Nevada Big Game Applications: Strategy, Bonus Points and Hunt Choices

Still working on your Nevada big game applications? This week on Nevada Wild, Aaron Keller and Bobby Jones sit down with Data and Technology Services Administrator Matt Maples to talk all things big game draw strategy ahead of the May 13 application deadline.

The crew breaks down how Nevada’s draw system works, common mistakes hunters make when selecting hunt choices, why bonus points matter and how hunters can improve their odds by taking advantage of opportunity hunts and all five hunt choices.

Matt also shares insight into how the application process works behind the scenes, what hunters should be paying attention to before the deadline, and why getting your application submitted early can save a lot of stress later on.

Whether you’re a first-time applicant or a seasoned hunter looking to fine tune your strategy, this episode is packed with useful tips before Wednesday’s 11 p.m. PST deadline.

Apply for tags at ndowlicensing.com or call 855-542-6369 for assistance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Nevada Wild, brought to you by the Nevada Department of Wildlife. I'm your host, Aaron Keller, joined by co-host Bobby Jones. Special guest today in the room, Matt Maples. He is the division administrator over our Data and Technology Services Division. Thanks for coming in, Matt. Hey, thanks, guys. Appreciate you having me in. Yeah, we're uh we're very lucky to have Matt. It's the busiest time of year. Safe to say, right? Busiest time of year for you. Pretty safe, yeah. Yeah, we're in the middle of our big game application, kind of coming to the tail end of it, actually. Um lots of discussion about big game application uh strategy, things like that. We've recorded, I think, four or five podcasts over all the different species. Um pretty much what we talk about all day, every day this time of year. Um Bobby was uh throwing together some numbers, and we're like, well, we should just definitely get Matt in if we can. We recorded a great podcast a year ago. Um still have all very relevant information. So if you want like to double down on listener podcasts, just pull that one up, and we'll probably link it in the um description of this one. But um, how's it been going? Let's start with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

It's good, it's going really good. We have uh some extra days in the application period this year, so we've given hunters um an extra week or so, I believe, to get their applications in. Uh apps are due by 11 p.m. May 13th, so coming up real quick here. Um still some time. We've got a uh commission meeting May 8th and 9th, uh, where the commission will be setting the final quotas uh for this year's hunting season. So some people choose to uh take a look at the final quotas and adjust application strategy based on that. Oftentimes there's some changes between what the department's recommended and what the commission approves, and uh those that are are in the know and paying attention, you know, may take a look at that final commission regulation and make some adjustments to their applications because things can change a little bit. Um we're gonna run the draw uh later this month and results will be released on or before May 29th.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, we've been uh watching, we have a dashboard that we watch and we can kind of see as applications are coming in, and it's been kind of a little hard for us, not hard, I guess, but it's been funny to watch that because we have six more days in the application period, and we know that hunters that apply for big aim in Nevada are procrastinators. So we know by our experience over the last however long we've been able to look at this, is that in the last like four days, it really climbs, and uh but yeah, over the last few days we've seen it kind of start to tick up and so the the pressure is on at this point.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Yeah, it's uh the applications per day is coming up pretty good. Um, but typically what we see, like you said, Aaron, those last three or four days. I mean, we may go from you know four to five thousand applications a day early in the application window to fifty thousand, sixty thousand applications a day. So yeah, people procrastinate. Uh some people wait and see what the recommended quotas are, wait and see what the final quotas are coming out of the commission meeting. And so, yeah, those last three days it gets really busy.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah, I think it's also a testament to how smooth our system runs. Um, can you kind of go through a little bit like I don't know, you don't have to get into the details too much, but like how it is to apply in a matter of like what are some of the steps?

