Nevada non-resident 2021

Cammy

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Wondering if anyone else is seeing the opportunity for non-residents in Nevada diminishing? Got the Nevada big game book in the mail last week and was surprised to see the low number of non-resident tags available in a majority of units. I put in with 2 other guys as a party so that eliminates a lot of choices given the low tag availability. We usually try to hunt in the 05-07 zones but even some of those are pretty slim.

Hoping to get an Antelope tag this year as it has been 10 years since I have drawn. 5 of those years I was not allowed to apply following a successful harvest and the rest of them have been point building years. Was disappointed to learn that the zone I want to hunt had successful applicants in 2020 who had 2 and 3 bonus points when I have 5. Fingers crossed.
 
Without looking at the book myself and comparing numbers from the previous years I can’t confirm exactly what you’re seeing. But I’m pretty sure the only species you can hunt as a party in Nevada are cow elk and mule deer. That being said I think Nevada gives 10% total to non-resident. Tag allotments must be very low if there’s not enough tags to apply as a party with 3 hunters? Unless I’m mistaken then I don’t think it has so much with NR opportunity diminishing as it is probably just lower tags given out this year across the board. Probably associated with fires in NE Nevada and drier conditions the last two years.
 
Environmental impacts may be the case. Of course we only get to see 2020 tag allocations in the book. When I drew my Antelope tags 10 years ago there were 80 or so tags for the unit I hunted resident and non-resident. Same unit now has less than 30 tags.
 
I made the decision to drop NV this year just isn't worth my money versus draw odds. Had a buddy drew one heck of an elk tag there last year with either zero for super low points. He took a solid 340 bull as his first nice bull.
 
I made the decision to drop NV this year just isn't worth my money versus draw odds. Had a buddy drew one heck of an elk tag there last year with either zero for super low points. He took a solid 340 bull as his first nice bull.
When you look at the points it took to draw a tag last year it makes you scratch your head at how the low to middle point guys drew tags when the higher end failed to draw. I am not hating on Nevada as I do enjoy hunting there and the season does not interfere with my Idaho hunt. You are correct that it is expensive to contribute to the mission of F&G in Nevada every year without drawing a tag.
My Brother in Law put in every year for 18+ years trying to draw an antelope tag in the Sheldon Refuge. That tag does not exist now so he has to be careful where he puts his max points as he has a decent chance of drawing whatever he puts in for.
 
There just aren’t many tags in NV. They manage for trophies. That’s cool. The squaring of points hasn’t matured. Things will get worse if they leave the system in place. With squaring, on the max point holders get better odds each year. Everyone else’s odds get worse, even though they gained a point. Of course people will draw with very few points, it’s not a priority point system.

If NRs drop out of NV their squaring system may never really “mature” to the point of collapse, but that’s even worse. NV, and every other state, should go to a purely random system OR a system with simple bonus points, and no preference points, with no way to purchase a point without risk of drawing, and no point protection if you draw(except for health/death in family type exceptions). Point guard, buying points, preference points, squaring points, and to some degree sharing points in a party app, all artificially inflate demand.

NV’s system would work better in an state with more tags, but it would work even better with no point squaring. I’m not 100% anti point, but the circumstances under which they are more helpful than hurtful is a very narrow window.
 
When you look at the points it took to draw a tag last year it makes you scratch your head at how the low to middle point guys drew tags when the higher end failed to draw. I am not hating on Nevada as I do enjoy hunting there and the season does not interfere with my Idaho hunt. You are correct that it is expensive to contribute to the mission of F&G in Nevada every year without drawing a tag.
My Brother in Law put in every year for 18+ years trying to draw an antelope tag in the Sheldon Refuge. That tag does not exist now so he has to be careful where he puts his max points as he has a decent chance of drawing whatever he puts in for.
You’re dealing with a fundamental misunderstanding of probability and statistics. NV odds are very low. Their system skews that very highly in favor of those with more points, but their odds are so low that even max point holders have very low odds. Their tag numbers are so low that if you didn’t know the “formula” you couldn’t gain any statistically significant information from the data set of who drew. That would likely hold even if you combined 4-5 years of draw results. Incomprehension leads people to erroneous conclusions. I once heard an outfitter explaining that because his odds of drawing NV sheep with many many points were so low, that someone with zero points had essentially the same chance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Someone with 19pts in NV is 400 times more likely to draw than someone with 0pts, BUT when .004 is difficult to comprehend, then .00001 doesn’t seem any worse, and then suddenly someone thinks they’re definitely gonna draw someday as long as they keep putting in. If you need help with the numbers above, the statistical explanation is that if you looked at an infinite number of years of drawing and chose 100,000 consecutive years draw results an infinite number of times, then on average, the person with zero points would draw one time out of 100,000yrs, and the person with 19pts would draw an average of 400 times out of 100,000 years. It’s all an average of infinite outcomes. Theoretically, there would be 100,000 year spans in which the 0pt holder drew every year...because the number of outcomes is infinite.

