Originally Posted by
mallardman76
Ok, so I am completely new to hunting, tried to read the Utah Big Game guidebook and my head is spinning. I want to hunt elk and possibly deer. It appears that the Bull Elk permits are part of the big game drawing? Can you get a permit the first year you try? Does it take a couple of years to draw the permit? How does it work?!?!? Also buck deer permits, how does that draw work? I am a resident of Utah.
If you have zero bonus points I highly recommend you apply in NM, MT, CO, AZ, NV, MT even ID before you even consider UT. UT has an anti-nonresident climate. They just raided the nonresident tag pool and put half them in a resident raffle which you must go to SLC to apply. All with horrible draw odds. They also divert 100 tags for auction. There's only 5% left for NR, half of which go to the max point pool, which you will never attain. And the points are cheap to buy so everybody buys, making the 50% random draw odds horrible. Was once a great state to apply in, but now it's down there with Oregon. Don't get in their game now. My advice. You will pay one hell of a lot of money for the priveledge to NOT hunt.