Montana 2022 Archery elk draw in former 900-20 units

[MTHunter1321]

So now if 100 people got “kicked out” of the draw because of their incompetence, those 100 will have a chance at 35 additional permits (411-20 numbers), so 35% odds if bonus points aren’t included…better odds than the regular draw! Even better odds if that number is less. What a complete joke.

 

[Irishman]

So now if 100 people got “kicked out” of the draw because of their incompetence, those 100 will have a chance at 35 additional permits (411-20 numbers), so 35% odds if bonus points aren’t included…better odds than the regular draw! Even better odds if that number is less. What a complete joke.

Where do you find the information on what the odds were in the original draw?

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Unbelievable (but not really).

Sending Hank an email to state as a permit holder id rather re-draw than see more of his attempts to give bull tags out like candy.

Hank called and left a voicemail and also sent a reply email.

Main theme was this excerpt from his email: “Per ARM which is defensible, I have the ability to issue 10% above quota for third party errors therefor I have opted to issue those through a random drawing therefore I will not be just handing out additional permits. I doesn’t make sense to rerun a drawing for 2-3 %. Understand if we did that you may have not been successful. I look at this from the perspective of what the law allows and how would I like to be treated under the same circumstances.”

 

[The Hedgehog]

Hank called and left a voicemail and also sent a reply email.

Main theme was this excerpt from his email: “Per ARM which is defensible, I have the ability to issue 10% above quota for third party errors therefor I have opted to issue those through a random drawing therefore I will not be just handing out additional permits. I doesn’t make sense to rerun a drawing for 2-3 %. Understand if we did that you may have not been successful. I look at this from the perspective of what the law allows and how would I like to be treated under the same circumstances.”

Hank is a professional meat whistle.

 

[wpbx2]

The issue with all this is that if you ask each commissioner, Hank, the staff and 100 hunters what first choice only meant you are going to get 200 different answers. For the archery tags, the original proposal was unlimited, but first choice only. That would have the effect of giving a tag to people's whose first choice was to hunt the unit, but limit the permits because it wouldn't be a backup for everyone who didn't draw their rifle tag or breaks tag. It also meant they would not be available via the surplus process. The problem with that is that there would be no NR cap. So they put these quota on that basically tripled the permits which is effectively unlimited for residents, but has NR caps. Now the moronic thing is F&G interprets these quota permits as rolling through the surplus process (I emailed them) and the NR cap won't apply and residents are given no preference. So I ask you, with that interpretation, what did first choice only accomplish? The interpretation they are taking that you can't list a 2nd and 3rd choice on your application makes no sense - what would be the purpose of that?

 

[Gerald Martin]

The issue with all this is that if you ask each commissioner, Hank, the staff and 100 hunters what first choice only meant you are going to get 200 different answers. For the archery tags, the original proposal was unlimited, but first choice only. That would have the effect of giving a tag to people's whose first choice was to hunt the unit, but limit the permits because it wouldn't be a backup for everyone who didn't draw their rifle tag or breaks tag. It also meant they would not be available via the surplus process. The problem with that is that there would be no NR cap. So they put these quota on that basically tripled the permits which is effectively unlimited for residents, but has NR caps. Now the moronic thing is F&G interprets these quota permits as rolling through the surplus process (I emailed them) and the NR cap won't apply and residents are given no preference. So I ask you, with that interpretation, what did first choice only accomplish? The interpretation they are taking that you can't list a 2nd and 3rd choice on your application makes no sense - what would be the purpose of that?

If FWP is interpreting these permits as rolling through the surplus process (I believe you) and not applying the 90/10 cap they are in direct violation of the law and undermining the exact reason why we accepted high quota numbers instead of making the permit unlimited.

The whole rationale was to avoid having higher than 10% of NR permit holders.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I heard Hank making the case for “simplification” because FWP fielded over 40,000 calls with questions last year.

Anyone want to bet that this year has even higher numbers of calls with the newly improved, simplified regs?

 

[WanderWoman]

Hank called and left a voicemail and also sent a reply email.

Main theme was this excerpt from his email: “Per ARM which is defensible, I have the ability to issue 10% above quota for third party errors therefor I have opted to issue those through a random drawing therefore I will not be just handing out additional permits. I doesn’t make sense to rerun a drawing for 2-3 %. Understand if we did that you may have not been successful. I look at this from the perspective of what the law allows and how would I like to be treated under the same circumstances.”

Don’t forget they’re also allocating 10% of the quotas for 454 agreements

 

[MTHunter1321]

Where do you find the information on what the odds were in the original draw?

Don’t know what this years odds are but I can make a reasonable guess based on prior years draw odds. They also post odds of last year in this years current regs, although they don’t account for bonus points and R/NR status

 

[sapperJ24]

Don’t know what this years odds are but I can make a reasonable guess based on prior years draw odds. They also post odds of last year in this years current regs, although they don’t account for bonus points and R/NR status

You may be interested in this, the full breakdown by species, points, R/NR. https://myfwp.mt.gov/fwpPub/drawingStatistics

 

[MTHunter1321]

You may be interested in this, the full breakdown by species, points, R/NR. https://myfwp.mt.gov/fwpPub/drawingStatistics

I’m very familiar with those. They won’t have 2022 odds until way later in the year. That’s what I’ve used to roughly estimate my draw odds based on my bonus points for years.