When GoHunt lists the odds as <.01% that number is .0001/1. Also known as 1/10,000, or one in ten thousand. If you plan to live 10,000yrs, then you have a reasonable chance of drawing that hunt before you die. You can’t win if you don’t play. I only intend to help people understand that for certain hunts, or even certain states (NV and UT) it’s not a matter of just applying for long enough. You need to go into it understanding that there is a very good chance you will apply there for your entire life and never draw a tag there. If you do apply for those types of tags, you just might draw a tag the very first time, but you just might not ever draw.

Looking at the draw results in NV is largely a waste of time. All you need to know is how many total point apply there. Who drew is meaningless if it wasn’t you.
 
Yup, I've been calling Nevada's point system the "House of Cards" for years. Because no doubt at some point newbie's will take one look at the odds/system and just walk away, rather than making donations. Some folks on here have criticized me for advising against jumping in the game, but if you can do math it's not rocket science. Those who drew tags 10 and 20 years ago faced a totally different ballgame than today's newbies with thousands of squared point holders ahead of them. I have 22/22/22/13/4 points and include the lowest quality NR hunts every year in my 5 choices, and still can't draw. I desperately want to burn them on anything before the failed system collapses and my point value's are even further grossly degraded.
 
Yup, I've been calling Nevada's point system the "House of Cards" for years. Because no doubt at some point newbie's will take one look at the odds/system and just walk away, rather than making donations. Some folks on here have criticized me for advising against jumping in the game, but if you can do math it's not rocket science. Those who drew tags 10 and 20 years ago faced a totally different ballgame than today's newbies with thousands of squared point holders ahead of them. I have 22/22/22/13/4 points and include the lowest quality NR hunts every year in my 5 choices, and still can't draw. I desperately want to burn them on anything before the failed system collapses and my point value's are even further grossly degraded.
You are meeting expectations. When I entered UT I had something like an 80% chance of drawing one elk, sheep, goat, moose or bison over a 20yr span. Not once of each, one period. I had something near a 50% chance of drawing two. At the time NV was very similar, but more expensive, and the probability of one of those tags coming within the first ten years instead of the second ten(when I’m older) was higher in UT. Today, my odds aren’t quite that good, and if you’re just entering, they’re even worse.
 
I took a look at Nevada about 5 years ago and said "no thanks." I'm not paying that much into a system that gives me worse odds every year. If they had straight bonus points or a random draw, I'd apply every year.
 
No, I understand probabilities and statistics. And I understand how the system works

"Bonus points are squared by species category to determine how many random numbers from 1 to 99 million will be drawn from the random number generator. The lowest of the random numbers for each species category will be assigned as the “draw” number for that species category application. For example, if an applicant has 10 bonus points for antlered elk, you square 10 to get 100 and add 1 (applicant with zero bonus points is assigned 1 random number) for a total of 101 random numbers with the lowest being the draw number assigned to the antlered elk application. Those applying as a "party hunt" will have their bonus points averaged (total points of all hunters in the party, divided by the number of hunters) and rounded to the closest whole number. All applications for all species categories are sorted in ascending order and tags are awarded to applications with the lowest draw numbers."

Just for the heck of it I used a random number generator a couple of years ago just to see if I squared points and drew that number of random numbers, how low of a number might I draw. Wouldn't you know the lowest number I drew was still a high 6 digit number doing the exercise multiple times. What did I learn from that? Nothing that I didn't already know from playing a slot machine in a casino. I could spend years playing a machine and drop millions in the slot and win nothing only to watch a guy walk up behind me and drop a dollar in the slot and win millions. At the same time I could watch someone play for years and drop millions in the slot and win nothing and I could be the guy that drops a dollar in the slot and win the millions. I could also drop a dollar in the slot and loose my dollar. Random is Random.