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Yeah, it's real it's real easy. Um, my view and what we consistently hear from haunters is they like the way our system is put together. Um you just go to end all licensing, apply for tags, enter in your residency information, and then you can make your hunt choices, you know, either using kind of a menu on the left-hand side that shows the units, or you can select them from a really nice map on the front page, and so people can see exactly what they're doing. Um, once you select your species, uh you get shown that map view, you pick your unit groups, and then that pulls up another menu where you get pick your weapon choices and your seasons. So whether you're going for an illegal weapon tag or an archery tag, uh you make those selections, it shows you your hunter choices as you're moving through the application process, and then you know, you submit and move on to the next species.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, the uh the homework that you can do beforehand, uh just to kind of take one quick step back, is like we've talked about in the last like five podcasts is like go to endile.org, click on top ten resources uh for big game, and you'll be able to do all your homework. You can get all these bonus point tables and all this great information. Once you get to end out licensing and you're you know on this map, it's like it's very quick to be able to put your choices in and then you're done.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Oh yeah. Yeah, all the time comes in kind of selecting your choices and determining the order of your your hunt choices, you know, what you're gonna have as your first choice, and then so on and so forth. At least that's where I spend my time. I know I've got kind of either a spreadsheet or scribbles on our reg book, kinda depends on what kind of mood I'm in. And then I go from my notes and by the time I'm ready to put them in the applications, it's you know, a couple minutes and you're you're done. Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

What and I don't know if it's a credit to us or Gordon Darby, but I really appreciate that my last year's choices are saved in there. Not because I don't have an idea of what it was, but just to know where I finally landed, because I like to tweak them kind of the last couple days. I'm one of the weirdos waiting for the quota recommendations to be finalized, but just kind of tweaking stuff and to find out, hey, what did I do last year? And everybody gets to see that. So for those that know exactly what they want to do and it's the same every year, you just click right on through.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Yeah. If you're not making adjustments from your previous year's applications, it's super fast. I mean, you're you're done, you just use your choices from the previous year and you're on your way.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, so what these guys are talking about is what we like to call the easy button. Right? So it shows you last year's choices. Yep, stick with last year's choices. My dad loves that option. So he's like a guy that's very much in the rut of like this is what he wants to put in for where he wants to hunt, and so he loves that part.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

And you can adjust them too. And so even if you select use your choices, it'll bring them up, and then you can continue to modify so you can, like Bobby was saying, you can see exactly what you did last year. Um, but that doesn't lock you into those choices at that point. You can remove a choice, add another season um or another hunt choice, and you know, still tweak what you did while still getting the benefit of the easy button.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, and I would encourage you to submit your application sooner than later. Get it in, and you can always adjust your choices. You can log back in. If you hear, if you're and we've said a bunch of times, if you're talking to somebody at the ball field and you're like, hey, where'd you apply for? And they give you a hot tip, you can always go back in and adjust and add choices or whatever you want to do.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

So yeah, Nevada's kind of unique in that we allow you to modify your application right up until the very end. Um, and unless you're gonna withdraw or really change something up, um, you know, as long as you're just adjusting choices, you can you can do that right to the end. Um, you don't repay the application fee or anything. You just get in, adjust your choices, and so you'll see a lot of people get their choices in, they submit an app, then they'll pay attention to the commission meeting or get a hot tip from a buddy, go back in a few days later, um, right up to the deadline and adjust those hunt choices.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

I think the only caveat is is if you buy a bonus point, you can't then switch to choices. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

