TPWD Drawn Hunts

[bossbowman]

I agree with everyone here that the system is garbage. I haven't applied for much since they started the new system. Anything that is decent is less than 2% chance of drawing and the stuff that has the best odds of drawing (10% is good now) isn't even worth showing up for.

Some changes I would like to see:
1. Make nonresidents pay more for each application like every other state. I'm talking 5-10 times as much which would be on par with other states.
2. Raise the cost to apply for residents to $10-$15 to make people think about what they are applying for instead of just randomly picking 25-30 hunts that look a little interesting to them.
3. Only let people apply for one hunt per category the way it used to be. This will obviously decrease the amount of money spent on applications but that could be offset by doing #1 and #2.
4. Require a credit card number to apply so that as soon as you are drawn your card is charged. This is how most other states do it and it would get rid of all the 2nd drawing garbage so the process would be streamlined.
5. Make the hunts longer! One week should be the bare minimum for everything. Some of these hunts are two days with one day being taken up mostly by orientation. Its not worth is to me to drive 8-10 hours then pay $80-$160 for basically an afternoon and a morning of hunting. I realize that these hunts give staff extra work. There is very little need to have staff on site for the entire hunt other than to check animals, which I feel should be the responsibility of the hunter to take their animals to the office to be checked. People hunt WMAs every day across the state without direct supervision.

That is about the best compromise I've seen, if more people would call and email tpwd and complain about the new system, maybe the ball could get rolling on some changes, there is a better way. I voiced my disgust of the unlimited applications per category to tpwd but I'm afraid it fell on deaf ears, they are blinded by all the more $$$ they're making.

[SolocamShooter]

I blasted the new system in the feedback survey they sent out and I'm going to let them know again.

[SolocamShooter]

I went ahead and sent an email to the director of public hunting. I don't know that it will do any good but they need to hear how dissatisfied we are about the way they are managing hunts on OUR land. I had been pretty much silent up until now because I assumed they would be working on fixing problems for the first few years. Im pretty patient but its been several years and it seems like it gets worse every year. By now I had hoped they would have some kind of decent system in place.

Will you please post up his contact info?

[Shane]

Here's the deal: It's a drawing, and the vast majority of the applicants aren't gonna get drawn. If folks complain about not being drawn for one reason or another, but they continue to send in their applications and money each year then there is no reason for TPWD to change much. The purpose of the system is not to provide hunting opportunities for everyone that would like to hunt. The purpose is to provide a means of killing enough animals off the state-owned lands to keep the game populations in balance while also providing some much-needed revenue for TPWD to continue to be able to manage all the wildlife resources for the state.

Rather than having a draw system to allow a few lucky folks the opportunity to hunt, they could choose to let TPWD employees go out and shoot all the deer that need to be taken off of every place each year and donate the meat to the needy. That would solve the game management issue, but it wouldn't provide any funding for TPWD. They'd have to go up on hunting license fees or something to make up for that.

There are valid criticisms of the current system, of course. Felix40's ideas are good, in my opinion. But, no matter how they set it up, the vast majority of the people who apply for hunts are not gonna get drawn. There are more people now than there used to be, but there is not more land to hunt on. There's nothing TPWD or anybody else can do about that. A few years ago, there were no private land drawings in the TPWD system. Now there are. Not many, but there are a few. Hopefully they'll be able to add more here and there. But it's hard to compete for private land hunting rights and keep it cost effective when landowners can get a lot of money in lease fees from individual and corporate hunters.

Texas is never going to be the best state for public land hunting, because there isn't a lot of public land to begin with here. But we have a ton of private land available to lease. I prefer that to public land hunting personally. Yes, it costs money. But having exclusive access is very nice. To me, it's a good trade off.

[Deers & Beers]

I blasted the new system in the feedback survey they sent out and I'm going to let them know again.

So did I and everyone I know

[ultrastealth]

Here's the deal: It's a drawing, and the vast majority of the applicants aren't gonna get drawn. If folks complain about not being drawn for one reason or another, but they continue to send in their applications and money each year then there is no reason for TPWD to change much. The purpose of the system is not to provide hunting opportunities for everyone that would like to hunt. The purpose is to provide a means of killing enough animals off the state-owned lands to keep the game populations in balance while also providing some much-needed revenue for TPWD to continue to be able to manage all the wildlife resources for the state.

Rather than having a draw system to allow a few lucky folks the opportunity to hunt, they could choose to let TPWD employees go out and shoot all the deer that need to be taken off of every place each year and donate the meat to the needy. That would solve the game management issue, but it wouldn't provide any funding for TPWD. They'd have to go up on hunting license fees or something to make up for that.

There are valid criticisms of the current system, of course. Felix40's ideas are good, in my opinion. But, no matter how they set it up, the vast majority of the people who apply for hunts are not gonna get drawn. There are more people now than there used to be, but there is not more land to hunt on. There's nothing TPWD or anybody else can do about that. A few years ago, there were no private land drawings in the TPWD system. Now there are. Not many, but there are a few. Hopefully they'll be able to add more here and there. But it's hard to compete for private land hunting rights and keep it cost effective when landowners can get a lot of money in lease fees from individual and corporate hunters.