 

[sapperJ24]

I’m very familiar with those. They won’t have 2022 odds until way later in the year. That’s what I’ve used to roughly estimate my draw odds based on my bonus points for years.

Ah, my bad. Misinterpretation.

 

[bigsky2]

The issue with all this is that if you ask each commissioner, Hank, the staff and 100 hunters what first choice only meant you are going to get 200 different answers. For the archery tags, the original proposal was unlimited, but first choice only. That would have the effect of giving a tag to people's whose first choice was to hunt the unit, but limit the permits because it wouldn't be a backup for everyone who didn't draw their rifle tag or breaks tag. It also meant they would not be available via the surplus process. The problem with that is that there would be no NR cap. So they put these quota on that basically tripled the permits which is effectively unlimited for residents, but has NR caps. Now the moronic thing is F&G interprets these quota permits as rolling through the surplus process (I emailed them) and the NR cap won't apply and residents are given no preference. So I ask you, with that interpretation, what did first choice only accomplish? The interpretation they are taking that you can't list a 2nd and 3rd choice on your application makes no sense - what would be the purpose of that?

First choice only didn't accomplish a damn thing. Most people were expecting unlimited archery to get pushed through so they wanted first and only choice for the reasons you stated. With the way everything shook out, we ended up worse off than before in my opinion. It is true, units like 411 that have an absurdly high quota of archery permits will have leftovers. I have spoke to FWP several times about the process. If after the initial drawing there are still permits left over, the 10% NR cap goes away and the remaining permits will go to NR that were unsuccessful in the initial drawing. If there's still permits left after that, residents can purchase them in a surplus sale. That unit has very little public land that holds elk during the season. Now you will have a severely crowded unit, and under the new rules those hunters will be forced to stay and hunt that unit. The 900 bundle wasn't perfect, and being able to hunt general units even when you had a limited permit might not have made sense to everyone, but at least when it was crowded hunters could move around and try to avoid pressure.

 

[brockel]

Everyone I’ve talked to that put in for the archery permit drew it. This year is also the most rifle permits I’ve heard of from people I know too.

 

[GoGriz]

This whole thing seems like one big boondoggle - it is hard to not feel like it is their way of taking care of the NRs with money, while trying to blame it on technology and internal errors. I hope that some clarification is brought to this issue ASAP, even if it goes to the Courts, to bring some transparency back to what feels more and more like people in charge who shouldn’t be serving a portion of the population who should have the smallest say in things (this all from a NR who loves Montana but realizes in a guest in other people’s state).

 

[Carnage2011]

It would be nice to see Montana go to a third party draw similar to Nevada or Utah. Their applications are easier and their draw is very straight forward.

Also, FWP wouldn’t look incompetent if someone else was responsible for the draws.

 

[runningmt]

It would be nice to see Montana go to a third party draw similar to Nevada or Utah. Their applications are easier and their draw is very straight forward.

Also, FWP wouldn’t look incompetent if someone else was responsible for the draws.

FWP is afraid they’d look stupid if they consulted with any other game agencies, there’s 49 others that seem to be able to function pretty well, and at least 6 Western state agencies that do an incredible job of managing game and draws.

Of course this would require ignoring the billionaire landowners requests for free permits, which is Hank’s first priority.

Don’t assume this wasn’t on purpose, or a red herring.

 

[wpbx2]

If FWP is interpreting these permits as rolling through the surplus process (I believe you) and not applying the 90/10 cap they are in direct violation of the law and undermining the exact reason why we accepted high quota numbers instead of making the permit unlimited.

The whole rationale was to avoid having higher than 10% of NR permit holders.I th

I thought the same thing, but looked the actual law up. The way it is worded, the 10% cap only applies to limited permits where the number of applicants exceeds the quota. Residents get no preference and the cap does not apply!

 

[Gerald Martin]

I thought the same thing, but looked the actual law up. The way it is worded, the 10% cap only applies to limited permits where the number of applicants exceeds the quota. Residents get no preference and the cap does not apply!

Sneaky so and so’s.

There was widespread opposition to making these units unlimited because that would create the potential for outfitted NR to draw whatever percentage of permits they desired.

So the compromise of high quota numbers was presented and approved with the clear expectation that the 90/10 restriction would apply. Now they change the language to make it a de facto unlimited permit.

 

[bigsky2]

Sneaky so and so’s.

There was widespread opposition to making these units unlimited because that would create the potential for outfitted NR to draw whatever percentage of permits they desired.

So the compromise of high quota numbers was presented and approved with the clear expectation that the 90/10 restriction would apply. Now they change the language to make it a de facto unlimited permit.

I don’t think they changed the language, I have a document that shows the process for the draw and it looks pretty old. I just think we haven’t seen high enough permit numbers for this situation to come into play in the past.