Question Regarding Applying as a Party for Elk in California

[db 183]

I noticed you can apply as a party for elk.

My daughter and I always apply to Grizzly Island Elk Hunts. These hunts usually only have one or two tags per season.

This year, we applied for the spike bull tag since it seems like less people historically apply for that tag and there are two tags.

Neither of us have max points.

So my questions are:

1) Could we have applied as a party since there are two tags? I mean it doesn't seem like you could since usually one tag is random draw and the other is preference points.

2) Would it improve our odds? It doesn't seem like it would. I mean it seems like our odds of one of us getting a tag is increased by us applying separately for the same hunt. Applying as a party wouldn't increase our odds would it?

We don't care if only one of us gets drawn. As a matter of fact, it is better if only one of us gets it, but I was curious. It seems to me if we want to increase our chances, we need to do what we did which is to apply separately for a hunt that has more tags to number of applicants.

 

[slanttop357]

Hi db my son and i are in the same boat, #1 yes u can apply as a party but i think the party leader gets the tag good luck.

 

[DFGELK]

You can apply as a a party but the party leader would get the tag is the quota is only 2. Even if the quota is 3 and there is one tag left when your party is chosen the party leader would get the tag. Your two apps applied as a party are combined and assigned one random number. It does nothing to increase your odds. If you apply separately then each of you get a random number which increases the odds one of you will get drawn. IN a nutshell there is no use applying as a party for quotas of two tags because one goes to max point holders and the other to everyone. Hope that helps and good luck


Joe