So how long will it take?

[Mossyhorn]

In 2004 you only needed 7 points to draw Walla Walla. In 2008 you needed 10 and in some cases 9 points.

Mt. Emily just became as difficult to draw as Walla Walla, almost. I have taken a bit of time to compile my own point summary records for units I want to hunt from 2004 to the present. Trying to find trends and when I can expect to draw, if ever. I have 5 points for elk and as it stands now there are still 213 people ahead of me. That's another 14 years assuming things stay the same. I know people will drop out but I know more people will join in, those that are lurking in the shadows building point savers. There is an enormous pile of guys with point savers.

Anyway, what do you guys think? With 5 points now can I expect to draw sooner than 14 years? The odds of drawing a premium elk tag are worse than drawing the best tag in Utah as a resident!

[Eagleclaw]

Mossyhorn,

I'm in the same boat you are. I have 5 elk points and by the time i draw a good tag i'll be on S.S... LOL 14 years i'll be 54 .

[Beamerfish]

I haven't looked at the number trends but I'd guess that next year the Walla Walla will take 10 or more to draw. Seems like it is creeping out at just under a point per year. So you are slowly catching up but with 5 points, I'd guess you are at least 5-10 years out at the rate things are going. Best not to think about it too much, just put in your application and sooner or later it will happen. Then again you could get lucky and pull one from the random 25%!

[Mossyhorn]

Originally Posted by Beamerfish

I haven't looked at the number trends but I'd guess that next year the Walla Walla will take 10 or more to draw. Seems like it is creeping out at just under a point per year. So you are slowly catching up but with 5 points, I'd guess you are at least 5-10 years out at the rate things are going. Best not to think about it too much, just put in your application and sooner or later it will happen. Then again you could get lucky and pull one from the random 25%!

That's what i've been hoping for, that lucky 25%. But at about a creep rate of one point a year it will take forever! LOL we need more opportunities to spread archers out.

[BrianMaguire]

I did the math last year when I had 7 point for elk. For Wenaha it was somthing like 32 years. I burned my 7 points on a tag that takes 1 point. I want to hunt, geting too old to keep hanging on. BTW - I did not factor in that people would be dying off, which at 32 years would be a decent number.

[Jedcraft]

A friend of mine did not draw Weneha archery with 12 points. We thought he had it for sure but ...UNSUCCESSFUL. He's gonna keep trying.

[Mossyhorn]

It's almost impossible to figure out if you can draw 100% cause there is the unknown of the point saver applicant. You could be at the top with 12 or 13 points and not draw like you said.

[Beamerfish]

Originally Posted by BrianMaguire

I did the math last year when I had 7 point for elk. For Wenaha it was somthing like 32 years. I burned my 7 points on a tag that takes 1 point. I want to hunt, geting too old to keep hanging on. BTW - I did not factor in that people would be dying off, which at 32 years would be a decent number.

Brian, that is brutal to have to make that choice. I'm with you - I love to hunt and I don't think I can stand to wait for Wenaha with the 9 elk points I'm sitting on. Alot of people are going to be faced with this decision.

The good news for everybody is more and more people are going to be making this decision and the points to draw will approach some equilibrium at some point. So it's not a simple matter of taking the total number of hunters with points ahead of you applying for the hunt you want, plus some number of point saver people piling in, divided by the number of tags available. We have to also subtract the people dropping out (either cashing in their points, giving up, or well,... cashing in the big casino.) I'll wager it would be less than 32 years but how much less is an open question.

Hmmm,... I think there is probably enough data to model this out - wonder if anybody from ODFW has already done that? One of these days when I get a couple minutes, I'll see if I can't work out some numbers.

[Klamanite]

Originally Posted by Jedcraft

A friend of mine did not draw Weneha archery with 12 points. We thought he had it for sure but ...UNSUCCESSFUL. He's gonna keep trying.

12 points was around 15 or 16 percent draw odds (projected) for this year. I have 12 and put in for a point saver as I didn't want to get it this year. Next year 13 points should be a lock

[Klamanite]

Originally Posted by Beamerfish

Brian, that is brutal to have to make that choice. I'm with you - I love to hunt and I don't think I can stand to wait for Wenaha with the 9 elk points I'm sitting on. Alot of people are going to be faced with this decision.

The good news for everybody is more and more people are going to be making this decision and the points to draw will approach some equilibrium at some point. So it's not a simple matter of taking the total number of hunters with points ahead of you applying for the hunt you want, plus some number of point saver people piling in, divided by the number of tags available. We have to also subtract the people dropping out (either cashing in their points, giving up, or well,... cashing in the big casino.) I'll wager it would be less than 32 years but how much less is an open question.

Hmmm,... I think there is probably enough data to model this out - wonder if anybody from ODFW has already done that? One of these days when I get a couple minutes, I'll see if I can't work out some numbers.