I could choose not to apply for a tag and be guaranteed to never draw a tag. I could choose to apply for a tag and have the chance to draw said tag the first time or continue to apply for tags increasing the number of chances I have to draw said tag by increasing the number of chances I have to have a lower random number assigned to my application.

Like I said, I will continue to apply each year as I do enjoy the opportunity and have drawn tags in the past in fact last year I drew a tag with zero points. Random is random right?

I was only making the observation that the median of the successful draw applicants seemed to be located in the low to midpoint of the population and did not demonstrate the often perceived more points better chances theory for the one period that I looked at. As for my BIL my comment, refer back to the slot machine comment.
 
Yup, I've been calling Nevada's point system the "House of Cards" for years. Because no doubt at some point newbie's will take one look at the odds/system and just walk away, rather than making donations. Some folks on here have criticized me for advising against jumping in the game, but if you can do math it's not rocket science. Those who drew tags 10 and 20 years ago faced a totally different ballgame than today's newbies with thousands of squared point holders ahead of them. I have 22/22/22/13/4 points and include the lowest quality NR hunts every year in my 5 choices, and still can't draw. I desperately want to burn them on anything before the failed system collapses and my point value's are even further grossly degraded.

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There just aren’t many tags in NV. They manage for trophies. That’s cool. The squaring of points hasn’t matured. Things will get worse if they leave the system in place. With squaring, on the max point holders get better odds each year. Everyone else’s odds get worse, even though they gained a point. Of course people will draw with very few points, it’s not a priority point system.

If NRs drop out of NV their squaring system may never really “mature” to the point of collapse, but that’s even worse. NV, and every other state, should go to a purely random system OR a system with simple bonus points, and no preference points, with no way to purchase a point without risk of drawing, and no point protection if you draw(except for health/death in family type exceptions). Point guard, buying points, preference points, squaring points, and to some degree sharing points in a party app, all artificially inflate demand.

NV’s system would work better in an state with more tags, but it would work even better with no point squaring. I’m not 100% anti point, but the circumstances under which they are more helpful than hurtful is a very narrow window.

If you don't like the rules, don't play the game.
 
When you look at the points it took to draw a tag last year it makes you scratch your head at how the low to middle point guys drew tags when the higher end failed to draw. I am not hating on Nevada as I do enjoy hunting there and the season does not interfere with my Idaho hunt. You are correct that it is expensive to contribute to the mission of F&G in Nevada every year without drawing a tag.
My Brother in Law put in every year for 18+ years trying to draw an antelope tag in the Sheldon Refuge. That tag does not exist now so he has to be careful where he puts his max points as he has a decent chance of drawing whatever he puts in for.
See I'm perfectly fine with the randomness. I despise preference point systems. I was mainly interested in NV sheep tags but would also toss in other apps since I bought the license. I've decided I probably will never hunt sheep unless I win the lottery. So I put that money towards other bad habits now. I dropped three States this year and will now only apply for the big 3 in MT since I'm 16 years in there.
 
I have no interest in sheep hunts so I don't even apply. I could go elsewhere and hunt mule deer and antelope but it is sort of a family tradition to hunt Nevada. I am thinking that when I draw the antelope tag that will be my last antelope tag application for Nevada. Haven't decided on Mule deer though.
 
These state specific threads are starting to crack me up. No matter what state gets brought up, people chimes in saying they would never apply lmao.
NV cost me the most $$$ for the lowest odds of drawing anything. That's not a very good combination for a State. I applied for the highest odds least favorable units also for 4 years. Money wasted! Don't believe that BS of " you can't draw if you don't apply". Somewhat true but I tend to see things as they are and not the far fetched dreams in my head. I'll just have to enjoy desert sheep hunts on the Tube until I die.
 
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nevada is tough,but it does happen,,i was shocked when i drew a cali bighorn tag some years ago (4 ithink) with only 6 points!! 1 in 5000 odds!!,,and got a pretty nice one, d i y no guide/// somebody gets lucky,,,on that note,ive got 11 loper,11 deer,11 elk,and 10 desert sheep points,,hoping i might draw 1 one of these years,,hopefully 2021 will roll 777
 

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