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I haven't utilized the "loophole" in past years, which is why I did not hunt in Utah last fall. From what I understand those that draw their 2nd or 3rd or 4th etc choices will now use their bonus points acquired from previous years, whereas in previous years they did not.
This should help eliminate a lot of the high end of the bonus point curve people AFTER this years draw. My question is won't the "loophole" still be in place if you put in for the "magic unit that is impossible to draw" first and get an additional point for your second choice? Granted you will still lose your acquired bonus points, but that has always been the case for those of us that weren't in the know about the tainted nuances of the Utah draw that is processed in Nevada.
Would love to hear everyone's opinion, and in general start getting more hunting conversations on this forum.
Cheers
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If people only put in for one hunt each year won't all those points continue to roll over so long as they don't draw for that hunt?
Can anyone explain the difference in preference and bonus points? I would swear the system is unclear by design.
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Folks it isn't that hard. Get a proclamation and read it. All the rules are in black and white print. There are division offices throughout the state and biologists and CO's in many towns.
The "loophole" is the same for all of us. This rules change affects us all exactly the same way. On a general deer tag, you will now lose all your preference points if you draw any of your choices 1-5. Before, you only lost your preference points if you drew your 1st choice.
Preference points and bonus points are 2 completely different things by the way. Preference points are only for a general season deer tag. Bonus points are for all limited entry species tags and are only valid for each species. For instance, I have 13 bear points which are not valid for elk or moose. The confusion comes because for years a general season buck deer tag was bought over the counter. The limited entry buck deer units were done with the draw process. Then our population grew to the point that a draw was needed to make it a little fairer to get a general deer tag. I wish they would of just made the entire state into separate units from the beginning and everything was a limited entry tag. If you wanted to hunt almost every year you would apply for an easier to draw area. If you wanted a trophy buck you could apply for the prime units. But now you can apply for a general buck deer tag on the majority of the state units and also apply for a limited entry tag for elk deer or antelope, as well as choose 1 once in a lifetime animal like sheep or buffalo. The points stay with the type of tag you apply for until you draw and then they reset at zero. But preference and bonus points are different and do not overlap. Feel free to PM me if you'd like and we can chat that way. I am not a CO or biologist but almost 5 decades of guiding and hunting has its benefits. Have a fine evening.
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The difference between the two point systems are that the preference point system gives out tags by starting with the people that have the most points and continue down through the point levels until they reach the tier that has more applicants than tags left. At that point it turns to a random draw for the remaining tags in that point tier.
The bonus point system runs by dividing the tags numbers into two equal groups. The bonus group of points go to the people that have the highest points. The luck of the draw group of tags are drawn for the people that aren't in the bonus pool draw. It gives everybody a small chance to get a tag without having to wait for all the years to pass to get to the max points.
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If there are 200 people in the lowest point tier when there is only 50 tags left then those 200 people go into a random draw for the 50 remaining tags. Nobody below that point level will get a chance at a tag.
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Right. With general season units hopefully it will not come down to that scenario as often, once these high preference point applicants are sucessful for 2017. Knock on wood.
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Less than 10% of the overall applicants drew a 2nd-5th choice. Of those there is no way to know how many were intentionally using the loophole or just putting an archery or ML choice in the same unit as a second or third choice.
With the loop-hole shut tags will still be difficult to draw, because of the amount of people applying for the limited number of permits.
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