Costs the same to buy points as apply you’d be dumb not to just apply for a lottery ticket type tag. Idk why anyone would just buy points in Utah
While I completely agree that you should be applying for hunts instead of points just from a draw odds and intelligence perspective, some people already have tags that conflict, some people have family vacations etc. and some people are just dumb. I applied for hunts, not points, almost exclusively until last year.
Personally, I returned to college to finish a degree that I was 27hrs from completing when I got engaged and took a full time job. That 27hrs has morphed into 49+ due to state and accreditation board changes to degree plans, and I still have to work full time, so I can only hunt Christmas break or close to home for 2-3 years while I slowly finish my degree. as a result, I’m in for points only on almost all of my applications.
I would be against punishing this edge case by preventing people in my shoes from keeping their place in line if it was an edge case. However, if you look at the actual applications, quite a few species in quite a few states show that very near half of all applicants are doing nothing but buying points. If those people got a year behind in line each time they didn’t actually want to hunt that year, draw odds would be meaningfullu better in states that use point systems. Are there ways around it? Yes of course. But there would still be meaningful improvement. When half of people applying this year, don’t actually want to hunt this year, but they maintain their place in line ahead of people who actually do want to hunt this year, that’s a big problem for the people that actually want to hunt.
If I apply, while willing and wanting to actually hunt, for twenty years, and another guy, who actually only wanted to go 2, or 3 or 6 of those years, has 21 pts to my 20, should he really be the one drawing a tag this this year? I don’t think he should. We have quite a few people with double digit points for every species there is who pick 1-2 hunts they are going to go on every year, and then they maintain their place in line ahead of everyone else for all of the other species by purchasing a point. I’m not sure that’s the proper way for the tags to be distributed.
But hey man, the rules are what they are, so I’m keeping my place in line while I take a step back for a few years, and I’m buying points in the states that I was applying in. If I had to risk drawing a tag, everyone would get 2-3 years ahead of me while I take a step back from hunting. And again, I think there are cases where people who really want to hunt just can’t go this year, and if that was 1-2% of guys, then I would say they deserve to buy a point only. But at ~50%, it’s a problem.