It has already been done for you. It's all right here and much more info than the Percentage Tag book.

http://ronwold.googlepages.com/

[ehunter]

I am in the same boat I would be in my mid 60's before I draw some tags. In the mean time I will be missing out on some other tags that I could be drawing. Hang in there if another or so of us drop you will move up.

[Jeremy]

If your talking about the bow tag its gonna be another (projected) 5 years for mt. emily and 14 years for Walla Walla if you had 5 points this year.

[Mossyhorn]

Ya I've taken a bit of time to make my own tables for the last 4-5 years. Each year the point summaries come out I take all the apps and subtract out all the non-residents to give me a better idea as to how many people I'm competing with, cause non-residents don't really matter, they can only get one tag anyway, and that's if they're lucky. So I have all the raw numbers in front of me, for certain hunts. I track each year where I'm at point wise.

[Beamerfish]

Originally Posted by Klamanite

It has already been done for you. It's all right here and much more info than the Percentage Tag book.

http://ronwold.googlepages.com/

Good link - thanks for the heads up. Actually I think the percentages are based on the current data but the situation is dynamic and the same assumptions that work one year out may not work multiple years out. I could be wrong though (seems to happen alot these days).



I'll have to do more research. (Dang this working for a living gets in the way of all the fun stuff.)

[Klamanite]

Originally Posted by Beamerfish

Good link - thanks for the heads up. Actually I think the percentages are based on the current data but the situation is dynamic and the same assumptions that work one year out may not work multiple years out. I could be wrong though (seems to happen alot these days).



I'll have to do more research. (Dang this working for a living gets in the way of all the fun stuff.)

That is correct. It is a projection based on the most recent data and this year's draw hasn't been updated yet. I don't think that info is available just yet.

[Beamerfish]

Yeah, it's a calculus problem. Calculus, ugh.

[bo4elk]

Actually, its linear algebra.

The projections do take into account people that enter and leave a particular hunt. They could have moved, died or decided to switch to a different hunt. I call this the trend analysis, and its not a perfect caclulation (a perfect calculation can't be made), but its pretty close. The trend is determined by looking at the hunt in the past, particular who didn't draw, and then comparing it to who applied the following year.

One thing I've found is that every hunt eventually "stablizes". The hard to draw hunts haven't stabalized yet, its a guess as to when they will, but eventually they will stablize. What I mean by stabalize is that the point level to draw in the 75% pool stops increasing. Once a hunt has stabalized, the "years to draw" becomes pretty accurate.

I'm looking forward to seeing the application results when they come out. There were a bunch of new archery rut hunts this year, I'm curious to see how difficult they are to draw.

-Ron

[Beamerfish]

Ah, now this is good stuff. It's predicting the years-to-stabilize number that seemed like a calculus problem to me.
Oh course, I didn't actually do very well in math class so I'll readily admit I might be smoking some bad weed here and don't know my linear algebra from my differentials. There's guys on here that know way more about this stuff than me but I've been working on assumptions along the lines of this:

Sooner or later things equalize out and the points-to-draw stabilize around a given number. The low point draw hunts stabilize sooner than the high point draw hunts. Once things equilibriate out, it makes sense that the prediction error would be very low. The big unknown is always the jump-in vs. fall out rate and it would be reasonable to assume that it wouldn't change much from year-to-year or at least if it does change, it will change gradually. That is for the hunts that haven't changed or where there hasn't been a watershed shift in hunter expectations that would affect the numbers of people applying.

For the immediate future (next year) it seems like when you use a linear function you are assuming a net fall-in fall-out rate equivalent to or trending along the lines of what has been seen in the past. Again, a pretty fair approximation for a short term period (e.g. next year).

The problem is projecting the fall-in fall-out trend multiple years into the future. That is the problem people have when they are sitting on say 5 elk points and looking to figure how many years it will take to draw a Wenaha tag.

One way to do it might be to add up all the people with more than 5 points that put in for wenaha elk but didn't draw and then divide that by the number of tags. I don't have the real numbers in front of me but say there are 100 people ahead of me in line and 10 tags. Well, I could divide 100 by 10 and predict 10 years.

But that is of course an oversimplication of what will really happen. There will be people jumping in from the point savers and well as falling out from putting in for that hunt for one reason or another. Sooner or later that will all even out and the points-to-draw will stabilize but until it does you have to assume a jump in-jump out rate. Problem is, that will also be changing over time until it reaches some equilibrium for a given hunt that also considers all the point savers numbers vs. the influence of all the other hunts in aggregate. Where a simple linear assumption might work in the short term, it will be more more prone to error farther out because it's not strictly linear but actually curvilinear. That is to say it will bend over time toward a final value or asymptote.

So long as you are using curvilinear algebra, you might still make a pretty fair projection farther into the future. However, if people change their jump in-fall out behavior in a pattern unlike what they've done in the past which will likely happen if, like Brian, they don't want to wait anymore, then predicting the future from the past gets pretty iffy. Unless that is, you are willing to make more assumptions about where the changes in fall in drop out behavior really pick of speed.

