- Moose
- Mountain Goat
- Desert Bighorn
- Rocky Mountain Bighorn
- Bison
- Pronghorn
- Deer
- Elk - See Below
Value of a Point
For non-residents the value of a point is about 0.108% per bonus point. Follow the same formula to determine your average odds for non-residents take the number of bonus you have and add 1, then multiply by 0.108.. so if I had 9 points my average odds would be (9+1)*0.108 = 1.08%.
Applicant Pool Evaluation
Let’s get a feel for the overall applicant pool for elk using the two images below. The first image is shows the resident data, and the second image shows the non-resident data. The orange bars are the number of applicants who submitted an application for a specific hunt unit while the blue bars show the number of applicants who submitted an application to purchase the bonus point, both sets of bars correspond to the y-axis on the left. The gray line indicates the number of random numbers received by applicants who applied for a hunt unit corresponding to the second Y-axis on the right.
The elk applicant pool is by far the largest of all limited entry or once-in-a-lifetime applicant pools with 7700 plus new applicants last year. The applicant pool for elk follows a smooth exponential curve with two blips occurring in the 1 and 2 point pools where growth in those two years seems to be slightly higher than the trend. Notice that the ratio of actual applicants compared to those who just buy the point is high for elk just like it was with the deer and pronghorn applicant pools... if an applicant is applying for any of the limited entry species they are in it to actually draw a tag rather than bank a point. Looking at the number of random numbers issued you can see just that the number of random numbers peaks at 5 points but declines slowly until the 14 point pool, after the 14 point pool the number of random numbers declines more rapidly.
The non-resident pool for elk was dramatically impacted by the change about 10 years ago that allowed non-residents to apply for all limited entry and once-in-a-lifetime species. The number of applicants has increased dramatically since and has remained much higher than before. The most interesting part of this graph is that in all point pools it is about 50-50 split between applicants who apply for a unit versus applicants who buy points. The data that I have presented tells me that non-resident applicants are looking to hunt elk in Utah, other species applied for are inexpensive add-ons to the elk application.
Very quickly here, let's have a quick look at the percentage of applicants that apply for a hunt unit versus the percentage that purchase the point.
The trend for residents is to apply for an actual hunt unit rather than purchase a point, it is pretty consistent throughout with between 70% and 80% of the applicant pool applying for a hunt unit. Only the top point groups show a higher prevalence of point buyers than actual applicants. For those with very high point totals and targeting the top tier units in the state, these point buyers need to be considered as they will eventually apply for a unit and impact those with point totals below them. The non-resident applicant pool the percentage of actual applicants is between 50% and 60% except for at the highest point pool where there is a tendency to buy a point rather than apply for a hunt.
Here is a look at the average number of bonus points over the last 5 years that it took to draw a Bonus Tag. I’ve included the PROJECTED 2020 average bonus points:
The limited entry elk pool is where applicants can really save themselves several years of applying unsuccessfully by choosing archery, muzzleloader, or a later rifle season. I call this "year savings." For residents, multi-season tags are a premium tag and bonus tags are projected to draw with almost 21 points. Early rifle tags are the most popular option for limited entry elk and are projected to draw with an average of just above 17 points, because of the popularity of the early rifle tags I will use that as the benchmark for comparison. Archery tags are projected to draw at about 8 points, so on average you could project to draw an archery tag 9 years before drawing the early rifle tag in a unit. Muzzleloader, middle rifle, and late rifle tags are projected to draw at about 13 points. So you could anticipate drawing any of these tags 4 years before drawing an early rifle tag for the same unit. If you are an archery hunter, your odds of drawing a tag are much higher, and your odds of drawing multiple tags over the course of a couple decades is considerably higher than a rifle hunter applying for an early rifle tag.
For non-residents, although not as dramatic, there is still a "year savings" to be had if you choose to select a more primitive weapon or a later rifle season. Archery projects to save 5 years. Muzzleloader, middle, and late rifle hunts project to save a couple years.
Tag Distribution
Here is a look at how the tags were distributed in 2019... The blue line shows the number of applicants and corresponds to the first Y-axis on the left. The orange bars are the regular tags drawn and the gray bars are the bonus tags issued to the highest point holders and correspond to the second second Y-axis on the right.
Pictures
