As with anything there are pros and cons of the points game. My recommendation to you is to not sit on points for years and years and years. Go hunting. If you have a few years while you’re in grad school that you know you can’t hunt, it obviously makes sense to accumulate points while you’re doing that. If you apply to a few states that you can draw a tag with one or two points (Colorado and Utah for example) you can alternate hunting them every year. If you want to choose one or two states to wait for a really premium tag that’s great too, but you should have realistic expectations. For example, starting to build points now, you are NEVER going to catch up with the maximum points pool in any state. So don’t expect to one day draw an AZ strip tag with points. Gohunt is a great tool to figure out what and when you can draw but keep in mind that point creep is always changing draw odds in any desirable unit.
States with no point system (Idaho and New Mexico) are valuable because you have the exact same odds as anyone else that is applying. But you can’t really count on drawing a tag like you can in a state with preference points like California or Colorado. Just keep in mind, every state has a different system and it can be very confusing. Services like Epic Outdoors and GoHunt can be nice to have for reminders, information gathering and advice.
