When can we start applying for draw hunts

July is when they open it up

Thanks I was thinking tomorrow

I thought I bought some at $9/chance last weekend when I bought a bonus red tag. Now I am confused. I need to read about this more. Those hunts look like a great deal if you win one.

Yep. usually early July.

If you have applied for these hunts in the past, TPWD usually sends a email, at least they do with me anyway.

It is tough to win one nowadays. Since you dont have any loyalty points you should look for the least popular hunts with the least amount of people applying. That will be your best hope for winning one nowadays with the new points system

I win one almost every year but that is because I put in for the lowest applied for hunts. I have never won a "popular" hunt and I have been signing up for 8 years now.


good luck

No use applying for the popular hunts. I got that all sewed up. The fix is in....

This is an accurate statement.

Andrewhunter08- If you applied for a $9 hunt that is a completely different thing than the Drawn Hunts System. What you're referencing are the "Big Time Texas Hunts". In my opinion, that program is a complete money grab. Horrible Horrible odds and a steep application fee. No points of any kind to help with your future chances. The Drawn Hunt System, while it has it's flaws and is still very hard to draw the premier hunts is a much better program.

I've been applying for TPW Hunts for more years than I care to admit to, ummm I've still got some paper apps & hunt booklets from back then when there were only 3 ladies opening the Hunt Application mail in's and you could always get one of them on the phone to ask questions of .... I used to chuckle at every time I would see one of the booklets, but nowdays it ain't so funny , with the steady decline in scoring a Hunt or being able to score several Hunts every year like I did occasionally when I first started applying for TPW Hunts back in the early&mid '70's .

Almost every year we have lived in Texas since then...only makes it harder to write the checks & answer the question about why am I sending the $'s to such a loosing effort .....& TPW is still allowing more and more out of state hunters to participate equally with Texas residents, with No Reciprosity from ANY of the Non Residents State... or with no other apparent restrictions. Try buying any other State's Hunting tags the same way.....but don't hold your breath over it...
Just my own Old Guy's opinion,
Ron

We’re on the same page, Texas residents are getting shafted….

Texas residents are getting shafted but the non-resident issue is small potatoes. Non residents make up around 3-7% of draw hunt applicants and winners. The thing that has most hurt your odds is allowing everyone to apply for all the hunts in a category.

Yeah but you only get one hunt in each category now that you are actually drawn on. Correction- your loyalty points are reset to zero so I'm not sure if that precludes being drawn for a second hunt or not. My understanding is you have to have one preference point to be drawn.

Forces you to.choose wisely what you apply for. I did benefit from the system before that change by getting drawn on multiple hunts in a category. I had a lot of points in those categories so I'm unrepentant.

It is true that once drawn your points reset to zero but that does not mean you can’t be drawn. It does not force the vast majority to choose wisely. Many many people blanket apply for most hunts within a category. If Texas residents want their odds of drawing to increase drastically they will push tpwd to reduce the number of hunts per category one can enter. They did this for the youth categories (limited to 3 hunts per category) because they had youth that were applying for 8 years (age 8 to age 16) without getting drawn and then could no longer apply for the categories.

But your looking at the whole. Only 3-7% applicants as a whole for all hunts may be non residents, but most of those non residents are only applying for the best hunts like the chap or powderhorn and they have been for many years so have the massively cubed points now. If you could get the percentage of non residents applying for each of those two hunts only and their cubed point counts, I think you will find it significant. Any serious non resident big game hunter in driving distance to Texas not applying for those two hunts are fools if they don't at only three bucks a shot each year. I know I would. Non residents are even showing up to try for standby on some of these primo hunts. I witnessed it at caprock canyons long ago. But yea, places like pat mayse for example, it is small potatoes. Very few or any non residents are applying for ones like that, but your statistic includes those hunts and only counts individual applicants. It does not factor in their cubed point counts. I had almost 20,000 points the year I drew the powderhorn. On the more sought after hunts if they were to count the stats by everyone's drops in the hat instead of individual applicants, the figures would be massive.

name a state that you dont have to have a NR license to apply for draws. I spend 2500 a year just in NR license and draws fees

that 3-7% is only applying for top hunts so pressure is higher then appears

Check out the number of applicants at Powderhorn last year. Yikes.

Wyoming

Most western states also have a hard quota for nonresidents meaning that residents only get a certain percentage of the tags in their primary draws. (typically 80-90% of the tags are reserved for residents.

Currently Texans can draw 100% of the tags because there's not a hard quota like other states.

1) everyone keeps saying that the 3-7% of NR are applying for the top hunts. Where’s the data for that?

2) name a state where you can apply for every tag offered in every unit

1. It's only speculation

2. No where

Not everyone. We are quoting your figure in the responses to you. So did you did not find that figure in published data. Did you just make it up?????

1)why would a NR put in for ABILENE SP, I used your figures

2)oklahoma but you have to purchase a NR hunting licenses. Draw options includes pronghorn, elk, turkey, and deer

The fact that a non resident can apply for every permit offered (every tag in every unit) would even more justify a different fee, license requirement, or quota for non residents. Some states go so far as to not allow non residents to apply for the better more sought after hunts and only allow residents to apply. For example only Arkansas residents can apply for both Arkansas private and public Elk permits. And IMHO this would be a viable way for Texas to handle non residents by disallowing non residents to apply for a percentage of hunts that have the highest number of applicants. Thus the ones that would be most impacted by a high number of non resident applications, for example the bighorn draw, chap trophy deer, and oryx mason mountain exotic draws.

That 3-7% number of non residents drawing hunts makes no sense. A survey would not give a result in a range. It would be given as a single percentage. The true figure may fall within that range, but presented that way, it was most likely made up by someone.

Well, I donated my money again...

I got my data from the public hunting program of TPWD. Y’all keep complaining about NR instead of looking at the real issue.