Playing the Odds

Doug Leier posted on February 23, 2009 10:31 :: 2863 Views

The application period for North Dakota moose, elk and bighorn sheep licenses is on the horizon. While the prospect of drawing one of these once-in-a-lifetime “big three” licenses is mostly a long shot, thousands of hunters are eager to participate every year.

Even if a weighted lottery were in place, many hunters would still never get one of these licenses in their lifetime. On a regular basis, I field calls from some of these hunters who have applied every year for 20 years or more, wondering why the same weighted lottery system used for issuing antelope and deer licenses is not used for the big three.

That’s a good question. In theory it would seem like giving a preference to those who have applied the longest without success is a fair system. In short, people who have applied for a moose license for, say, 25 years would have a better chance than someone who was applying for the first time. However, in actual practice, the dynamics of the moose-elk-sheep drawing are not quite so easily applied to a weighted system.

Most of us understand that thousands of hunters have applied for moose, elk or sheep licenses for many years with no luck of the draw. If the current weighted lottery system used for deer were implemented moose, elk and sheep, essentially you and most of the people you know would still have your name in the hat a similar number of times, and statistically your odds of drawing a license wouldn't increase much.

Even if a weighted lottery were in place, many hunters would still never get one of these licenses in their lifetime. For instance, last year the chance of drawing a bull moose license in unit M10 was about 400 to 1. With a weighted lottery in place, 399 of those hunters would have a bonus point this year. In 10 years, if everyone kept applying, you’d have 390 prospective hunters with 10 bonus points for each bull license available.

That said, the odds are not nearly so long in every unit and for every license type.
Here's a quick rundown of last year’s big three numbers: 142 moose licenses available and 13,647 applications received; 575 elk licenses available and 14,345 applications received; and six bighorn sheep licenses and 10,423 applications recorded.

It’s easy to see how far hunter interest outweighs hunting opportunity, but Jerry Gulke, North Dakota Game and Fish Department data processing coordinator, has a few interesting numbers relating to odds of drawing elk or moose licenses, depending on the unit and hunter preference for a bull or cow license.

“If you apply for cow tags, the chance to draw is similar to drawing a mule deer buck tag in many units,” Gulke said. “There were cow elk licenses left over in unit E4 after the drawing last year. They were issued through an additional drawing.”

Last year, odds for cow elk in unit E1 was 3.4-to-1. In E2 it was 1.8-to-1. The best units for a chance at a moose cow license were M9 at 6.3-to-1 and M10 at 7.5-to-1.

While many North Dakota hunters may never receive one of the big three licenses, it’s important to plan as if you will be successful. "Hunters need to think about a few things, even before applying,” says Randy Kreil, wildlife division chief for the Game and Fish Department. “If you've never been to the badlands, our elk hunts in North Dakota are not like deer hunting. A success rate of 40 percent for elk is considered very good, especially when looking at other states. If you take a room of 10 hunters and tell them, six of you will be unsuccessful, that's hard for North Dakota hunters to swallow."

License vendors should have paper applications by the second week in March. The Game and Fish Department’s online application feature should be active by about the same time at gf.nd.gov.

Statistically speaking there's no shortage of issues to consider, but hopefully you'll better understand the process of the allotment for our big three tags.

Doug Leier