Truth behind MT Draw Odds

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Dec 30, 2014
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with the amount of opportunity that's out there, if a kid isn't into hunting without drawing a good unit, they're probably not going to be that into anyways, and there are few, if any, 12 year olds capable of appreciating it. I've seen this with the early youth muzzleloader season in Iowa where a 6 year old goes out and pounds a 150" whitetail off an ag field dad has scouted all summer. I think we're getting to the point on some of these youth hunts where it's less about youth participation and more about dad living vicariously through their kid (much like youth team sports.)

Exactly.

I don't get why people complain about the 380 odds. It's a desirable tag so demand far outweighs supply. If people want better odds they'll need to start giving something up in return. As it sits right now, hunters (especially residents with $2 bonus points) give up nothing for a chance at an elkhorns tag. The only way i can think of making odds better is to make the tag less desirable or make people give up something for the chance, whether that be money or other hunting opportunity that is available when you fail to draw the elkhorns.

Montana residents would have a lot better odds if people actually had to invest in the game they are applying for. If the guy/wife/sister/etc who doesn't even care about hunting had to pay more than the price of a coffee to apply for LE elk permits and Moose/Goat/Sheep tags maybe the folks who actually care about them would have a better chance.
 
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MThuntr

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Apr 10, 2015
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Wish MT would just go to a straight draw.
The points holders that are at or near max points would lose their minds...it would be hilarious. I burned my points last year on a mediocre unit and killed a raghorn after failing to shoot a decent bull. I'm not sad about it but now that I have zero points I'd watch the world burn if they zeroed everyone out and went to a true lottery. 😈

Of course that's all hypothetical internet talk...reality is odds most "trophy" units will continue to get worse for all applicants unless there was a huge collapse in applicant numbers.
 

Scoot

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Nov 13, 2012
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That is not what the data shows.
It may actually be what the data shows, but not what your incorrectly applied analyses showed. If I had more time I could figure out what the odds of a NR vs R would be, but I don't because there's no doubt it's complicated! Also, you'd need to know the number of bonus points people had to do it correctly. My guess is the average R has a lot more points than the average NR (but that's totally a guess and definitely could be wrong). The "10%" vs. "up to 10%" piece is important and has to be factored in, just like the bonus points do too.
 
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BuckSmasher

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As most know MT has a bonus point system that squares the points each individual holds. If you dig deep enough you can find the excel file on the FWP website with the detailed data on how many points each individual held. So, for an example I pulled the data for hunting unit 380-20 which has a total of 135 bull tags. First, you need to remove 15% of the tags for the landowners so now we have 115 tags for the general public. (As a side note unsuccessful landowners are entered back into the drawing a second time). Next we do the math for the squared bonus points and in 2020 there was a total of 417,515 resident applications. This means that the resident draw odds for a single application, no points, is 0.0275%. If you have say 15 points your chance of drawing this permit would be 0.0275% run 15 times over.

As for nonresidents you only have access to 10% of the tags or in this case 14 tags. And the squared math shows 11,514 applications. Which means with no bonus points your odds are 0.1216%.

So the moral of the story is squaring bonus points means there are a lot of applications and if you don't have points your chances are dismal....but there is a chance. Oh and we can forget about youth drawing these tags....ever.


417k Residents applied for 380? Dang... Thats a lot of apps for ~ 100 tags
 

Riplip

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417k Residents applied for 380? Dang... Thats a lot of apps for ~ 100 tags

A little misleading as there weren't actually 417k unique resident applications, looks as if the OP was using the BP totals to arrive at this number.

Actual applications:

380-20
10,000 total resident applications (8,424 1st choice) 112 tags in 2020 (135 Quota less LO tags)
827 total NR applications (653 1st choice) - 2 NR tags in 2020
 

MT257

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Sep 25, 2016
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I have to disagree. I am not saying that the 12 year old needs to draw the tag. I am saying my child stands almost no chance at EVER drawing a tag until every other applicant stops applying (draws, stops applying, dies, etc.).

Bonus point system do not work unless the top tier is drawn and replaced close to every year. It is just simple math.
A kid stands just as much chance as the next guy. Heck it only takes one ticket in the raffle to win. I think by allowing them to buy points before they can hunt is just basically solidifying child entitlement. Get them started. If they get into the sport then buy them points. If they aren’t interested at least parents won’t have the big let down.
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2016
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Great Falls MT
I'm at 15 points for elk. I'll be at 16 here in a few weeks hahaha! As a resident that's 33 years old... I missed a few years of applying in my 20's.

Not sure the points even do anything at this point lol.

But honestly the OTC opportunities for archery elk are so good it's not a huge deal. Then most of the "better" areas for archery got rolled up into the 900 tag. So there's no real need for a glory tag for archery elk. But my buddy smoked a giant in the Elk Horns last year with his bow... And a few friends of mine have rifled some bulls in there. So it is possible to draw that tag. But I'm really loving my normal go to otc spot!

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cgasner1

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Mar 12, 2015
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The beauty of the Montana draw is that any could potentially draw at any time or not draw just ask the resident that applied for a 900 elk tag last year with 6 points and didn’t draw he had to of had a 99% change at drawing but didn’t


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