So Yeah, that's what kind of what I was alluding to. That does require you to withdraw an application and then reapply.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yep. And then Nevada is um I mean, over the last handful of years at least, the number of opportunity I guess hunt opportunities or application it number is like going up and up and up, it feels like.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Oh yeah. Yeah, we just added it up. You've got uh potentially, you know, if you if you're interested in hunting all species and you're, you know, gunning for silver state tags or PIW tags, which are partnership and wildlife tags, you can have up to twenty-seven different applications uh per person. Some of them, of course, are pretty long odds. Um quotas for Silver State PIW tags are are pretty low. Um, but those are like golden tickets. I mean you those you've got a lot of flexibility in where you get a hunt and the seasons that you get a hunt. There's differences um with each of those programs as to how flexible they are and where you can and can't hunt and the time of year and the weapon. Um, but in general they provide a ton of flexibility, really amazing opportunity for an everyday hunter to have, you know, essentially the equivalent of a heritage tag. Um that's kind of how the Silver State tags are uh modeled. And you put in for all those, you know, up to five different opportunities for elk, counting, you know, Antulus elk, spike elk, uh, depredation hunts, um six opportunities for a sheep tag this year, if assuming you're not in a waiting period for one of the tags, uh all kinds of opportunities. We're um guy at the office and I were talking earlier, and you know, there's always this, oh man, my buddy's always asking me how, you know, why is this person getting all the tags or why does that guy get a tag every year? And when you when you look at it and you start talking to those individuals, it's because you know, one person is putting in for two or three applications, you know, maybe they got a mule deer hunt and a pronghorn hunt and elk hunt, and the guy that, you know, quote unquote is getting tags every year is submitting fifteen, twenty, twenty-five applications, and every one you add, you've got a chance to draw.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Right. And when we look, we've done um several big game application seminars, and uh, you know, you got from both ends of the spectrum as far as like people that don't know anything, people that are really in the weeds, but um when you start really digging into the the guy's application that has not drawn tags, it's usually comes down to a few things. They're either picking units that are really hard to draw, and they're just picking a bunch of those, or they're not putting in very many applications, right? And so you can use the strategy of like some species putting in harder units, and then to make sure you get a tag, you go to some more of the opportunity hunts, you know, the spike, the horn shortene ears, those type the cow, those type of things, and then then you get a tag.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

I've got one one more person who doesn't draw a lot of tags is the person who puts in ten apps a year, but they buy points for everything.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Really hard to draw.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Really hard to draw.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

One or one hundred percent uh rejection at that point for the year.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

It's a good long-term strategy, but eventually you want to start applying.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Yeah. Yeah, and for some hunts, and I think we talked on this a bit um last year around the same time, is especially for species like our our bighorn sheep, do not buy bonus points for 15 years or 20 years and then start applying for an actual hunt and expect to draw. Um, the number of people trying to get those tags versus the quota is you know, there is a big difference between the applications and the number of tags that we're able to issue for those species. And so you need those every year, even if you've got, you know, a 1% chance of drawing, or 2% chance of drawing or less, you need 20 years of applications while accumulating the bonus points in order to have a better shot at drawing that tag. One year or two years at a high point level is nowhere near as effective as twenty years of consistent hunt applications.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah, it's uh I guess uh you're not gonna draw if you don't play. Right?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

So When you you brought up something really fun last time, Matt, that I wanted you to kind of reiterate was talking about how people say it's a desert bighorn sheep tag that they're applying for, and what you saw in the data of what that was kind of coming down to for the people who were drawing and the people who you could say on paper could have drawn, but how they structured their application they didn't.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Oh yeah. Yeah, and so we we kind of did a deep dive on that a while back because we we were getting questions on it, and you know, we like to kind of track how hunters are applying for tags, you know, with the with it in mind is like what can we do, what can we provide as far as educational resources um to help folks out, help them be more successful, give them the best chances that they have. And it was it was kind of surprising um a year ago when we pulled some of this data, and this is specific to Desert Bighorn, is we had over two hundred resident applicants didn't draw only because of their hunter choice selections, because of the units uh that they put in for or the way that they ordered them. And so essentially what I'm saying is they had a low enough draw number to be in in the money, but based on how they structured their hunt choices, uh they weren't awarded a tag. Um a number of those people only put down one or two or three hunt choices. And so it wasn't so much a factor of like, hey, I gave it my best chance with five choices and my number wasn't good enough, you know, for one of those, or just the way the different, you know, the draw iteration works and depending on what others ahead of you in line put in. It wasn't it wasn't related to that, it was simply you didn't put all five choices down or you really misordered your choices is another thing that that we'll see. That's another mistake. It's a little bit different than what you're talking about, but it is another mistake that we see. Um one hunter in particular, uh, when we were pulling some of this data had the fifty-seventh best draw number out of, you know, a couple ten thousand applicants, so in the in the money for sure. But he only had one one hunt choice selected, and it was one of the higher demand hunts in in the state, so makes sense, right? His first choice was solid. Um but but there's a lot of other really good desert bighorn sheep hunts, with a second choice he probably would have drawn.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

