2020 Hunting Draws May 26th/2020 9:00AM
 

Finally!

You mean they open then right?

hmmmm….what do I put my draw in for...this pandemic has my waistline shrinking.....need meat....hmmmm

Already??? I haven’t given them any thought this year..

Here it is straight from Albertarelm site.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020 9:00AM Big Game Special Licence Draw opens.
Important: 2020 Wildlife Certificate is required to apply.
Thursday, June 18, 2020 11:59PM Big Game Special Licence Draw closes.
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 9:00AM Big Game Special Licence Draw results available. (Excluding Antelope)
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 9:00AM Big Game Undersubscribed information available.
Saturday, August 1, 2020 9:00AM Fall Licences available.
Saturday, August 1, 2020 9:00AM Big Game Undersubscribed licences available.
Tuesday, August 5, 2020 9:00AM Antelope Draw Results available.
Monday, August 10, 2020 9:00AM Landowner Licences available.

when is the draw booklet available?

Do they have it set up that you can apply for draws and buy your wildlife certificate at the same time?

Oh man, sweet to see this info.
my first year to put into draws after living in Saskatchewan. Everyone buy their wildlife certificates.

Interesting that wildlife certificate is needed to apply.
Wonder if it is just for the primary applicant?
So to add 3 other family or friends to the main app, would their wildlife cert info be needed?
Will see on May 26 I guess.

TBark

Same situation here. Is there any chance to draw here anything the first year?

Its possible. Look up the draw statistics, you can see what priority was required last year to draw each tag.

Very small chance, but it is there

Yes you can...if you are willing to put in the miles.

If you can get it on zero points you can likely also get it as undersubscribed and keep the point.

Get the harvest reports and draw summaries from past years. Break out google earth and spreadsheets.

This is a result of the proposed changes from 2019 booklet for 2020 season (page 4 of booklet)

"PROPOSED CHANGES Alberta Environment and Parks is considering the following changes for 2020.
Beginning in spring of 2020, in order to reduce draw wait times and encourage draw applicants to actively hunt in the upcoming season, hunters must purchase a Wildlife Certificate prior to applying for a special licence draw. Currently, approximately 25% of draw applicants do not purchase their Wildlife Certificates for the year of application, which, depending on the type of draw, may increase draw wait times."

Based on the proposed changes the WC must come before the draws, so it could perhaps be moments before, but must be before.

Page 4 from 2019 draw booklet:

PROPOSED CHANGES Alberta Environment and Parks is considering the following changes for 2020. Beginning in spring of 2020, in order to reduce draw wait times and encourage draw applicants to actively hunt in the upcoming season, hunters must purchase a Wildlife Certificate prior to applying :test: for a special licence draw. Currently, approximately 25% of draw applicants do not purchase their Wildlife Certificates for the year of application, which, depending on the type of draw, may increase draw wait times.

Yes I believe they would be required, it said every applicant must have a wildlife certificate in order to apply for special draws.

I would assume that it would be needed for everyone, if not it would defeat the whole point of making people buy a wildlife certificate.

I'm sure a good portion of the people in the draw system that don't buy tags is because of group applications. Honestly, the whole group applications seems like a big loop hole anyways. It's great because I can 999 all of my draws and add three more people all for the price of one application. Why wouldn't you add family/friends to your applications? They can all build priority for free. Even if they don't ever plan on using it, once they have enough priority they can draw a tag and partner with a youth or senior. When it comes to cow moose I'm pretty sure they can partner with any family member. It is a lot of priority gained at a huge discount.

I'm not sure if the wildlife certification requirements will actually reduce the number of people in the system, or if it will just generate more funds. Either way, if they don't make it mandatory for every applicant, I think they would have definitely missed their mark.

Our current draw system definitely has ways that it can be taken advantage of. Now it might just cost more money.

I guess time will tell.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

So an additional $30 for ur W cert is going to make these 25% of people hunt ?
Then would 999 apps be exempt from pre purchasing a wildlife cert?
Cus priority apps/ 999’s would not fit with the logic of this new rule.

Selfish reasons for asking as I’m stuck abroad and less than 50/50 chance that I’ll be home for the fall,
but if it’s an extra $30 for my 999 apps, no biggie.

TBark

Thanks tbrown, u posted as I was also.

Only online now as I understand it

LC

priority only point
 

I personally would like to see the priority only or as us old guys know it as '999' have at the very least a $25 surcharge added to it. i feel this would make folks apply for the draws instead of just building needless priority points. i would also like to see draws that are upwards of 5 yrs or more applying have a portion of the tags made available as random draws. for example, 10 tags available for a draw period and have 2 of those tags made available at random for all that applied. that may make folks apply for the draws, instead of just hanging around and for less than a dollar, build priority to just clog up the system. maybe these tags needs to be purchased at time of drawing as well. just ideas, not trying to start a riot.
i would also like to all users of public lands need to have at the very minimum a WIN card and i personally think that they need to buy a wildlife certificate. that would be all random camping folks, OHV users, and recreational hikers.. more could be added to that list as well.

I like the idea of a few random lottery tags. Gives everyone a glimmer of hope.

As far as priority only or “999” applicants, you and many others obviously just don’t get how others using it benefits you. By not applying for the actual tag and going priority only, many hunters draw their tags years after what it would’ve taken if they just applied for the WMU every year. This allows other hunters to jump ahead of them and draw more frequently. Eliminate the priority only applications and wait times will increase since everyone will be pulling when it’s their turn as opposed to letting others pass them. Will probably also result in more wasted tags where guys put in their draws and end up with 2-3 special license tags for different animals throughout the province and only have time or money to do one of them seriously. And if people 999 forever what’s the difference? It doesn’t clog up the draw system. It has no effect.

There’s improvements that can be made. I think purchasing the wildlife certificate prior to draws is a good start. Although I think it’ll just generate more revenue when grandma has to purchase a WC for a cow moose application even though she only plans to partner for that specific tag every 4 years and not buy a license in the other years. Probably won’t do much for wait times.

I would assume just the person entering the draws on behalf of the others would need to purchase their wildlife certificate. I doubt they would make me pay for the wildlife certificates for the 6 different people I apply for draws with. I am curious how they will do it though. I guess it is possible they would make everyone log in and buy their wildlife certificates before you could do group draws but that sounds like a pain in the ass to coordinate.

They did last year. I remember doing the whole shebang at once.

I to am waiting for the 2020 online draw booklet to review prior to applying.
However when I check the site the only online version is the 2019 PDF version.

Where is the online 2020 draw booklet posted?
Is the draw booklet for 2019 applicable to the 2020 draws?

It would make sense that if applying as a group each member of the group would need to pre purchase their wildlife certificate prior to the group leader entering the draw.
We apply in groups of 4 to get priority only or in groups of 2 in the live draw and that's the way we are treating the situation, everyone get their wildlife certificate and the one guy does the draw entries, I think it will work.

Yes it is my understanding that you won’t be eligible to enter draws until you have your own individual WL Certificate purchased. So every entrant in the group would require that before being able to enter a draw.

LC

it is a tax grab. What is next?

I’m 100% ok with having to buy a wildlife certificate in order to apply for draws
Was far to easy to just add people because it was essentially free

I’m not necessarily opposed to the new regulations, but I know of multiple people (my mom included) who only apply for antlerless moose and only by a wildlife certificate in the years they are successful for the draw.

I’m priority 13 for moose....
 

Question; does my hunter host have to have the same priority as me? I’m a BC resident and would like to apply for a moose draw. I’d like to have my father host me, he hasn’t bought a tag for quite a few years.
Is this possible?