Otc Sheep

Take a spin through the draw odds. You most likely will never draw in your life regardless of how many points you have or what district you apply for. That is the reality of the “big three”. I blame it on destruction of habitat and pumped up demand. Maybe an influencer needs to do a podcast on how most people will never draw a tag.
Not lost on me at all. Odds are long no matter. I suppose l losing my squared points wouldn’t be a difference. Especially since I hold 22 mule deer points. mtmuley
 
Not lost on me at all. Odds are long no matter. I suppose l losing my squared points wouldn’t be a difference. Especially since I hold 22 mule deer points. mtmuley
I hope you draw your tags. I know a guy that is quite a hunter and had max sheep the first time around and max now again. He likely isn’t going to get that sheep tag drawn and still be able unless it happens soon
 
Nothing wrong with Montanas bonus point squared system. It’s a fine system. Theres no system that works for the really high demand tags like sheep tags or root muley tags.
I actually love the way our system works with the bonus points. The square adds a little more for the guys with time invested in but doesn’t guarantee a tag. In 21 for the final year of the 900-20 tag its was around 80% odds with no points. A resident applied with 8 points and didn’t get drawn. Either your name comes out of the hat or it doesn’t. As far as this subject on the otc sheep tags is concerned in my opinion the people that where worried about some of the guys coming in later with points just made the draw odds even worse for the le tags because of the amount of people that will just apply for le an not but the tag. Most people that buy that tag never even step foot in the mountain range and the people that pushed this thru their greed probably just added a few hundred more applications every year for those 60 le tags so nice work on that
 
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OIL, especially in a 7 yr wait state, doesn’t do anything for odds in any statistically significant way.

Making it cost more than $15 to put in for a tag would though.

If you look at number of current applicants, applicant number trends and project that out to year 8 (first year OIL removes a single person from the draw, and look at the number of sheep tags given, you’ll see that in 8 years there will be thousands more applicants and you maybe took 100 people out of the draw, when you consider that not all of the people that drew a sheep tag would reapply anyway.

150/34500=0.00435
150/34600=0.00434

Making the tag not free is the second best way next to putting more sheep on the mountain to increase draw odds.
I was contextualizing the tags I've drawn.

And I'm all for the penalty box if it allows for better draw odds for people who haven't had those opportunities.
 
Anyone that believes squaring bonus points gives them better odds needs to sharpen their pencils.

What crushes odds is the total number of people applying and all their squared bonus points.

How you beat draw odds is applying for your entire life for as many tags as you can.
I tend to agree with you on the really low odds draw but the bonus point squared system definitely works on the 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 type odds tags. It ensures most applicants eventually draw. You have drawn some amazing tags but for every lucky drawer there is an equally unlucky drawer. There’s guys that can go 20-30 years or longer not drawing a 1 in 10 fully random tag draw. It’s all part of the normal curve. The normal curve for a bonus point squared system generally should have a higher bell and less distribution. I think your correct that all system curves probably merge similarly on the super hard draws like sheep
 
I tend to agree with you on the really low odds draw but the bonus point squared system definitely works on the 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 type odds tags. It ensures most applicants eventually draw. You have drawn some amazing tags but for every lucky drawer there is an equally unlucky drawer. There’s guys that can go 20-30 years or longer not drawing a 1 in 10 fully random tag draw. It’s all part of the normal curve. The normal curve for a bonus point squared system generally should have a higher bell and less distribution. I think your correct that all system curves probably merge similarly on the super hard draws like sheep
Nope...sharpen your pencil.

Squared point system doesn't work if more and more people enter the draw.

People that think the squared point system works prove only one thing, they suck at math.
 
How you beat draw odds is applying for your entire life for as many tags as you can.
that’s the only way I’ve figured out to actually get ahead. The more spots you can put your name in the more you give yourself some type of additive advantage

The only other way a persons draw odds get better is by making someone else’s odds worse.
 
It was mentioned earlier but increase of application fees is going to be, in my mind the only way to reduce competition. I think when Montana switched to a $10 application fee instead of $75(I think it was this amount idk though I was pretty young and not paying for my own tags when it switched) was the down fall. I don't know how other states function for residents but there are multiple other states that make non-res pay the whole tag price just to apply. Now I don't think that NR apps for the big 3 make all that much difference for draw odds, but if the the state made residents and NR front the tag cost to put in, I think draw odds would increase. Even if it was half the tag cost I think it would get better.

I have about 1% of hope that I would ever draw a sheep tag in MT but that's why the UL are so cool. I will keep hammering the mountains until I fill a tag or until I can't physically do it anymore. As @Big Fin has said before you will run out of health and time. So while I can I am going to hunt a tag that has a 2% success rate. I don't want to be like my mom and uncle with max points praying to the application God's to bless them with a tag because they have consistently applied for 40 years.

And just to rant more. Bonus and preference points are dumb and I would sacrifice all of the points I have right now to do away with the broken system. I want a non weighted draw system. You get one number in the bucket and that's it.
 
Off the original topic, but odds would improve much more if everyone were limited to choosing 1 of either deer, elk, antelope, sheep, moose, or mtn goat. Keep the general deer and elk tags if you want, but pulling people out of 5/6 draws will improve the odds far more than making harvest once in a lifetime.

More on topic, the OTC hunts are a huge source of sheep advocates and advocacy, giving regular folks an opportunity to get into sheep hunting. Making sheep harvest once in a lifetime doesn't decrease harvest or increase anyone else's opportunity. Hpwever, I think if you shoot a ram under 5 years old on an OTC sheep tag, you should have that be your only ram in any state, ever.
 

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