He could have drawn almost anything else. Almost anything else. Yeah, wow. Because the 57, yeah, that's wild. That's a sad story. So for all of you at home who only have one choice, maybe you know, stretch it out this year and pick two or three and don't be that person.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yeah, not I mean, not I don't want it to sound like I'm I'm picking on the individuals that do this, because some people get it in their mind that's like, look, this is where, you know, this is where my mom or my dad had their sheep tag, and you know, I've got I I'm just gonna wait, and that's where I want to hunt, and that's what's important to that person. Like totally great individual choice if that's kind of where you're at and that's the decision that you make, but you should make it knowing that like you're excluding yourself from you know potentially getting a sheep tag. These things are really sought after, you know, statistically, far more people will not draw the tag than will draw the tag. That's pretty self-evident. Um and so when you make those selections, and whether it's bighorn sheep or mule deer or elk or whichever, you know, you only start putting one or two hunter choices in and you're really limiting your opportunity to get a tag. And you may be passing up some other really good tags um in pursuit of that one unit.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah, the way I think of it, I guess I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but I w I want to go hunting and you know, part of the problem with trying to get the best tags in the state is if you wait long enough to get 'em and it's hot or you roll your ankle or whatever, right? Like it's hunting, it's not um it there's no guarantees, it's just it'd be it'd be better to go more often and, you know, have the experience.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Definitely with uh species like deer, right? We talk about that all the time. Is I would rather have a tag in my pocket even if it was a harder tag or a primitive weapon or something like that. I'm I'm a guy that wants to go hunt, so um, but we hear stories all the time about people wait and wait and wait just for the one unit and then something happens and you know, you're like, Man, you missed out on all those chances to go hunting and make memories and do the thing, so Yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

I mean w wildlife and habitat conditions, you know, weather conditions, it's all so dynamic, right? And so what could be a really good hunt one year under, you know, really desirable conditions, you know, say you're hunting one of our later season mule deer hunts, and man, when it snows early, it is just a phenomenal hunt. Um what if it doesn't snow?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

And so you may have, you know, a really desirable tag, but then you don't get the weather conditions to really make it you know, the hunt that it's intended to be or the hunt that other people have experienced and you've given up a lot of other opportunity um banking on, you know, that snowstorm that really k kicks things off. Yeah. Or the weather conditions that make it you know, make it that top tier choice.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Not to like uh dig in too deep on your personal choices, but um ha this year being a drought year, or like not drought, but like pretty dry year, have y did you change up your units a little bit this year? Or are you pretty stand like a guy that kind of picks the same thing every year?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Uh I go back and forth and so you know I've got my units um that I like, uh that I know or that I haven't hunted but I want to explore. Um, but I keep tabs on, you know, shifting patterns of success rates, uh shifting pattern, moisture patterns, and so I look at our the top ten resources that we publish. Uh 'cause some of the units that I applied for, you know, six, seven, ten years ago that were really great units at the time, you know, have maybe slipped a little bit or maybe have been surpassed by some other units just based on uh fires, habitat conditions, uh things of that nature. And so I I tend to kind of keep tabs on the last couple of years of success rates or you know, if it's mule deer the four pointer better, yeah. And really try to kind of take that into account. I see, you know, I I I see applications or I talk with people that say, Oh, you know, this sheep tag is the sheep tag to have. Of all the desert bighorn tags, this is the one.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

