Value of a Point - Part 3: Season Choice Matters!

In part two I addressed how your weapon selection can affect the value of your bonus point, with archery providing you the highest value. For both residents and non-residents in virtually all cases the any weapon (rifle) hunts provided the lowest value however especially in the Utah LE elk drawing there are several options that can increase the value of a bonus point even within the rifle hunt options. I will focus the rifle elk because the other limited entry and once-in-a-lifetime hunts don’t have early, middle, late, and multi-season options.

The early rifle season is the most popular option in the state of Utah, the opportunity to hunt big bull elk with your favorite centerfire rifle during the elk rut is often the experience craved by big game hunters. It’s a marvelous opportunity, I helped my grandfather in 2014 on an early any weapon bull elk tag and we had a great time. However, it took many years of unsuccessful applications and a pretty handsome pile of bonus points to draw the tag. I’m not certain whether he drew a guaranteed tag or a random tag because the year that he applied and drew about half of his point group drew the guaranteed tag as highest point holders and another handful of the point pool drew random tags… either way, he had a tag in his pocket and we went hunting.

The middle rifle season is a new addition as of the last couple years. This season coincides with the general rifle hunt and in my opinion is a great option for a large family camp with numerous tags in camp since spike tags can be had over the counter. The number of units where these hunts are available are limited so we’ll continue to learn about these middle season hunts over the next couple years.

The late season is a great option and generally occurs the middle part of November. Virtually all units that have an early rifle hunt also have a late rifle hunt. There is also a multi-season premium option that affords the tag holder to hunt during any open season date with the weapon associated with that season date.

So if you’d prefer to hunt with your rifle let’s look at how choosing between the early, middle, late, and multi-season options impacts the value of your bonus point.

Weapon Type	Utah Resident	Utah Non-Resident
Early Any Weapon	0.525%	0.413%
Middle Any Weapon	1.702%	1.496%
Late Any Weapon	1.666%	1.170%
Multi-Season	0.240%	0.230%

In terms of the early, middle, and late seasons… the middle and late season provide roughly the same value, which happens to be about 3x that of the early rifle hunt for both residents and non-residents.

For most applicants the real key in this choice is the opportunity to chase bulls during the rut with the early any weapon hunt. If that’s the experience you desire, the key in my opinion is having realistic expectations in terms of when you will draw the tag. For many of these hunts be prepared for potentially a multi-decade period of unsuccessful applications prior to drawing the tag. In fact, on my spreadsheets I have a pair of columns titled “Years to Draw” that indicate the number of years it will take for you to reach the highest bonus point pool based upon the previous year application pool… in the most popular units this can be a disheartening thing to see.

Multi-season hunts are a unique situation because of the few number of tags offered so it’s understandable that the value of a point for these types of hunts is really, really low.

If you are looking to maximize the value of your bonus point and would prefer to hunt with the centerfire rifle I would definitely consider the middle or late season options… especially as we learn more about and gain more experience with the new middle season hunts. I know I will be keeping a close eye on how the drawing odds play out with these middle season hunts.

Value of a Point - Part 2: Weapon Choice Matters!

So what are the factors or variables within the “micro” environment that have the greatest impact on the value of the bonus point?
The limited entry elk application pool has the most factors/variables so we’ll spend most of our time discussing the concept of “value of a point” related to the Utah LE elk drawing. I’ll also do my best to provide information for both the resident and non-resident. You have a number of different weapon types to choose from (e.g. archery, any weapon, and muzzleloader)… that’s the easy one to identify first. Secondarily, you also have multiple choices within the any weapon hunts with early, middle, late, multi-season options and CWMU options for Utah residents.

In this second post let’s discuss how the value of a point is different between the different legal weapon types… archery, any weapon, and muzzleloader. Within the any weapon option there are multiple seasons… but I want to save that for the third post so I’m going to consider all the any weapon season (early, middle, and late) in the any weapon category for right now and I’m also going to exclude the multi-season and CWMU options in this discussion.

