Did my open records request on drawn hunts. here are some select results on the most popular hunts. loyalty points shown are the group points if that was the entry.

Chapparal - GDE. 8,063,525 entries (down about 500,000 from 2023)
20 winners - average loyalty points were right at 20 years. range was 8-38.
Odds to win with 20 years of loyalty points - 2%, 10 years under 1%

Chapparal - ADE. 922,660 entries
60 winners - which is double the amount posted in the draw hunt catalogue. average was 8.6 years. range was 3-16 (started the archery division 16 years ago).
Odds to win with 20 years - 54%,10 years - 7%.

Big Bend - MDG. 2,365,243 entries
13 winners - av. loyalty points 12.5 with the range being 3-18 (started division 18 years ago)
Odds to win with 20 loyalty points - 4%. 10 loyalty points - 1%.

Big Bend - AMD. 267,500 entries
12 winners - av. loyalty points 7.6. range was 7-9
Odds to win with 20 years - 36%. 10 years - 4%

S Llano - Exotics. 3,987,404 entries
20 winners - av. loyalty points 15.6. range was 5-19.
Odds to win with 20 years - 4%, 10 years - 1%

the odds to win are calculated by the number of entries, divided by total entries, multiplied by the number of spots available.

My recommendation - take up archery if you want to go to the really popular units or stay healthy.

My opinion is that running this out into the future on these popular hunts and you are left with a bunch of really old people waiting for the other really old people to die in order to get drawn. A person with 30 years of loyalty points gets an extra 2,791 entries the following year with the cube system - so it is going to just get harder and harder to get drawn early. The Chapparal had over 6,000 people put in for the hunt - and granted these folks are putting in for other hunts as well....but my guess is that if you have 20 years of points you are holding out. There are 280 folks with 20 or more years that didn't get drawn for the Chap. Several folks with 40 years of loyalty points in that draw.

Thanks for the info! Interesting. So these totals are all entries, not numbers of people. Took me a minute to figure it out lol. Makes me even more grateful that my son drew a Youth tag in Big Bend !

yup. TPWD draw system is a disaster.

INIGO MONTOYA said:

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Chapparal - GDE. 8,063,525 entries

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I would love to know what % of that 8MM is from out of staters

A couple hours ago I asked a TPWD staffer how many out of staters participate in our draw.

Non-res make up about 10% of entrants.

the biggest problem that exists is that you have over 6,000 people putting in for 20 hunts for the chapparal. i should do some of the other less sought after places for comparison.

I've got mixed feelings about the cubed system - looking at the number of folks that have been waiting for 30+ years to get drawn at the Chap makes you feel for them. took me 25. i think you are still going to have that problem going forward.

charge the hell for out-of-state. every other state does it to us.