And I find that sometimes those individuals are absolutely correct, and then other times they're thinking about stories that they heard or photos of other hunts from ten years ago, and things have changed a lot in in some areas in some circumstances, and that may still be a really good tag, but there may be some other units out there that you know got better moisture in the preceding years and are are kicking out bigger rams or have more robust populations today. Um, and so you keeping keeping current on your data, I think, is really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

For sure, yeah. There's uh the sarcastic kind of comment about some of our check-in, uh like big horn sheep check-in check-in sheets, is like, well, you're chasing dead sheep, right? And it is kind of true, but it's also like you can if you follow it long enough, you're gonna see the trend. So they're kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

There's trends, and then you know, I don't say that to you you kind of you're calling me out a little bit here.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Projecting forward or looking backward, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Yeah, so I'll I'll divulge is just because the checkout summary shows that, you know, five out of five RAMs uh or five Rams out of five tags, you know, we're all great RAMs. Um doesn't mean that I'm gonna put in for that unit. Right. I may look for the unit where it's like, yeah, there's good cheap there, and like for whatever reason, maybe success wasn't as high. And so I'm gonna play the contrarian card in this situation and have that on my list. Yeah. Not saying I do that all the time, but yeah, there are two sides to that. Is like there are there are kind of trends that you should pay attention to, but yeah, don't don't just chase dead sheep.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Yep. And taking a step back, I don't know if we talked about it yet, but just Matt, when you look at one of your applications, pick the species, how do you structure your choices or what do you think about how it how that's gonna look?

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Great question. And we get this from a lot of hunters. Um, you know, it's we offer five choices, um, which is great, and we go through all five of an individual's choices before we move on to the next applicant. So if your number, you know, your draw number puts you number 10 in line, we look at all of your choices, one through five, in that order before we move on to the next person in line. And so I use two filters at kind of a broad sense when I structure my hunt choices. And one is where do I want to go? You know, what units do I want to hunt? What country do I want to revisit? What country do I want to explore that's new? And then I also look at the draw odds and really focus on like the harder a hunt is to draw, I want that higher in my hunt unit selections. And so if I'm picking a hunt that's you know really high demand, 2% draw rate, 10% draw rate, I put that as like my first choice, my second choice, and then I move down the list so that by the time I get to my fifth choice, that's the easiest tag to draw based on draw or on the draw odds. And that's really important because then I've got a shot with all five choices. We see applications where people will put you know a archery hunt as their first choice. And by all means if you just want to hunt you know one of our units for an archery tag and that's what you want to do put it as your first choice. If you're open to or you want to also have opportunities for a muzzloter hunt or any legal weapon hunt you know or a later season hunt a real high demand tag don't put that as your third choice or your fifth choice and have that archery hunt as your first choice because you're never even going to get evaluated for for that. If there's no tags, you're either going to draw the archery tag or if your draw number is not good enough to draw an archery tag, you're certainly not going to draw a high demand any legal weapon tag.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Yeah and that doesn't matter the species right plays out the same way. And I know I don't think we touch on this e either but just you want to give people an idea of how the draw works in terms of where you get your spot in line. Okay. How that's assessed.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Yeah and so with the bonus point system um I mean there's we we follow states, I apply in a number of states as probably many listeners do, our bonus point system I think is is really good. It's not a true preference system. So bonus points, the way that the system assigns you your random numbers is bonus points are squared and then you get one additional random number for that current year in the draw. So if you've got three bonus points for deer um you're gonna have ten random numbers three squared plus one ten random numbers. And certainly as you get into you know elk or sheep or something where maybe you got fifteen, twenty twenty-five points, the number of random numbers you're going to be assigned by the system grows tremendously. Um once all of the once each application, so your deer application, your pronghorn application, you get your ten random numbers in this example for each kind of each category the system looks at that table of assigned numbers and pulls the lowest one that you have. Because the rest of them at that point they they don't matter. You know if you've got ten random numbers and you've got you know one of them is a ten and the next one is ten million like the one that's a ten is the only one that counts. And so those get pulled as the lowest number and that's what gets evaluated. All of those the applications with all the lowest random numbers get listed in order and then the system just goes one after another in order starting at zero essentially moving down the list. And when your name comes up the system looks at your hunt choices and the number of tags that are still available for that hunt choice. And if there's tags available you get awarded the tag and here's where the the ordering of hunt choices becomes important. Say with my first choice there's no more tags available. I didn't have a low enough draw number to pull the tag then it goes through to my second choice and it again looks at the remaining tags for that hunt and either awards me the tag or doesn't award me the tag and continues through choices three, four and five.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