Texas is never going to be the best state for public land hunting, because there isn't a lot of public land to begin with here. But we have a ton of private land available to lease. I prefer that to public land hunting personally. Yes, it costs money. But having exclusive access is very nice. To me, it's a good trade off.

It's true that most hunting for some species in Texas takes place on private land, but there are exceptions like alligator, where the only way most people will ever get a chance to hunt them is through a public drawing. I think they should implement all of the above suggestions. I have hunted in several western states and Alaska, and I can tell you that they suck out of state hunters dry. Texas should reciprocate.

[Shane]

It's true that most hunting for some species in Texas takes place on private land, but there are exceptions like alligator, where the only way most people will ever get a chance to hunt them is through a public drawing. I think they should implement all of the above suggestions. I have hunted in several western states and Alaska, and I can tell you that they suck out of state hunters dry. Texas should reciprocate.

I absolutely agree with that. We roll out the red carpet for out of state hunters here, and we get treated like crap when we want to go to other states, especially western states.

[SolocamShooter]

Here's the deal: It's a drawing, and the vast majority of the applicants aren't gonna get drawn. If folks complain about not being drawn for one reason or another, but they continue to send in their applications and money each year then there is no reason for TPWD to change much. The purpose of the system is not to provide hunting opportunities for everyone that would like to hunt. The purpose is to provide a means of killing enough animals off the state-owned lands to keep the game populations in balance while also providing some much-needed revenue for TPWD to continue to be able to manage all the wildlife resources for the state.

Rather than having a draw system to allow a few lucky folks the opportunity to hunt, they could choose to let TPWD employees go out and shoot all the deer that need to be taken off of every place each year and donate the meat to the needy. That would solve the game management issue, but it wouldn't provide any funding for TPWD. They'd have to go up on hunting license fees or something to make up for that.

There are valid criticisms of the current system, of course. Felix40's ideas are good, in my opinion. But, no matter how they set it up, the vast majority of the people who apply for hunts are not gonna get drawn. There are more people now than there used to be, but there is not more land to hunt on. There's nothing TPWD or anybody else can do about that. A few years ago, there were no private land drawings in the TPWD system. Now there are. Not many, but there are a few. Hopefully they'll be able to add more here and there. But it's hard to compete for private land hunting rights and keep it cost effective when landowners can get a lot of money in lease fees from individual and corporate hunters.

Texas is never going to be the best state for public land hunting, because there isn't a lot of public land to begin with here. But we have a ton of private land available to lease. I prefer that to public land hunting personally. Yes, it costs money. But having exclusive access is very nice. To me, it's a good trade off.

I don't think anybody expects to get drawn every year but the new system is rediculous. I wish I had saved the books over the years to post up the numbers. I know you've gotten lucky and had success through the system, other people are tired of it. The entire playing field needs to be leveled the way Felix posted. When you have one guy entering 28 times and another 3 or even 1 for whatever reason it screws over everybody once you multiply it by the number of all the people that do it. The drawing odds are through the roof in the wrong direction. It seems like everyone would be on board with being proactive and trying to get the system changed so they have a more reasonable chance at being drawn in the future. And they have the land and means to add a lot more hunts they just don't. There was a article in the paper here last season about how the USFS and TPWD were spot lighting and killing 100+ doe a year off the DCNF for research purposes. That's fine but why can't they incorporate that into a permit based deal where the hunter kills and donates the deer, gets the meat, and they get what they need for research. They don't because they don't want to manage it.

[Bowhuntamistad]

It's true that most hunting for some species in Texas takes place on private land, but there are exceptions like alligator, where the only way most people will ever get a chance to hunt them is through a public drawing. I think they should implement all of the above suggestions. I have hunted in several western states and Alaska, and I can tell you that they suck out of state hunters dry. Texas should reciprocate.

Non residents are always brought up in these discussions. How many NRs actually apply and/or draw these hunts. Are they really taking up that many permits it has to be a talking point or is it just something to complain about? Where are the numbers to see what resident/NR draw rates are?

Just curious...



If you guys really want to go there, the state should also designate a certain percentage of permits as NR only, just like other states. Can't draw those now....think about it. Odds are now even lower with fewer tags. Careful what you with for.

[Felix40]

Will you please post up his contact info?

I don't know if this is the guy who would care or be able to change anything but his title suggests that he might.

Justin Dreibelbis
Private Lands and Public Hunting Program Director
(512) 389-4395
justin.dreibelbis@tpwd.texas.gov



For those of you saying the system can't be made better, you are incorrect. We had a system before that limited the number of entries substantially. The odds then were around 10-30% for all of the hunts I used to apply for. Now those odds are around 1-6%. So its not just some theory that we have about making draw odds better. IT USED TO BE THAT WAY. I don't know about you but I prefer to apply for 4-5 hunts that I REALLY want and have a decent chance of drawing one every other year. Currently people are applying for anything and everything even if they don't really want it just because they want to increase their odds.

