CO Leftovers Posted!

[JohnCushman]

I almost grabbed a PLO antelope buck tag as a B tag, but the herd here isn't doing well enough in the drought to take more bucks, along with one in archery on the A tag in MY opinion. That is my personal belief and feeling on my own little bit of conservation for the area, but I'm sure not a lot of other guys out there will see it that way.

 

[BrokenArrow]

OK. That hurt more than I thought it would. I'm guessing that being at a retail license location is probably still the better way to go. Zero on the Elk or Deer for me and they weren't super desirable tags.
I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with "The Wheel of Death", but I got that thing on my screen so many times today, I almost got dizzy. Lots of Blank screens with no info as well. That was wild.
I basically ended up with a Fall turkey and plains muzzy lope tag for the same area. Might even get a B whitetail tag too. Turned out great for me.
But, I will say that the list went quick today and this problem will continue no matter what we do. Either ramp up the system and then all the tags go in 2 minutes or they keep it "slow" and they go in 2 hours. There is just a crapload of demand nowadays. Also, the new app fee has brought some new recruits to the game. Just saying it feels a lot busier than before. Are we now and moving forward just acting out a lottery-type free for all? I guess that's how the west was won.
Any suggestions based on your experience today? What could be different?

 

[BrokenArrow]

I almost grabbed a PLO antelope buck tag as a B tag, but the herd here isn't doing well enough in the drought to take more bucks, along with one in archery on the A tag in MY opinion. That is my personal belief and feeling on my own little bit of conservation for the area, but I'm sure not a lot of other guys out there will see it that way.

Is it that bad out there? The one muzzy tag I got is GMU's north and south of Lamar. If it is rough, I can donate to the cause and not make the trip. My lady might really love that. I would look like a saint! But the main thing is that I want to be able to hunt in 10 years by not decimating the herds now. I'm with you Cush

 

[JohnCushman]

The whole SE corner has been baking this year. We are just now starting to get some rain the past couple of weeks.

 

[BrokenArrow]

The whole SE corner has been baking this year. We are just now starting to get some rain the past couple of weeks.

Copy that. If it's a bad idea, no sense in making it worse. Do you mind if I ask later in September?

 

[LopeHunter]

I did not participate. Are all the tags available on that list or are some going to be offered by calling the next in line (over X points)?

As for the cluster, WY got smart and went to a draw for the leftovers. You list your choices and take your chances but no frozen screens, no blank screens, no wheels of death, no busy signals, etc.

 

[JohnCushman]

Copy that. If it's a bad idea, no sense in making it worse. Do you mind if I ask later in September?

Sure, but I'll be in Idaho for CO's antelope muzzleloader season.

 

[vanish]

I did not participate. Are all the tags available on that list or are some going to be offered by calling the next in line (over X points)?

As for the cluster, WY got smart and went to a draw for the leftovers. You list your choices and take your chances but no frozen screens, no blank screens, no wheels of death, no busy signals, etc.

1.) Tags requiring 5+ points call the top 5 next in line. After that, they go on this list.
2.) CO has that too. These are the "leftover leftovers" and the tags that got "reissued" due to missed payment or similar.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I did not participate. Are all the tags available on that list or are some going to be offered by calling the next in line (over X points)?

As for the cluster, WY got smart and went to a draw for the leftovers. You list your choices and take your chances but no frozen screens, no blank screens, no wheels of death, no busy signals, etc.

Agreed, I got a leftover WY tag this year and it was a much better experience. The CO system is just a disaster, the only good thing about (for me personally) it is that it is such a cluster some people avoid it/ some don't have the ability to go in to an office or spend 45min screwing around on their computer at work so maybe there is less competition.

I would be happy to see this system go...but I'm sure it says the state money...

 

[JohnCushman]

I feel bad for the guys that have been camping out at locations since yesterday, only to have the system crash and they lose out.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I feel bad for the guys that have been camping out at locations since yesterday, only to have the system crash and they lose out.

Also seems like unless you are the first person in line the internet is the way to go... took me 15 min to check out but I can't imagine that a person who was 2nd or 3rd in line somewhere would have beaten me to that tag.

 

[Kiwi]

I decided not to try for a leftover, and will stick to OTC tags if I need any more CO tags this year. I really didn’t like the idea of sitting in front of my computer at 3am (NZ time) and watching it crash.

I do have question. Do people apply for a difficult to draw tag so they get to participate in the leftover draw?