And I I like that you're going through that only because it helps frame up why your bonus points matter and how more is better. Right more points more random numbers more chances at a lower random number to get closer to the front of the line and that's essentially the closer you are to the front of the line the more likely you are to get a tag makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

I mean I think it's great when I've got low point balances because that means I drew a tag in the preceding I was joking the other day I said I hope I never get another bonus point because that means I'm drawing tags. It'd be one busy year. I know but it but if that hasn't happened uh then definitely way higher odds the more points you have like I would rather have a lot of points um than you know either not buy the hunting license and not get awarded the bonus point or skip a few years or or whatnot like more bonus points always increases your chances to get a low number uh which always increases your odds in the draw.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah always buy a license get the points I so so one thing that people don't think or there are some people out there that don't know this but you have to buy a license to gain a point right to acquire points. So in Nevada we do give people the option to say purchase only if successful um I wouldn't recommend that but if you do need to save a few bucks that's that's an option out there for them but if they're unsuccessful they won't gain a point.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

So um yeah if you're not if you're not gonna award get awarded a tag and you're gonna be unsuccessful in the draw you definitely want to get a point. Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Start playing the game and just build in points.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

The next year you're gonna be ahead and the year after that you're gonna even be more ahead.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

So Matt when you came in you have a whole bunch of papers in front of you. I don't know how if we've gotten to everything you've wanted to get through but we have Oh we haven't gotten to a quarter I know so we have a few more minutes but um is there anything on there that's like low hanging fruit maybe we should start or chipping away at some of this stuff. I know we got a number of opportunities draw bonus points um anything else on there?

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Yeah I think you know um one of the other things that I we're kind of thinking about bringing up was you know we get questions from hunters that look at so we publish all this data, right? Hunt success, draw odds. One of the tables that we publish is some bonus point distribution data. So how many bonus points number of people with that number of bonus points. And the question that we occasionally get, especially kind of thinking about sheep tags or, you know, antler to elk tags is we'll get someone that calls in and says, Man why are all these people with like ten to twenty points drawn tags I've got twenty five points and like there's n you no one got a tag with twenty five points or more. All the tags and maybe it's a lower quota unit goes to everyone in this like ten to twenty bonus point category. Like what gives? And it's really a factor of like how many the sheer number of people in that middle bonus point class. And so it's it's very much a bell curve, particularly with sheep is like we have got a lot of people in that ten to twenty bonus point range. And their individual odds of drawing a tag are way way less than someone with thirty points or twenty eight points. Like that that's just math. That's just how the system runs with like that there's nothing that's going to change that. But as you get into that twenty plus bonus point category, particularly for sheep and elk like there's just fewer of you that have that many points. People have aged out, they've drawn tags you know, they're they're no longer interested in going after you know a sheep tag or whatever the reason is but there's a there's a sizable quantity of people with lower bonus points and so the way that that kind of comes across as hey there's more people drawing tags with 10 to 20 points than with more than twenty points is, you know, there's uh way more people and so collectively as a group they get issued way more random numbers and that increases the odds that some of them are good enough to draw tags. Um individually their odds of drawing a tag are far less than the individual with twenty five or twenty eight or thirty bonus points. And so it's not to say I think people look at that and they're like well you know there's really no advantage to having more than fifteen bonus points. And like it it's mathematically incorrect. People don't like to hear that but like mathematically it's it's just not it's not true.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

