This fall, I plan on hunting an OTC unit in Colorado, and I am wondering if GoHunt is worth the purchase. I understand that its an excellent tool for creating a draw strategy. Just curious if it's applicable for picking an OTC unit?
Not really for your purpose.
I use them because I was spending 30-40hrs just determining NM draw odds for all species, combining it with harvest stats and comparing it all to previous years. GoHunt doesn’t do it exactly the way that I would, and unfortunately does not eliminate the ne need for looking at the actual data, particularly harvest stats, that the state puts out. For instance GoHunt doesn’t show you how many people actually answered a survey(there was actually a hunt code with 100% harvest success where only 1 out of 10 people even turned in a report) and I think they were including cow harvests in NM for their listed percentage. Still, it saves an incalculable amount of time looking at draw odds because I can narrow things down in 20 minutes where it would have taken 30hrs in the past, and then I can look at the data from the state for the specific units I’m looking at to make sure there isn’t a big data quality issue. Combine that with the fact that I’m in four states, and I don’t ever want to be without them.
For CO OTC, no it’s not worth it. CO has some exceptional resources for hunt planning. You don’t need draw odds. You can find plenty of info on which units get pressure, where to go depending on the time of year where the most success is etc. right from CO.
I’ve never hunted CO though.
I’m not convinced that TopRut calculates odds properly. Anybody got both and wanna compare some NM draw odds to see if they agree? I can tell you that GoHunt’s are close to perfect. NM is an incredibly complex calculation. UT requires a step that most people miss. If someone publish a number that isn’t very close to GoHunt’s, they’re probably wrong.
If you have both, and check NM, a simple “yes they match” or “no they’re different” is good enough for me.