Anyway, I will leave it alone because its a sore subject for me. I am VERY happy that we have the small amount of public land we do in this state that doesn't require a draw or any kind of permit to hunt. Those places are worth more than almost any of these WMAs so I hope we can hold onto them.

[Etxnoodler]

I don't know if this is the guy who would care or be able to change anything but his title suggests that he might.

Justin Dreibelbis
Private Lands and Public Hunting Program Director
(512) 389-4395
justin.dreibelbis@tpwd.texas.gov



For those of you saying the system can't be made better, you are incorrect. We had a system before that limited the number of entries substantially. The odds then were around 10-30% for all of the hunts I used to apply for. Now those odds are around 1-6%. So its not just some theory that we have about making draw odds better. IT USED TO BE THAT WAY. I don't know about you but I prefer to apply for 4-5 hunts that I REALLY want and have a decent chance of drawing one every other year. Currently people are applying for anything and everything even if they don't really want it just because they want to increase their odds.

Anyway, I will leave it alone because its a sore subject for me. I am VERY happy that we have the small amount of public land we do in this state that doesn't require a draw or any kind of permit to hunt. Those places are worth more than almost any of these WMAs so I hope we can hold onto them.

The problem is people used to complain about paper applications because they were lazy. They were also complaining about only being able to apply for one area because they can't do math and figure it out. So easier to apply + unlimited apps= very very low chances of drawing. Paper applications will never happen again but we might be able to get one app per category back. Also consider that some of these areas are opportunity hunts. They don't necisarilly NEED animals to be killed. They are to increase public opportunity.

[Shane]

I don't think anybody expects to get drawn every year but the new system is rediculous. I wish I had saved the books over the years to post up the numbers. I know you've gotten lucky and had success through the system, other people are tired of it. The entire playing field needs to be leveled the way Felix posted. When you have one guy entering 28 times and another 3 or even 1 for whatever reason it screws over everybody once you multiply it by the number of all the people that do it. The drawing odds are through the roof in the wrong direction. It seems like everyone would be on board with being proactive and trying to get the system changed so they have a more reasonable chance at being drawn in the future. And they have the land and means to add a lot more hunts they just don't. There was a article in the paper here last season about how the USFS and TPWD were spot lighting and killing 100+ doe a year off the DCNF for research purposes. That's fine but why can't they incorporate that into a permit based deal where the hunter kills and donates the deer, gets the meat, and they get what they need for research. They don't because they don't want to manage it.

I've been entering the drawings since 1989, so I've drawn several hunts in almost 30 years of applying for everything in the book each year. But I've had several years along the way where I didn't draw anything at all. Some years it was only a doe/spike hunt or a turkey hunt or whatever. I got super lucky in drawing the bighorn.

Regardless of the details, it's luck of the draw. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. The more hunters there are applying, the more difficult it will be to get drawn. If one guy is entering 28 times and I'm only entering 3, that's not unfair. I could enter 28 times just like him if I wanted to. And if I did, some guy that just entered 1 might get drawn while I didn't. That's just the way it goes. If they returned to being able to just enter 1 drawing per category, the odds would still be lower now than they were years ago, because there are more people entering the drawings now than there used to be. There are more categories and more hunts than there were 10-20 years ago, but the number of applicants has increased a lot more. Population growth....

[Etxnoodler]

I've been entering the drawings since 1989, so I've drawn several hunts in almost 30 years of applying for everything in the book each year. But I've had several years along the way where I didn't draw anything at all. Some years it was only a doe/spike hunt or a turkey hunt or whatever. I got super lucky in drawing the bighorn.

Regardless of the details, it's luck of the draw. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. The more hunters there are applying, the more difficult it will be to get drawn. If one guy is entering 28 times and I'm only entering 3, that's not unfair. I could enter 28 times just like him if I wanted to. And if I did, some guy that just entered 1 might get drawn while I didn't. That's just the way it goes. If they returned to being able to just enter 1 drawing per category, the odds would still be lower now than they were years ago, because there are more people entering the drawings now than there used to be. There are more categories and more hunts than there were 10-20 years ago, but the number of applicants has increased a lot more. Population growth....

It's not population growth. It's ease of application..

[Shane]

It's not population growth. It's ease of application..

Probably both, along with more awareness of the whole draw hunt system too. Even now, every year there are people who are just learning about the draw opportunities.

[grizzman]

I absolutely agree with that. We roll out the red carpet for out of state hunters here, and we get treated like crap when we want to go to other states, especially western states.

That's my main rub. NR pay the same as Residents except for the actual license. Still cheap IMO compared to other states.

I agree with most of what Felix is saying. I can't complain much because I have drawn at least one hunt every year for the last six or seven years. Hope I can continue the streak.