You do not want to trade places if you have 25 points with someone with 15 points.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Absolutely absolutely not it's just that there's a lot more people with 15 points than there are people with 25 points. But the guy with 25 points has got way better odds of drawing the tag.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I mean I'm not the best at math but that makes sense to me like there's way more people kind of in that middle of the bell right if you think about a big bell way more people in the middle there's you know fewer people on the low end fewer people on the high end and like the the masses are going to get the larger quantity of the tags.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

But the cool part is is no matter where you're at on the bell curve you've got a shot. Like even with the one point or no points you've got the one number. If your number's low enough you're looking good.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

And it's one of the that's one of the things I personally love about um Nevada's bonus point system is you get rewarded for every year that you are unsuccessful and you get a bonus point and you get more random numbers and like we've been talking about this we all agree that's a good thing. Um but the person coming in fresh got one point or two points they're still in the draw they can still draw the tag. They don't have the draw odds you know quite as good a draw odds as the person with twenty bonus points but like they're still in the draw and they could still get that winning ticket. And so I think it's really really cool. It's a good system. You reward people that you know have been applying with us for um many years but the people that are brand new still have a chance at drawing the tags and we see it every year. And that's also where some of these questions come from is you know the person sees Man I have twenty five points and you know some guy with one bonus point drew a sheep tag like what gives? And it's like well there's you know three of you with twenty five points that put in for this unit and there's two hundred or a thousand people with less than six points that put in for this unit. And so your individual odds were really really much better but collectively as a group it just happened to go into a lower point class because there's there's a higher number of people there. Um we pulled some data on sheep and I think to demonstrate this point um you know customers in the the like the twenty-six plus bonus point category receive many thousand percent more tags than those in the zero to six category yeah it's that that part when when you threw out that number earlier it was hard for me to wrap my head around you're talking exponential odds of drawing over somebody that has less than six points.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

So pretty wild anything on your notes Bobby that you want to touch on before we I think I just had the one plug for non residents that I wanted to get in there was um if you know young people that might want to hunt here in the future a pretty inexpensive non-resident youth hunting fishing license for fifteen bucks, get 'em going, get 'em started. Uh the other thing, just non-residents in general, when I when I'm talking to hunters that call in and they're talking about how many points they have and things, I think, you know, sometimes maybe they have a long-term strategy for Nevada and they want to draw the best tag if they're gonna go out there. And I would I would encourage people to look kind of at the middle tier. It often gets overlooked to kind of their detriment. It's a it's a 90-10 split, so about 10% of the tags are going to non-residence. No matter how many tags there are overall. And uh I just think our our middle tier hunts even are I mean you could call them lower but really high quality hunting experience. And if you especially if you have the time to dedicate um and can spend a good amount of time in the field, I'd encourage people to apply for some of those um some of those hunts and take a shot at it, burn the points.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

Yeah and we've spent a bit of time today talking about you know sheep and really high bonus points and these high demand hunts and we touched on it earlier but I would not want to walk past all the cool opportunity hunts that Nevada offers. Um because that's how that's how you get to go hunt as many years as you can um while you're waiting for that you know once in a lifetime sheep tag fill all those in between years with some cool opportunity hunts. Get out in the field with your family, with your friends, you know go enjoy Nevada have a good time, bring home some meat. There's all kinds of really neat opportunity hunts that are easier to draw um and and still get you out having a good time.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

For sure like the uh the strategy there is to you know swing for the fences and then also kinda head your bets a little bit and like hopefully you get a tag and you're out in the field with something. Um I would also encourage people to uh to not shy away from primitive weapons. Like there's a lot of stuff in Nevada a lot of hunts that are super fun great time to be outside out in Nevada. You can mix it up with fishing you can um upland game hunt you can do like a bunch of different things all at the same time September in Nevada is my favorite time to be outside um so I've definitely skewed all my choices to be in September so that's for a bunch of different species but um particular for deer I I love being outside in September you just said that you're out of office for one month September I wish I wish that's the goal every year but you know um and then I didn't want to skip over that Matt your job in the department we've talked about it on podcast before is I mean you handle the call center so you handle the boat desks all that type of stuff um the just so I don't mess it up what is the phone number that people call if they have questions to ask?

