that apply.
Food for thought, and worth examining in depth!
Submitted by Paul Navarre CPW NE Region Sportsperson Delegate. August 27, 2022 Location, Statewide Roundtable/Caucus meeting, Palisade Colorado, CPW Shooting Center.
Careful posting those draw facts Paul the weighted point supporters will tell you your math is wrong.
I haven't done the 2022 draw data, but 2021 moose draw is here. Weighted points vs. tags allocated.
Yep. Paul's numbers don't lie. The max point holders drew at over 3 times the rate that the 3+0 guys.
Yep the max point guys drew a whopping .014% of the tags, I'd be stoked with max points.
^ that's not even possible. The max point holders drew 1.358% of the tags.
Edit. My number is 97 times higher than your number
8 divided by 546 is .014 I didn't move the decimal place after calculating. I'm glad your good with the max point guys drawing less than 1.5% of the tags. That number will be lower next year when another few thousand people become eligible at 3+0. The lower point holders are drawing almost 80% of the total tags. If the weighted points held that much advantage the mid to max holders should be drawing the higher percentage of the tags.
Some things to consider with moose change proposals Paul.
Option 1: If approved, they should have to make it after your next cow tag, or refund the PP/BP fee we've already payed if they kick us out of the draw. Another consideration with that is if some are drawing cow tags multiple times, then folks trying to draw a moose tag probably can, if they try to draw cow instead of bull. It's kind of self correcting. Also some, as in the case of my wife who has only killed a cow, will change to applying for a bull tag, increasing that pool.
Option 3: Similar to 1. If they take cow tags out of reach, we should be allowed out of the draw, and refunded our investment to date.
Cindy and I try to alternate our cow moose tags. But the main reason we continue to try to hunt moose is because it's one of the few good hunts we have left in Colorado. While there are still too many hunters out there, at least they're not all after the same species as us. And of course, it's the best meat, and a lot of it. ;-)
Full disclosure: I have killed a bull, and each of us has killed a cow. We have dropped out of Rocky Mountain sheep and mountain goat draws mostly to allow others who haven't drawn, a better chance.
I know what you did on sliding the decimal. But you need to divide 8 into 589 since that how many total tags there were in 2022. And as far as if I am "good" with max point holders drawing less than 1.5%. I have never gave an opinion on that. Because all that is an opinion. What I have done is call you out on your "weighted points have ABSOLUTELY no value" and "weighted points are worthless" comments. But the FACT is, they do give you an advantage over the lower point holders. And the numbers support if you use the numbers. Now whether or not they give you enough advantage and so on, that's all opinion.
One more thought on all PP/BP. If we had to actually apply for a hunt to accrue a PP/BP instead of just buying them, it would likely cut down on competition.
When brainstorming better or new ways to allocate moose tags, keep in mind there's a decent chance we don't have the stable/growing moose population going forward.
If wolf introduction goes they way it looks like it will, that will be a big factor making odds worse.
ksrancher isn't it true in the other thread you don't even apply for the big 3 because of the dismal odds? The scale should weigh a little heavier to the mid and max point side if the weighted points held as much value as some claim. When the 3+11 to 3+max point applicants aren't even drawing 30% of the total tags I think it needs to have a look taken into it. At the current rate of applicants flooding the pool the mid to max point applicants will soon be drawing less than 10% of the total tags
Yes, that's me. I don't apply for them. If I had decided to start applying 10+ years ago then I would continue to buy the bonus point. But I didn't even give the big 3 a look until 3 years ago or so. So by the time I thought about applying I didn't think it was worth it.
As far as the rest of your opinions on the allocation of tags. I can't argue with them. I could probably even agree with some of your talking points.
BUT, bonus points do give you an advantage on drawing a tag. Probably not to the extent that some would like. And I get that. You need to use that as your talking point for getting the system changed to get more tags to the higher point holders. Don't use "bonus points give ABSOLUTELY no advantage". Because it just isn't true.
Hey 2Xlung add the data for apps vs weighted points to that graph too.
Here you go Clerko. On this chart, I included applicants with less than 3 preference points (-3 = 0PP+0WP, -2 = 1PP+0WP, -1 = 2PP+0WP, and then 0 = 3PP+0WP, and so on) to show what 2018 did to the applications. In 2019, CPW went to a $50/$100 point fee in an attempt to correct the blunder of 2018. While these new fees did reduce the application numbers, they did not reduce them anywhere close to levels seen before 2018. This trend of large numbers of applicants has continued. In 2022, there were 8,961 applicants with 0PP + 0WP. As time goes forward, these large populations of applicants with less than 3 PP will eventually acquire the needed 3 PP to be eligible for the draw. As this happens, awarded tags will go more and more to these bins of applicants as their sheer numbers will dominate the draw process.
For those wondering, every year there are several cow moose tags that go to NR and youth who apply with less than 3PP (3 tags in 2021 and 4 in 2022).
I think a lot of people severely underestimated the impact this flood of applicants was going to have on odds and the sheer amount of tags they are now drawing.
I agree the flood of applicants is killing the odds. 2X can you add one more thing to the chart? Can you do the simple odds tags draw/applicants x 100 for each point level?
I'd be interesting to see what the BP-tag graph looked like if you removed the antlerless tags and had antlered only.
Over 30 years of applying for moose here. One off of max weighted points going into this year’s application because the system doesn’t show any advantage for the weighted points and paying for those points that were meaningless seemed to be kind of silly. Hopefully draw this year before they dump more wolves…. Gonna be impossible to get a tag in a few years after the wolves do to Colorado’s big game what they did in the Greater Yellowstone - 80-90% reduction in the elk and moose populations.
Treeline, good point how long until almost 600 moose licenses is down to 200 or even lower?
Here's something I agree with Orion on. I saw these #s dropping fast and cashed my points in for bull moose tag in SW WY in 2010. It hasn't gotten any better. Wyoming moose tag #s 1995: 1,251 tags; 1996: 1,236 tags; 1997: 1,212 tags; 1998: 1,213 tags; 1999: 1,286 tags; 2000: 1,390 tags; 2001: 1,396 tags; 2002: 1,382 tags; 2003: 1,180 tags; 2004: 917 tags; 2005: 786 tags; 2006: 754 tags; 2007: 759 tags; 2008: 726 tags; 2009: 591 tags; 2010: 558 tags; 2011: 539 tags; 2012: 492 tags; 2013: 493 tags.
It's a coincidence that as wolves hit around the 250 mark, moose tags started dropping. The real cause is climate change, ticks, brain worms, CWD, and sasquatch.
All of which knew not to mess with the moose in Colorado that have been thriving while Wyoming's declined.
What year were wolves delisted in Wyoming and / or allowed to be hunted?
Not that it mattered apparently pertaining to the ongoing decline of the moose population. Dang ticks…
Glunt, you forgot fires and development as also being blamed for the dramatic moose decline in WY. Of course, we have none of those variables, which is why our moose population is growing. (Sarcasm intentional)
Mystical, magical, majestic
