GETTING A HANDLE ON CONTROLLED HUNTS
by Scott Stouder

So for the last six years your application for a premium buck deer tag has been unsuccessful. You have an empty freezer and a cynical opinion of the controlled hunt process.

But you've earned six preference points and this year you are going to apply for a rifle hunt in the Trout Creek Mountains of southeastern Oregon. Surely by now the odds are with you. Right?

Wrong.

You have about a 1% chance of obtaining one of Oregon's coveted Trout Creek Mountain tags this year, even with six preference points. Your chances would be the same if you had zero points. But if you had seven preference points, just one more than what you do have, your odds of hunting in those beautiful desert mountains this fall would jump to 83%.

How can you have a whopping six points and still have only a 1% chance of being drawn? Don't the odds of getting a tag rise in direct correlation to the number of preference or bonus points?

Not necessarily. It depends on the particular drawing process for the state where you apply. For instance, each year you are unsuccessful in drawing a controlled hunt tag in Washington, you accumulate a bonus point. When you apply for a controlled hunt, you get one entry in the drawing plus entries equal to the square of your number of bonus points. If the Trout Creek Mountain hunt was in Washington, an applicant with six preference points would have more than a 1% chance of being drawn, but an applicant with seven points would have less than an 83% chance. Every state is different.

Want to know more about the controlled hunt preference and bonus point systems in the western states? I honestly don't care to. Math is not my strong suit. Hunting is. I just want to know where and when I will have the best odds to draw certain tags for buck deer, elk, spring bear, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, antelope, additional deer or antlerless deer.

That's where Pat Moran and Charlie Middleton of Percentage Tags come in. They are two hunters from Salem, Oregon, who compile and analyze all of the drawing statistics. They then print the results in easy-to-read, easy-to-use books. Tag Guides are available for Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. Each book reveals the specific odds of drawing controlled or limited entry hunt tags with certain preference or bonus points.

Every year, Percentage Tags gathers the outcome from each state's controlled hunts. This information is then entered into a custom-designed, "hunter interest" computer spreadsheet. It crunches the numbers and produces the odds of drawing a tag for every controlled hunt, in each state, with any possible number of preference points.

"It's all probability and statistics. Individuals do random things, but the group as a whole is consistent and predictable," says Middleton, adding that hundreds of thousands of applications for controlled hunts are submitted every year. "The number of applicants for a particular hunt does not change much unless the hunt itself is changed," he said. The specific chance of drawing a tag can be projected based upon the historical trend.

One of the most basic factors to consider when selecting a controlled big game hunt is the odds of actually drawing the tag.

Percentage Tags gives you those odds.

Middleton says most hunters apply with only a cursory glance in the regulations at the number of tags and applicants from last year. This minimal attention is the most common mistake hunters make today. Your strategy for the controlled hunt drawing determines not just where you go hunting, but whether you go hunting at all.

"Those who fully understand the controlled hunt process will draw better tags and draw them more often," Middleton said. "Of course the Tag Guide does not guarantee anyone a tag, but it does make it possible for hunters to make informed and strategic decisions."

You might be able to put together all this information on your own. The raw data from recent years is available from state agencies. With some math and computer skills you could develop a spreadsheet that models the controlled hunt drawing process for that state. You could then build into the program the pattern hunters follow when applying for controlled hunts. If you have the skills, it just takes time to do it.

But if you're like me, spending hours in front of a computer is not your idea of fun, so the Tag Guide is a gift of time.

In spite of today's highly regulated world of big game management, more hunting opportunities exist now than ever before. The controlled hunt process rewards hunters who are persistent and do their homework. Percentage Tags helps you make effective and wise choices.

[When Scott Stouder is not big game hunting or planning his application strategy for controlled hunts, he is an outdoor writer and editor of Mule Deer magazine, the publication of The Mule Deer Foundation.]