SPEAKER_03 37:23

It is 1-855-542-6369. That's the hardest trivia question that I'm gonna throw at you why I put the uh book right in front of me because I I just thought maybe it's coming and I wanted to not mess it up. Right so you're in charge of that all that stuff and um are there any other frequently asked questions before we wrap it up that are that are getting thrown out um there's uh we get quite a few of them and we went through um we published a bunch of them uh last year I believe as we went through kind of pulled what is most frequently coming through the call center as far as questions that that customers have we got them written down we provided answers to them I think we were talking earlier you know we'll drop a link to that FAQ in the show notes or whatever we got to direct those it's available on the licensing website uh you can find the FAQ on there and certainly it'll walk you through some of what we talked today and then also more of the nuts and bolts of walking through the application process. So step-by-step guides if you're running into you know something that's just not really panning out for you know it's probably answered in that FAQ. Certainly not to dissuade anyone from calling the call center uh we're we're pretty highly staffed up right now um assisting people and making sure that um you know whether they need help getting logged in or you know going through the application process something like that doesn't doesn't trip them up uh so we're staffed up we've got people you know taking phone calls helping customers uh we'll be on that call center uh right up until the last second of the application period and then probably even a little bit beyond um 11 p.m is the deadline and so we'll have that call center staffed uh with you know as many people as we possibly can right up until the deadline so if you're on the way extreme of procrastinating which I would not recommend you do but if that's the situation you find yourself in and it's uh 10 30 on the evening of May 13th and you're trying to get in your application and you're running into trouble you can call us and we will be there.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Yeah when you say we and us like it's actually endow employees on the phone. You're not farming this out to somebody else. This is our people answering the phone all day, every day all the way up till the deadline and uh super knowledgeable they they know what they're talking about. They can help you out. They have seen it before so a lot of experienced people and uh definitely appreciate all their hard work because help tickets and things like that that come in like there's some intricate stuff that goes on and and um there definitely no I mean all the right answers for sure.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

Yeah yeah we've got awesome people answering phones um you know some of them this is they spend a lot of their time answering phones all all year long helping customers with various things uh the department does you know whether it's a licensing or a vessel question something like that and then man as we get towards the end of the deadline boy we pull from all kinds of people we got um biologists and people from con ed um all kinds of divisions that are knowledgeable about the application process hopping on phones and helping out so it it kind of comes to an all hands on deck a lot of real good energy you know real positive let's get get get customer service let's provide really good customer service as people are calling in and so it's kind of a cool process the last couple of days and especially that evening it gets pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Yeah for sure and then uh if you are kind of an in-person type of person we we help out with getting applications in and in a few of our field offices so Reno Elco and Vegas um but I would not wait until the end if you're gonna do that. If you need help come on in uh we'll we'll definitely help you out and uh yeah we've got extra laptops set up at uh at most if not all of our offices um and so if you don't have a computer at home or you're just having some difficulty navigating the process come on into an office we've got a computer set up that you're free to use we've obviously got staff that can can help you out answer any questions sit down on the computer bring in your paperwork and get that application submitted yep well thanks for coming in Matt thank you guys thanks Bobby for adding to the convo and uh yeah thank you everyone for listening again that's ndotlicensing.com and the phone number to call is 855-542-6369 or go to ndot.org and click on uh hover on hunting and then drop down will be top ten big game resources tons of info there do your homework then when you go to submit your choices makes it easy and uh tag us in all your photos uh hopefully everybody's find some success in the draw and um have a great fall so thank you everyone for listening that is it for this week's