Honest WY discussion?

[mtlion]

OK guys. I'm new to the WY NR point game. I do have a resident buddy who is very familiar with antelope, and otc whitetail deer, and somewhat familair with elk and moose hunting. When I asked him he really had zero knowledge about any special deer areas or sheep hunting.

So...Antelope I have covered.

He suggests I build points for a special elk tag that it looks like takes 10 + years for a NR to draw, which I guess I'm cool with. I hunt elk in MT every year and If it took that long to draw but I could get a quality hunt than I'd invest in it.

Moose he has suggested 2 units family and friends have taken bulls in, once again 13+ years to draw but I'm willing...

So does anyone have insight on the sheep game? Is it worth it for a NR to start buying points today or am I throwing $$ down the drain? I guess what I'm asking is if there is a snowballs chance I'd ever draw a NR WY sheep tag in my life (I'm 35 now) if I jumped in the point game today?

As far as deer goes, my buddy hunts otc whitetails and he takes a 120-130 buck every year but If I was going to go for it I'd like to look for a trophy mule deer area, any advice? Do I need to start buying deer points to get in these areas? From what I see even for the hardest to draw areas it only take 5-6 NR points? Is this true?

Anyway I hope some guys who understand what's going on with the WY point game chime in. I literally spent an 8 hour day researching WY to get where I am now! :hump:

 

[npaden]

I'm not sure on sheep or goats, I'm 43 and decided against working on building points in Wyoming last year. Might have been a mistake.

From my thinking the Moose tag is where you are going to be wasting your $. The moose population is hurting in most of Wyoming and even if they get a wolf hunt going it is going to take a LONG time to recover if it ever does. I think starting out now on Moose is a lost cause in Wyoming.

 

[mtlion]

I'm not sure on sheep or goats, I'm 43 and decided against working on building points in Wyoming last year. Might have been a mistake.

From my thinking the Moose tag is where you are going to be wasting your $. The moose population is hurting in most of Wyoming and even if they get a wolf hunt going it is going to take a LONG time to recover if it ever does. I think starting out now on Moose is a lost cause in Wyoming.

Good point, hadn't considered that. Anyone else have any input on the WY moose scene?

 

[utah400elk]

Wyoming

I have read before that if your odds are below 2% than it is not worth the money. Not sure where I read that or if that idea actually holds water? What I can tell you is that I have been building sheep point in multiple states for many years. I don’t know if the odds in Wyoming would be worth it. I would suggest Arizona before Wyoming. I have been toying with the idea of Idaho for sheep. I think the odds are better and you actually have a chance. The points in Wyoming are a sucker bet IMO.

For elk there are better states with much better odds. For moose, again Idaho might be a better choice. The points in Wyoming are expensive and the odds are not that good..

 

[mtlion]

There are one or two WY residents that I would love to have chime in on this topic...

 

[Zim]

Extremely easy answer!

I've been applying there for 16 years and know the ropes. You are OK building points for WY deer, elk & pronghorn. And that is it.

Totally forget about sheep and moose unless they change the current setup. You will never draw in your lifetime. Just do the math. Check how many are in line ahead of you, and how many tags are available per year. I'm not going to bother looking it up again, but there was a good thread going on MM last year this time. You can search the archives. Not even worth it. And I did draw a moose tag last year in unit 20. To tell you how bad the sheep chances were, I dumped my 7 points when they started charging $100/point. But even then no way to draw in my lifetime. You can pray to get a tag in the random draw but your points are worthless and you are looking at $100/year + expenses for a <1% chance. No brainer.

My advice if you want to blow $75 or $100/year is throw it at Idaho every other year for a moose or sheep tag there. Waaaaaaaaaaay better odds for the same money.

Also, as far as moose goes you can just go to Canada with no wait and hunt this year for way less than what you'd invest to NOT hunt in Wyoming for 30 years. By the way my moose hunt totally sucked last year. Worst hunt of my lifetime. Critter numbers crashed. Wolves howling every night. No joke.

