Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 24 years a loser.

Idaho has no point system. A non-resident simply pays his $185 for a license and then prays that he can get a tag. Non-res OTC tags all go on sale on Dec 1 for the following year. It's a total online madhouse for an hour and that's it for the year. 50% get a tag of some kind, the rest don't. Or, there's the lottery. Non-res are limited to 10% of the tags in each hunt. The odds of drawing are highly variable depending on the number of applicants but in general, few hunts offer odds better than 25%, most are lower, some a LOT lower.

There's no shortage of hunters willing to play the game and pay the price. This last year, there were 35,000 total deer and elk OTC tags offered for sale. When sales opened online, there were 64,000 non-res hunters on line at the same time trying to get them, so many that it overwhelmed and crashed the system. That's over $11 million in license sales and that's just for OTC tags. Many of those later applied for draw hunts but there were also a lot of additional non-res hunters who later bought a license to apply for a hunt.

Same crap in Washington with a Bonus Point system. Not playing that game.

23 years applying for AZ antelope. I see the darn things almost every day. In 23 years I have drawn 2 Bull Elk tags , filled one. My wife has drawn 7 Bull Elk tags in the same time frame.
My youngest boy had drawn a deer tag 5 years in a row for UT but turned 18 and struck out this year.
I drew absolutely nothing in AZ, NM, CO and UT this year. Looks like I will be out trying to lure call shy coyotes this year.

That's why I've gone to hunting cows and doe antelope in Idaho. I'd rather hunt girls than not hunt at all. I've shot cows 4 years in a row while the bull hunters aren't hunting. The average draw on either sex antelope is once in 25 years. I've drawn twice in my life. Last year I started applying for a doe/fawn tag and drew one the 2d try.

I feel your pain. I'm over 30 on moose, bighorn and mtn goat in MT. It took 27 years for me to get a breaks elk tag and then I was in the hospital the part of the season so didn't get it filled.

Here i sit, was going to go moose hunting then I decided ph uck that. I must be spoiled lol. Some guys love the 2 day day odyssey getting to moose camp, the unrelentless winching machine out of one mudhole after another. Granted where I was going would of been none of that, but would've been me and about 100 of my new best buds. Stay home work on duck boat blind.

It will happen for you. I finally drew last year and I shot a top 10 with my muzzleloader. Incredible experience and beautiful country.

I will never draw an Oregon moose tag.




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Put in for the "Maine" Moose for several years. Realized that it was NEVER going to happen. Said to hell with it, went to Canada and shot a moose.

In Idaho, we're limited to 1 bull and 1 cow in a lifetime. About 20 years ago, my partner and I put in for bull tags just outside of Yellowstone and we drew the 1st time. The drawing odds were about 50%. Man, has that changed. The same area now has odds of 5 to 10%. Yes, we both got our moose.