Montana vs Arizona??

[bpeay4]

I am just out of highschool and have begun building points out west. I'm on a budget so I can't do all of them but currently have points in Wyoming and Colorado. I am looking to add at least 1 maybe 2 more states this year but not sure what my best option is. I have pretty much ruled out Nevada and Utah because of how long it takes to draw and am thinking Montana or Arizona would be best. I'm mostly aiming to hunt deer and elk and would like to draw at least every 5-8 years if not less. What state should I start buying points for, Montana or Arizona???

 

[utah400elk]

Unless you are a Colorado resident…drop them. I build points in Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. I really feel Nevada and Colorado are a waist of money. I am now 22 years applying for a Colorado unit 61 archery tag. When I started it took 4 points. That is what extreme point creep and actual preference points look like.

I love Arizona but it does cost a lot for points. I skipped Montana when they started the poont game and have not regretted that decision. They have great elk hunting but a jacked up point system IMO.

 

[Kiwi]

FWIW I’d say Arizona if you have budget otherwise Montana especially if you bow hunt.

 

[Big Fin]

I'd put AZ/WY as a tie for the top two elk-centric states when factoring in the cost to apply, cost to hunt, reasonable draw odds, high harvest rates, amount of public land, and value (with value being the intersection of price and quality of opportunity).

 

[LCH]

I'd say Arizona. You can always buy Montana preference points closer to when you can hunt for general tags there.

Also, don't let go of your Colorado points. Tough to argue that any state offers more opportunity to a NR than Colorado does. Just have realistic expectations about point creep, same as just about everywhere else. You'll never catch the high point units, so the better strategy is to cash in on a fun hunt with just a few points and repeat that as often as possible.

 

[Werty]

It get said all the time, don't overlook cow hunts. Cheaper tags, more frequent, great meat, cheaper to learn how to hunt elk and keep building points

 

[MTGomer]

There’s like two bad elk hunts in Arizona. There’s some good ones in Montana but you have to do your home work and will have to work a lot harder.
I’ve seen more bulls in 1 hour in some of arizonas worst units than most Montanans see in a 5 week general season. Keep that in mind.
If you get an AZ tag and you want to fill it you will fill it. No guarantees in Montana.

 

[ImBillT]

Montana seems like an excellent place to try to hunt often, but because it’s so difficult for a non-resident to acquire bonus points for the limited entry hunts that I think it’s best for a NR to shoot for the general tag and leave it at that. For the general tag there is some sort of expiration of preference points that you should probably look into. Being fresh out of HS I don’t know how often or how soon you plan to go elk hunting out of state, so that should play a very big role in whether or not you choose to buy points in Montana.

AZ is more expensive to build points in by a wide margin, but most of the hunts would be considered to be higher quality than a general tag in MT, so for a longer play. I think if a person was going to add one state, and wasn’t trying to hunt as often as possible, then AZ would be the obvious choice over MT.

 

[ImBillT]

There’s like two bad elk hunts in Arizona. There’s some good ones in Montana but you have to do your home work and will have to work a lot harder.
I’ve seen more bulls in 1 hour in some of arizonas worst units than most Montanans see in a 5 week general season. Keep that in mind.
If you get an AZ tag and you want to fill it you will fill it. No guarantees in Montana.

I don’t think anything is a guarantee anywhere. I only saw two bulls in a seven day hunt in AZ. Saw a lot of hunters. Only one claimed to have seen a bull, and they were a spike and a four point. The two I saw, were nice bulls. I saw a few hundred horses. That might be a guarantee. The GW claimed it was a tough tag to fill because the vast majority of the bulls wintered on the reservation. He said the quality of the resident bulls that stayed through the winter was very high, but finding bulls was not easy. I saw fifty times as many elk in a zero point unit in CO in only four days. Just saying nothing is guaranteed, not even filling an elk tag in AZ.

 

[BuzzH]

I don’t think anything is a guarantee anywhere. I only saw two bulls in a seven day hunt in AZ. Saw a lot of hunters. Only one claimed to have seen a bull, and they were a spike and a four point. The two I saw, were nice bulls. I saw a few hundred horses. That might be a guarantee. The GW claimed it was a tough tag to fill because the vast majority of the bulls wintered on the reservation. He said the quality of the resident bulls that stayed through the winter was very high, but finding bulls was not easy. I saw fifty times as many elk in a zero point unit in CO in only four days. Just saying nothing is guaranteed, not even filling an elk tag in AZ.

Sounds like you found one of the two bad hunts MTGomer was talking about.

 

[MTGomer]

Sounds like you found one of the two bad hunts MTGomer was talking about.

And 80% of general MT hunters are thinking that 2 bulls in 7 days sounds pretty good.

 

[RobertD]

My vote is Arizona. I think you should consider it as a long-term goal compared to CO and WY, where you can draw more frequently than AZ. But it gets my vote because if you start now you can 1) gain the loyalty point faster, 2) burn some points in CO and WY between now and when you draw AZ, and 3) build up for a good deer hunt or two in AZ while waiting for a nice elk hunt. (AZ also has Coues deer, so that's another point for them.)

Like I said, it'll be a long-term goal. But you will be glad you pursued it. When you are my age, you'll have 10-12 AZ elk points - if you don't draw before then. That'd be awesome. Good luck!

 

[dirtclod Az.]

All the elk and deer migrated from Az. to Montana.
Nuff said...

 

[ImBillT]

Sounds like you found one of the two bad hunts MTGomer was talking about.

Could well be.

 

[SilverDollars]

Howdy. Can we say New Mexico?

 

[RobertD]

Howdy. Can we say New Mexico?

We definitely can, but he is aiming to build points and NM doesn't do points

 

[MTGomer]

All the elk and deer migrated from Az. to Montana.
Nuff said...

How’s your roadrunners doing?

 

[RoughCountry]

I started years ago putting in for AZ non res elk points for units 1 - 27 - 3a/c and a couple others I knew a little about. Between point creep and AZ changing the draw I now have 18 points and never have drawn a tag that when I started took 8 to 9 points. The way things are going it will take 25 years or a lot of luck to draw one of those early archery tags in AZ. Looking back it would have been better to bup a landowner tag somewhere years ago.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

How’s your roadrunners doing?

Roadrunners are doing great, 2 new ones - even though it's winter.
Well...winter in Az is 50 deg. at night and 70 deg. days.
I will post some pics today when they arrive for breakfast.
Over 15 Roadrunners have been raised here, I'm sure the neighbors
have all the offspring in their yards!

 

[NoWiser]

I started years ago putting in for AZ non res elk points for units 1 - 27 - 3a/c and a couple others I knew a little about. Between point creep and AZ changing the draw I now have 18 points and never have drawn a tag that when I started took 8 to 9 points. The way things are going it will take 25 years or a lot of luck to draw one of those early archery tags in AZ. Looking back it would have been better to bup a landowner tag somewhere years ago.

The AZ tag I was after took 6 to draw when I started building points. I now have 11 points and I'm still at least 7-8 years away from drawing that tag. Maybe more now that everyone has their hunter ed point. I'm not complaining. I knew what I was getting into when I started. I'm just giving an example of what to expect for anyone starting in AZ. Even the lower quality late-rifle hunts have gotten a lot of attention on social media so I wouldn't expect to draw many of them in less than a decade anymore, unless you get lucky.