Montana 2025

[3nails]

Back to rattling whitetails in the NW corner. Crazy to me how few hunters take advantage of the area.

It’s because there whitetails

Yes definitely inferior to blacktails. But greatly superior to donkey heads. 

[Doublelunger]

Partner (hunting) and I drew the deer elk combo. It'll be my first time hunting MT. Pretty stoked about it. Going to mostly focus on archery elk and then rifle deer later in the year.

[Threewolves]

Now that I know I can move on to plan B to Z.

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[ganghis]

Looks like the draw stats are out.  For 2025 NR big game combo, 2pts had 84% success rate, 1pt had 0% as expected, 0pts had 53%.  That's down from 90/0/57 last year, but not down as much as I thought it might be

[dvolmer]

Looks like the draw stats are out.  For 2025 NR big game combo, 2pts had 84% success rate, 1pt had 0% as expected, 0pts had 53%.  That's down from 90/0/57 last year, but not down as much as I thought it might be

. The reason it's not down more is more and more guys are going over there to do a DIY hunt on public and/or block management lands and finding out the hunting wasn't the experience they thought it would be.  Montana is a tough hunt now if you don't have a secret honey-hole or access to some private land. Lots of guys go over with stars in there eyes and come home frustrated with not much to show for it and it wasn't cheap either.

[dreamingbig]

Looks like the draw stats are out.  For 2025 NR big game combo, 2pts had 84% success rate, 1pt had 0% as expected, 0pts had 53%.  That's down from 90/0/57 last year, but not down as much as I thought it might be

. The reason it's not down more is more and more guys are going over there to do a DIY hunt on public and/or block management lands and finding out the hunting wasn't the experience they thought it would be.  Montana is a tough hunt now if you don't have a secret honey-hole or access to some private land. Lots of guys go over with stars in there eyes and come home frustrated with not much to show for it and it wasn't cheap either.

Your logic is a little off.  The tags were HARDER to draw this year, not easier.  More folks put in than last year at both the 2 point level and 0 point level.


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[Karl Blanchard]

The system is working exactly as they want it to. Play the points game and hunt every other year, or gamble on the zero point pool and cross your fingers. There were less applicants overall this year. It's been a slight decrease annually since the covid boom.

My personal advice if a guy really wants to hunt is plug it into your app strategy as an every other year tag 

[Sakko300wsm]

The system is working exactly as they want it to. Play the points game and hunt every other year, or gamble on the zero point pool and cross your fingers. There were less applicants overall this year. It's been a slight decrease annually since the covid boom.

My personal advice if a guy really wants to hunt is plug it into your app strategy as an every other year tag 

That’s pretty much what we do and it’s been working out- horn tags every other yr , B tags in between

[baker5150]

The system is working exactly as they want it to. Play the points game and hunt every other year, or gamble on the zero point pool and cross your fingers. There were less applicants overall this year. It's been a slight decrease annually since the covid boom.

My personal advice if a guy really wants to hunt is plug it into your app strategy as an every other year tag 

That’s pretty much what we do and it’s been working out- horn tags every other yr , B tags in between

Same   

We also hit the Alt list whch can be favorable.  3 out of 4 of us had our number hit last year.   Gues who the 4th was that didn't 

[Sakko300wsm]

Haha! Yep we do hit the alts list as well - can work out good

[Tbob]

Looks like the draw stats are out.  For 2025 NR big game combo, 2pts had 84% success rate, 1pt had 0% as expected, 0pts had 53%.  That's down from 90/0/57 last year, but not down as much as I thought it might be

. The reason it's not down more is more and more guys are going over there to do a DIY hunt on public and/or block management lands and finding out the hunting wasn't the experience they thought it would be.  Montana is a tough hunt now if you don't have a secret honey-hole or access to some private land. Lots of guys go over with stars in there eyes and come home frustrated with not much to show for it and it wasn't cheap either.

I’ve been one of those DIY guys for the last 6 years. I always have a great adventure. I usually have a buck and B tag with me. I still always see more deer in A day in MT than I do all season in WA. It might not be as good as it used to be, but I still think it’s some pretty great hunting out there.

[pd]

The system is working exactly as they want it to. Play the points game and hunt every other year, or gamble on the zero point pool and cross your fingers. There were less applicants overall this year. It's been a slight decrease annually since the covid boom.

I guess that I am still confused about the MT system.  (By the way, as noted above my partner and I did draw the big game combination, with 2 points each.)

For the 2025 statistics (posted earlier by Ganghis), an applicant with 1 point had a 0% chance of drawing the combination, but someone with 0 points had a 53% of success??  Did I get that right?  I am completely new to this, so I approach this with open eyes.  Could somebody explain this to the thicker ones amongst us (to me)?

[Mtnwalker]

The system is working exactly as they want it to. Play the points game and hunt every other year, or gamble on the zero point pool and cross your fingers. There were less applicants overall this year. It's been a slight decrease annually since the covid boom.

I guess that I am still confused about the MT system.  (By the way, as noted above my partner and I did draw the big game combination, with 2 points each.)

For the 2025 statistics (posted earlier by Ganghis), an applicant with 1 point had a 0% chance of drawing the combination, but someone with 0 points had a 53% of success??  Did I get that right?  I am completely new to this, so I approach this with open eyes.  Could somebody explain this to the thicker ones amongst us (to me)?

There is a percentage of tags that are set aside as a random draw for non-point holders. Since they are preference points and not bonus points, the point holders draw from the top down, so the one point holders are ineligible for the random pool but don’t have enough points to draw on preference

[mburrows]

75% of the non resident tags go people with the most preference points and 25% are set aside specifically for people with 0 points

So if there are enough applicants with >1.5 point and they consume the 75% then those with <1.5 don't get a tag.

[Threewolves]

Randy Newberg had a video on Fresh Tracks explaining the 2 pt/ 0 pt thing.

I think Mt figured out a total amount of folks applying and figured out this method of spreading success out over a couple of years so you are at least drawing every 3, 4 years. It keepe that 35.00 processing fee coming every year from everyone applying.

Newberg plainly explains in other videos how MT Fish and Wildlife is built of the backs on non residents hunters.

This year with one point added, it was 1,450.00. Looks like I am getting mine back unfortunately


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