 

[mtlion]

That was what I suspected when I was looking over the numbers. I wish WY had bonus points like MT and AZ, rather than preference points. I bet they would get more apps and therefore more $$$ if folks thought there was even the slimmest chance of drawing. Hell they could still sell bp's for $100 and folks would be lining up.

 

[----]

I got in on Wyoming a few years ago, and only went with deer/elk/antelope. Everything I've found made it hard to justify paying the steep point prices for sheep and moose.

 

[Zim]

I bet they would get more apps and therefore more $$$ if folks thought there was even the slimmest chance of drawing. Hell they could still sell bp's for $100 and folks would be lining up.

Actually Wyoming F&G recognized that fact and was floating around proposals to switch from 25%/75% to a 50%/50% split last few years in an effort to keep newbie dollars flowing in. That is why I was hell bent to cash in my points last year! Don't care any more now. Will go to Canada if I ever feel the urge to moose hunt again. WY is in my rear view mirror.

 

[Flatrock]

I'm not sure how well this will work to copy and paste 2 charts I made but here it is:

Sheep point totals: Number of points going into year:

Points 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
1 2,587 - 1,257 1,117 967 968 1,150
2 1,629 - 797 840 715 657 691
3 1,475 - 680 644 662 600 538
4 1,327 - 681 602 539 549 520
5 1,312 - 750 613 494 489 494
6 1,258 - 775 667 549 447 422
7 226 - 769 673 617 496 418
8 196 - 706 705 575 563 480
9 225 - 196 604 638 545 527
10 330 - 176 184 549 579 526
11 191 - 198 177 176 494 509
12 - 267 180 173 181 473
13 - 93 223 165 155 168
14 - 55 181 154 146
15 - 45 137 122
16 - 32 110
17 - 27


And here's moose:

Points 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
1 3,125 - 1,339 1,278 1,176 1,131 1,233
2 2,093 - 926 916 866 782 740
3 1,917 - 921 753 729 736 694
4 1,687 - 1,041 837 670 620 611
5 1,610 - 1,087 920 731 619 593
6 1,433 - 1,161 1,009 885 709 571
7 152 - 1,084 1,061 954 841 668
8 92 - 833 924 955 887 806
9 59 - 111 721 838 862 840
10 64 - 63 93 632 788 794
11 20 - 47 60 87 545 723
12 - 40 42 58 69 478
13 - 9 28 39 55 67
14 - 6 22 31 46
15 - 6 17 22
16 - 6 15
17 - 7

Honestly, I think it is a tough call for you but I would lean towards buying points if $$$ isn't really tight. If you were 45, I'd say no way. I am 28 and started on sheep 2 years ago and moose last year. Honestly I think that I'll draw at some point for both. Even at 35, I wouldn't think that there are thousands of guys younger than you that have started buying points and are ahead of you.

It depends too on whether you honestly think that you want/can go sheep or moose hunting when you are around 60-70 years old... Looking at these charts though, LOTS of people are dropping out each year. Even so, it might take 30 years to draw but it could happen. Just look at the people with 3 points going into the 2008 draw for moose. There were 921 in 2008. Now in 2012, those people are in the 7 point pool and there are 668 left. In 4 years, 253 people have dropped out, just over 60 a year.(Maybe some of the people missed a year or two and are now in the 5 or 6 point pool, I don't know. I'm also not sure how the max point category for moose increased by 1 in 2012...) The numbers are somewhat similar for sheep.

I know Zim is very adament about not buying points and I respect his opinion but for younger people, it SHOULD work out in the end. It is hard to say what the moose population will do and maybe Zim is right and it will continue to go down. If so, that sucks for all of us. And it is possible that Wyoming will change its system for allocating tags. Who knows. Only hindsight in 20 years will reveal what the best decision would have been to make now. If money is the big issue though and you had to choose between Idaho and Wyoming, then I would agree with him and apply in Idaho. Yea it is $150 down the drain every year just for the opportunity to apply but if you pick one of the easier draw units for moose, odds are good that you will draw. Anyways, that's just my opinion. I could sure be wrong!!!!!!!!!