Ends up being complicated multivariate modeling problem.

So, the 100 divided by 10 equals 10 years assumption doesn't seem entirely right to me - seems like it is likely to be less than 10 years because I suspect the drop-out rate is going to accelerate in non-linear manner over time relative to the jump-in behavior so it will take less than 10 years.

Then again, maybe it will take more than 10 years if there are abunch of high point saver sandbaggers that are holding out to jump in later at an accelerating rate. (although why they wouldn't put in and hope to get lucky on the 25% I don't know.)

Seesh, now I've gone and given myself a headache. Is it hunting season yet? And since I'm already way over my head, out on a limb, hanging by a thread, I'll quit now.

Bottom line: if you are sitting on 5 elk points and want to draw wenaha then you better hope for some 25% luck or be pretty young.

[Mossyhorn]

The stats are out right now for 2008, they were out the day after the draw.

I said the heck with wenaha 4 years ago, I then went to putting in for walla walla. Now I have hopes of just drawing Mt. Emily or Walla Walla. When i get a gew more points I'll make a decision.

Oh and this year there were 100 fewer apps for walla walla than last year. I'm thinking gas prices maybe? It's hard to tell where those 100 people went, did they just get point savers or did they give up and put in for something else. Wenaha lost I think over 200 apps this year.

[Ni!]

Originally Posted by bo4elk

One thing I've found is that every hunt eventually "stablizes". The hard to draw hunts haven't stabalized yet, its a guess as to when they will, but eventually they will stablize. What I mean by stabalize is that the point level to draw in the 75% pool stops increasing. Once a hunt has stabalized, the "years to draw" becomes pretty accurate.

-Ron

I don't see how the top hunts can possibly stabilize given current realities. The 256R Wenaha archery hunt has over 200 applicants at each point level from 1 through 5, and then gradually tapers down as you go higher. Since they only give out 20 tags each year there's virtually no way that hunt can ever stabilize, unless I'm missing something.

The link to the 2008 points summary is here.

[Klamanite]

Originally Posted by Mossyhorn

Oh and this year there were 100 fewer apps for walla walla than last year. I'm thinking gas prices maybe? It's hard to tell where those 100 people went, did they just get point savers or did they give up and put in for something else. Wenaha lost I think over 200 apps this year.

I made the assumption earlier this year that a lot of the high point holders would switch and try to draw the Starkey Forest rifle hunt since it hasn't been offered in a number of years and is a comparable hunt. I haven't seen the numbers yet but I would bet that a fair number did.

[mtn300]

Originally Posted by Klamanite

I made the assumption earlier this year that a lot of the high point holders would switch and try to draw the Starkey Forest rifle hunt since it hasn't been offered in a number of years and is a comparable hunt. I haven't seen the numbers yet but I would bet that a fair number did.

My buddy drew starkey exp forest rifle with 4 points.

[scomp25]

the trend is that the people hunting the wenaha and walla walla will also have a disabled permit it takes so ******* long draw.

[Wheels]

Originally Posted by Ni!

I don't see how the top hunts can possibly stabilize given current realities. The 256R Wenaha archery hunt has over 200 applicants at each point level from 1 through 5, and then gradually tapers down as you go higher. Since they only give out 20 tags each year there's virtually no way that hunt can ever stabilize, unless I'm missing something.

The link to the 2008 points summary is here.

Hey Ni. We didn't have enough deer points for S.E. Metoleus but we did have enough for the new rut hunts!!!!!!!! I wish I had applied for one of them. Since I knew I would draw Colorado Deer, I decided on an Oregon Point Saver. What did you apply for (Deer)? Next year (9pts), I am going to give myself a shot at something! Wheels.

[Ni!]

Wheels,
I applied for the Hart Mt. hunt with 8 points. One of three residents with 8 points drew that tag (I was one of the other two), so next year I should be able to get it if things don't change too drastically. I'll be interested to hear some reports on how those hunts work out this year.

[bo4elk]

Ni - Your not missing anything - using math we can't tell when it will stabalize. But the stabalization will occur. It can't go higher than our life span. For a hunt like the Weneha, no one knows when the 75% pool point level will stop rising. But we can say that the number of folks with max points in the 200 series is now just a handful (from 2007 - I haven't seen the 2008 results yet - there may be none left). This doesn't mean that the hunt will stabalize in the next few years, but it does mean that the growth rate, which has been one point per year, has slowed.

Beamer - An excellent, well stated analysis.

[Klamanite]

Originally Posted by mtn300

My buddy drew starkey exp forest rifle with 4 points.

Nice pull

[mtn300]

I told him that I will be holding the bolt for his rifle the first day. Make sure he doesn't shoot the wrong bull.