This table shows the average value of a point (the percentage by which each point increases your chances of drawing one of the random draw tags) for the three primary legal weapon types in Utah for LE elk:

Weapon Type	Utah Resident	Utah Non-Resident
Archery	3.746%	2.800%
Any Weapon	1.109%	0.800%
Muzzleloader	1.745%	2.600%

For both residents and non-residents choosing to apply for an archery tag provides you with the highest value of your bonus points… short and simple, archery tags are easier to draw than any weapon and muzzleloader tag. In fact, as a Utah resident, if I were to apply for an any weapon tag it would take 3.4 bonus points to achieve the same value as one bonus point if I were to apply for an archery tag. It is similar for non-residents, it would take 3.5 bonus points in any weapon to achieve the same value as one bonus point in archery.

Interestingly to me, the muzzleloader option for non-residents provides virtually equal value as the archery option. If I were a non-resident and looking to maximize the value of my points but uncomfortable with archery equipment, I would be seriously looking at the LE elk muzzleloader option instead of any weapon.

On the individual species pages I also mention a concept that I call “Year Savings”… the way Utah’s LE and OIAL drawings are set up one-half of the tags are guaranteed to the applicants with the highest number of points for that particular unit. For Utah residents, on average an archery tag can be guaranteed at 6.6 points, an early rifle tag at 15.8 points, and a muzzleloader tag at 11.9 points. The trends typically hold quite well that an archery tag can be guaranteed ~9 years sooner than a rifle tag and ~5 years sooner than a muzzleloader tag. Let’s look at a specific example in a middle of the pack type unit… say the Central Mountains, Manti unit. For 2018 I am projecting 4.6 points for the archery, 15.0 points for early rifle, 10.7 points for muzzleloader, and 12.0 points for the late rifle. Just looking at these numbers at face value one could realistically draw the archery tag, endure the 5 year wait period, and draw a second archery tag prior to drawing the early any weapon tag once. This has definitely changed my view on the current drawing environment. My current plan right now is to draw a muzzleloader tag, however when I’m able to apply for elk again I’m definitely considering applying for archery so that I won’t have to wait as long between tags. And notice the difference between the early and late season rifle hunts… we’ll discuss the different options available for the hunter who prefers his rifle in the next part.

On many of the forums that I visit there seems to be an almost overwhelming movement to “burn points” and have more opportunities to hunt rather than to wait year after year for that one highly coveted premium unit hunt… I tend to share that opinion and looking at variables like weapon type helps me see that if I choose to hunt with archery or a muzzleloader I can theoretically have an increased chance at drawing a tag and therefore have more opportunities to be in the field with a LE elk tag.

Value of a Point

I have an entire page on this blog dedicated to what I call “Value of a Point.” Many times throughout the years as I have frequented a random handful of hunting forums I have come across questions asking what bonus points are worth, how much they increase odds of drawing, or something similar. Questions like that led me to see if the actual value of a bonus point could be quantified… and without too much trouble I found that it could. I also found that bonus points could be assigned two different values based upon a “macro” or “micro” definition. Macro means considering the value of the bonus point relative to the entirety of the applicant pool, and micro means considering the value of the bonus point relative to the individual hunt unit. I have found that the easiest way to represent this value is to express it as a percentage, so the value is that each point increases your chances of drawing by “X” percent.
For example, I’m sitting on a pile of elk points… the macro value of my bonus points considers the entire applicant pool for elk while the micro value considers the smaller applicant pool in the unit that I’m applying for. Out of the 49,762 resident applicants in the 2017 Utah drawing, each point I have increased my chances of drawing an elk tag by 0.432%. Now let’s suppose that for 2017 I applied for the San Juan early any weapon hunt. With 1923 applicants for only 20 tags, and taking the number of bonus that the other applicants for that same hunt have, the micro value of my bonus points ends up being 0.055%. Whoa… wait a minute… the value of my bonus points was reduced from a macro value of 0.432% to a micro value of 0.055% just based upon the unit that I selected?!? That is absolutely correct! Consider instead that I applied for the Paunsaugunt early any weapon tag… a tag with only a fraction of the demand compared to the San Juan early rifle tag. The macro value remains the same at 0.432%, but the micro value of my bonus points increases to 1.592%. Nothing changed in my bonus points… but how I choose to utilize them in the application cycle (i.e. the unit that I select) dramatically changes their value.
Since the “macro” value is static and will not change, over the next couple posts let’s take a look at some of the “micro” factors that affect the value of bonus points.