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.
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