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I decided not to try for a leftover, and will stick to OTC tags if I need any more CO tags this year. I really didn’t like the idea of sitting in front of my computer at 3am (NZ time) and watching it crash.

I do have question. Do people apply for a difficult to draw tag so they get to participate in the leftover draw?

I know people who just get preference points in the reg draw, and then either get a leftover tag or go OTC.

 

[Zach]

You cannot care all you want. What I didn’t understand was the criticism that “their” species wouldn’t be first.

For the record, no dog in the fight. Just providing a relatively easy way to reduce at least some traffic.

Their, as in my,me.

The system could be 100% streamline, but someone is gonna complain because it didn't meet "my" needs.

Maybe saying "lack of caring" was the incorrect phrase, but it goes to my point that there are far more important things in life, IMHO, that I deem worthy of raising my stress level over.

 

[Zach]

I decided not to try for a leftover, and will stick to OTC tags if I need any more CO tags this year. I really didn’t like the idea of sitting in front of my computer at 3am (NZ time) and watching it crash.

I do have question. Do people apply for a difficult to draw tag so they get to participate in the leftover draw?

Yes, win-win. If you get the hard to draw tag great. If not, you can still get a tag.

 

[cedahm]

I wonder what is the proposal is by those upset to fix for the crash?

I wouldn't say I'm upset by any means, but I would look at the below off the top of my head:

From an IT perspective:

• Slim down the user dialog to checkout your cart: I think wilm is spot-on - there are 3-4 different user action pages/server calls that go serially (Fulfillment method, Fulfillment service level, T&C, Credit Card info). That took the lion's share of the time.
  
  My Credit Card info is already saved in my CPW account, and I have to imagine you could accept T&C's upon creating the account (or - through a different push atr logon as many, many websites have recently done to refresh their T&C's). You could also have a default shipping method in your profile and a simple check box to choose shipping service level that is sent in the same transaction as the rest of the info in your cart. The whole cart checkout should be 1 selection/call which would cut down the server communication substantially. This is where I, and everyone I've talked to, got stuck.
  
  
  
• Add more server horsepower (I assume they are using hosted servers and ramping up capacity during these events). They can add more capacity.
  
  
  
• More drastically would be a random 'virtual bracelet' where people in virtual line are assigned random numbers and then are allowed to transact in order. This model is used for some concert tickets. This would require substantial IT effort. At least for concerts, it has the added plus of people that get a high number logging off thereby reducing traffic overall.
  

From a process perspective:

• 1 Species at a time isn't a horrible idea, but I don't know how much it would help. There would be whining, but there's plenty of whining already and that won't change. Probably couldn't hurt and may have some improvements.
  
  
• Potentially hold another 1 or 2 small-scale 'leftover draws' in August (say, the 1st and 15th) where you put in for the tags you want and it runs and awards tags like the 1st leftover draw does. Charge a few bucks for it. Probably not sustainable from a cost or effort perspective, but I think this is the fairest method.
  
  
• I personally would not be averse to Online-Only sales of these IF they addressed the IT issues around capacity and stability.
  
  Leftover Day for the non-CPW license vendors can't be a net positive for them (probably some minor amount of sales increases, but I would guess it's marginal and doesn't offset the labor and other costs that go into dealing with people camped out).
  
  It would most definitely be a net positive for the CPW locations who overstaff substantially for this day. I know this would cause a giant ruckus, but if the tech was solid, this would be ideal.
  
  

All told - for me it was better than last year. I was able to get most of the way through the process, it just took too long and I missed out. Last year it just crashed and no one could do anything. So that's a step forward (albeit the same result for me).

 

[pwrwgn57]

Just need to make friends with people that work at the retail locations, then they'll bring you in before the store opens so you can get in line first.

 

[madtom]

Their, as in my,me.

The system could be 100% streamline, but someone is gonna complain because it didn't meet "my" needs.

Maybe saying "lack of caring" was the incorrect phrase, but it goes to my point that there are far more important things in life, IMHO, that I deem worthy of raising my stress level over.

Sure, people will always complain about anything. That’s a fact, but you can’t reasonably argue that a website crashing within minutes isn’t at least horrible customer service. I don’t know the answer, but change is needed.

 

[Kiwi]

Thanks Zach, will try that next year. Cheers.

 

[Steelhead]

Any chance they’ll ever go to a straight lottery second draw? Maybe one where only unsuccessful applicants can apply?
Sounds like yesterday was a hoot...just wish I coulda got in on it!!