ONline deer apps

[harvey lee]

They will be available on May 13th.

[maros91]

Put my app in for the muzzleloader season. Probably going to be awhile till I get drawn but you got to start sometime.

[harvey lee]

Don't forget your apps, it will be to the deadline shortly.

Good luck to all.

[marine_man]

Deadline is June 5th!

Good Luck!

marine_man

[fishin58]

I crossed the river, I put in for the muzzleloader and rifle. When/how do you find out if you got a tag? I put in for way out west, so the chances were pretty low. When can you put in for the local tags (if there are any that is)

[KEN W]

There are no local tags in ND.After the first 2 draws,there will be a third draw for any tags left over.Basically only antlerless.

GNF has stated that they will do the draw the last week in July.You can find out if you got a tag by going to their HSOforum then.What zone and species did you apply for.I can pretty much tell you what your chances are if you can tell me that.

[LMITOUT]

Do gratis tags now count towards the overall number of available tags in each unit? I understand that the law was changed but never fully heard how it applies to the lottery. (This is also the reason for the delayed drawing this year.)

[harvey lee]

I believe those tags are counted. They could have the lottery in Sept as one cannot go hunting until Nov unless you pull a extra does tag and I might guess there will not be many of them in most units.

I have always had any extra lottery doe tags before the archery season opened.

[LMITOUT]

The reason for the delay is due to having to process the gratis apps and verifying property ownership. It created a lot of unanticipated legwork last year so they pushed the lottery date back this year to provide extra time to get that completed.

I'm just trying to find an explanation of how gratis tags relate to lottery tags.

[KEN W]

Gratis tags have always counted.The difference this year is that landowners have to decide if they want a gratis or enter the lottery like everyone else on the same day.About time they leveled the playing field.Landowners can still get a gratis after the drawing IF there are any left over.....almost always doe tags.

There won't be any second tags this year.Same last year.A far cry from 3-4 or so years ago when you could basically have as many as you wanted to pay for.

[LMITOUT]

Alright I finally found the wording in the updated proclamation and was what I had surmised.

I'm not sure how I feel about how they are handling gratis tags now. Emphasis and discussion is always on the reduced number of overall tags, but this magnifies that reduction even more...depending on the unit and number of gratis apps, of course. However I can see how the old system made management a little more difficult.

[LMITOUT]

Gratis tags have always counted.

Refresh my memory...before this change couldn't you go in, say, a week before the season opened and buy a gratis tag?

[KEN W]

Up until this year,you could get a gratis tag and shoot whatever you wanted,right up until the season opened.You could enter the lottery and if you didn't get what you wanted,you could then get a gratis.Not anymore.

[LMITOUT]

That's what I thought but it's been quite a few years.

My next question is how gratis tags "always counted" if they were never processed at the time of the lottery?

Every year they would say that Unit X has 'Y' number of licenses available. Didn't that mean that there were 'Y' number up for grabs for the lottery? Then any gratis tags would be on top of that?

[fishin58]

4e=ice cream cone in you pick the spot

[harvey lee]

I would guess LMIT that they know almost exactly the number of gratis tags that go out year after year. That number could be factored in with the lottery even with the number of available doe tags.

This is what I assume and not fact.

[KEN W]

I would guess LMIT that they know almost exactly the number of gratis tags that go out year after year. That number could be factored in with the lottery even with the number of available doe tags.

This is what I assume and not fact.

I would guess that is true.Everyone who wanted a gratis,got one.No matter if the total licenses went over the number issued for each zone.

[LMITOUT]

Everyone who wanted a gratis,got one.No matter if the total licenses went over the number issued for each zone.

That leads back to what I mentioned last night...the recent reduction in the total available tags due to the low deer population is even further magnified now that gratis tags come out of that pot of tags as well.

If all of this is accurate, that means my chances of pulling a NR tag are even worse. I'm going to need about 32000 ping pong balls to even have a chance. Ha.

Not sure how the change "levels the playing field". All it's done is reduced the chances of EVERYONE to get a tag and appears to have more to do with sour grapes and landowner envy.

[KEN W]

This kind of info is public information.You can contact our GNF and ask how many tags are still available for the drawing after gratis tags are counted.

This year it would be a guess because of the new way to give out gratis.

But it is still only 1% of the total buck tags available in each unit after the gratis.I know of some units in the badlands that have no mule deer tags left over after gratis.NR landowners take all of the 1%.Which is 3-4 tags.

The big game biologist told me that there are quite a few NR who have no chance to draw a mule deer buck tag and are only contributing $5 to our GNF.

[Scoot]

If all of this is accurate, that means my chances of pulling a NR tag are even worse. I'm going to need about 32000 ping pong balls to even have a chance. Ha.

LMITOUT, I thought you were a resident of ND? ...or are you just speaking in the hypothetical? Just curious.

Sadly, I'll be a NR in a month or two. That's going to SUCK! I grew up in MN and loved it, but now that I've lived in ND for a decade I realize how stinkin' awesome it is. I'll miss it and I'll miss dealing with concerns like those in this thread. ND may not have it perfect, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of many states...

[LMITOUT]

Been applying for a NR tag for the past three years. I would probably have a better chance in a different unit but want to hunt in my "home" unit which only has 4-5 NR tags available.

I know the odds are slim so I don't get very disappointed when I don't get pulled. One of these years my ship will come in.

[Scoot]

Gotcha. I know guys applying for CO elk tags who have 17 preference points (that's almost two decades of getting preference points!) and they can't pull a tag in their desired unit. Given that they are applying for a unit that only has one NR hunter each year, there's a high likelihood they'll either die first or they'll have to switch units. In a few years they'll have 20+ preference points and literally no chance to draw. At least ND has a bonus point system so there's "always a chance" (like Dumb and Dumber's "So you're sayin' there's a chance").

Good luck! It's frustrating not pullin' a good tag once in a while!

[harvey lee]

I do not believe I have ever went 3 years without a NR rifle tag. I apply buck-buck and maybe I am just lucky.

In the last few years with the deer herd down like it is, this will get much more diffuclut to draw a tag every 3 years.

In the past 2 years, I have noticed the deer coming coming back nicely from the low it was a few years ago after the hard winters.

With that said, I have not been noticing in person or on any trail camera's, the larger mature bucks that that will also come back in a few more years with avg or easier winters.

I agree it can get frustrating nit drawing a tag but since I hunt archery also, I still can get to ND plenty of times so not drawing a rifle tag does not hurt near as bad.

With all this said, it still depends alot on what zone u are applying in and how many tags are availabe as the percentage are low for the NR hunter.

I have no problem waiting 2-3 more years for a rifle tag as it will just increase the herd size and in the end, better quality bucks. I love the fact ND has a preference system or drawing a tag every 2-3 years would be almost impossible for me.

[KEN W]

ND has a good point system.I agree in that whitetail buck tags aren't so tough to draw.Mule deer buck tags are a whole other ballgame.It takes most residents 4-5 years to draw one.That's when your chances really go up.Took me 5 years to get a mulie buck tag.Hopefully I can get 1 more before I'm to old to physically do it.My name goes in 3 times this year.

4 years is 65 chances and 5 years is 126 chances.

[harvey lee]

I have heard Ken that the mulie draw is a tough one. I guess if the herd was larger, less time to draw a tag.

IN the area I hunt, we do not have any mule deer. In 26 years of hunting there, one year I did see 1 mule deer bounce accross the road. I have seen more moose