Here are a few of the links that show preference point data.

http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/TotalPreferencePoints05.pdf
http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/TotalPreferencePointsMS2007.pdf
http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/TotalPreferencePointsMS2008.pdf
http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/TotalPreferencePointsMS2010.pdf
http://gf.state.wy.us/web2011/Departments/Hunting/pdfs/TOTAL_PREF_POINTS_MS_110000852.pdf

 

[Flatrock]

Well, my charts that I made in Microsoft Word didn't copy and paste very well at all so that is kind of worthless and I'm not sure how to make it work better. Anyways, you can look at those link's and see how many guys are dropping out. Hope that helps.

 

[Oak]

I bet they would get more apps and therefore more $$$ if folks thought there was even the slimmest chance of drawing.

There is a slim chance of drawing, as long as you apply for a unit with random tags. Odd for sheep tags are terrible in just about every state. WY is tougher, because you are forced to fork over $100 each year. I thought it was probably a waste of time when I started buying sheep and moose points 9 years ago. I'm glad I stuck with it. There are moose units I can draw this year if I want, 100% odds. Things are not quite as rosy for sheep, as the median year I can expect to draw is 2031. But I could always get lucky in the random draw, and I hope to still be able to hunt sheep when I'm 60.

I'm not sure it is worth it to just buy points for sheep, but if you don't apply, you are guaranteed not to draw.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Personally, I can't see spending a fortune on PPs for some of those animals in different states with the hopes of drawing 20 or 30 years down the pike. Nothing says the prices are going to stay the same and a lot of guys got caught in that when Wyoming jumped it's price from single digits to three figures. Why not just take that PP money and put it away in a kitty and add to it as much as possible? I would think you would have enough together in half the time you could draw a tag to just go out of the country on a good guided hunt with great chances of taking an animal. I think even buying more than a few PPs for deer and antelope in Wyoming is getting to be a waste when there are good numbers of antelope all over without needing a bunch of PPs. As far as deer goes, you probably have as much chance any more of shooting a decent buck in many areas without needing many points compared to the areas that were real good and have crashed due to weather and overhunting.

 

[Oak]

It all depends on the value YOU put on an experience. Obviously a lot of guys will say "it's not worth" it, and they are absolutely right, for themselves. I say, "I can apply for 30 years, at $100 a year, and then pay $3,000 for the tag (inflation), and I get to hunt bighorn sheep?! Sign me up!" Try going on a guided sheep hunt right now for $6,000. There are a lot of other things I can hunt in the meantime. When I apply for 30+ tags in multiple states each year, I'm not hoping I draw everything this year. I'm planning for the next 20 years, and I'm hoping that down the road I'll be going on several great adventures. I don't want to be sitting here when I'm 55 and saying, "I wish I would have started applying for sheep when I was 25."

For those reasons, the question "is it worth it" can't be answered by anyone but yourself.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

At 64 years of age, that is the main reason I stated what I did. The big thing is even if you eventually can draw one of those primo tags, are you going to be in decent enough shape to do it justice when you do finally draw. The shape that most Americans are in nowadays at even a young age may make that a negative answer. I'm well above average in health and am in very good shape for my age and could afford to go on an outfitted hunt for sheep or a billy, but even at that I just can't seem to convince myself that I could physically do it.

 

[mtlion]

Well, my charts that I made in Microsoft Word didn't copy and paste very well at all so that is kind of worthless and I'm not sure how to make it work better. Anyways, you can look at those link's and see how many guys are dropping out. Hope that helps.

Here are vdo84's charts as a .pdf file. Definitely some food for thought...