Mastering Your Application Strategy

In this episode of the Western Rookie Podcast, host Brian Krebs discusses the intricacies of application strategies for Western hunting. He emphasizes the importance of having a personalized application strategy, which he refers to as a 'Western hunting fingerprint.' The conversation covers how to build an application strategy around priority hunts, navigate state applications, and accumulate points effectively. Krebs also highlights the tools available through GoHunt, including predictive draw odds and the new Insider Plus service, which offers personalized support for hunters. The episode concludes with a reminder of the upcoming application season and the importance of staying organized with deadlines.

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Brian Krebs (00:01.868)

Welcome back to the Western Rookie Podcast brought to you by Go Hunt. Like always, I'm your host Brian Krebs. And today we're gonna do a little bit different episode. We're gonna do, instead of having a guest on the show, we're gonna talk about a couple things that are timely. They are going to help you this year in your application strategies and a couple of exciting new updates that I've come across. we're gonna do a little bit of an application planning.

application strategy podcast, because I get asked a lot, whether it's on social media, on comments, people in my everyday life. How do you know so much about the West? How do you know where to begin? How do you know what states I should apply for? Which states I should build points in? There's a lot to it. And we did an article about this over on the Western Rookie website about application strategy, mastering your application strategy. But everyone

that hunts the West will have an application strategy. You may not know that you already have one. Whether you've thought about it or not, you have an application strategy. It's how you think about what states to apply for. And it's perfect timing because application season is just about to get crazy. We already had a couple. We had Wyoming non-resident elk. We've had Arizona elk and antelope. Now we've got a little calm in the storm before

an onslaught of deadlines start hitting us. If you've got the Western Rookie application calendar, you're gonna see all of those start popping up. We've got a couple small ones right now. I think Nevada Turkey was the other day, a couple other spring turkey ones. But that application calendar is free. It's over on our website. You hear us talking about it every week. Its only purpose is to help you know all of the dates, all of the deadlines, never miss another application.

It's completely free. don't make any money out of it. I just want to help all of our listeners here at the Western Rookie have better seasons and draw better tags. And so now is a perfect time to talk about application strategy, how to master your big game application strategy. If you want the full details, go check out the article. It's a really cool article. It's my first one. So feel free to email us with whatever feedback you have. But when I think about an application strategy, it's like your Western fingerprint.

Brian Krebs (02:20.16)

If you will, everyone's going to have a different take on it. And that's okay. There's not a lot of similarities between people's application strategies because everyone has different goals. I used to have an application strategy that revolved around drawing archery elk tags every year because that's what my goal was. That's what our group wanted to do every year was we wanted to draw that archery elk tag. Now that Abby is out of residency and she's staffing and she's got time to go on some hunts.

completely changed. I don't even think about archery elk right now, because we're doing other hunts together and we're going to come back to elk in a couple years. And so I'm just building points now. I'm not trying to draw elk tags this year. So it can change, it can it can adapt, it can evolve. But it's going to be your Western hunting fingerprint. Everyone's as unique. And so that leaves us with where do I get started? How do I develop this strategy? For me?

Every year I start building my application strategy around my highest priority hunt for the fall. A lot of times, and if you're listening to the show, I'm sure you want to go out west every year. That's the goal. It's once you get there, once you get to that point where you find the vacation time and you find the ways to make it work in your lifestyle, it's easy to keep going. It's much harder to go for the first time. And so if your goal is every fall, you probably have a higher priority hunt.

Like I just mentioned, mine used to be archery elk for many years. Now it's changed a little bit. So whatever hunt you want to go on the most, we start with that hunt. Now for me, this year in 2025, my highest priority hunt is a rifle mule deer hunt with Abby. Abby and I want to do a mule deer hunt. We want to do it with rifles. That's our high priority hunt. That's the hunt we want to go on. We need a tag for that species and that weapon.

And so we start there. And so this is every year you're going to have to do a little bit of work on your application strategy because that will likely change. A lot of times, unfortunately, you can't go back to the same state year after year. There's a couple states out there that you could. But if you're really trying to get the most out of your Western hunting experience, you want to see different landscapes and you want to start hunting better tags, you're going to have to bounce around every year. so

Brian Krebs (04:43.618)

you're going to have to take a little bit of work every year on your application strategy. It's great thing to talk about over the holidays. You're with your family and friends. It's right before application season. hey, what are we doing this year? Do you guys want to do elk again? Do want to do mule deer? Do want to do antelope? What are we doing? And get that started early so you know, I mean, Christmas might not even be early enough. Idaho does theirs in the early part of December. for us, we want to go to rifle mule deer hunts. And then we look at our points.

Look at all the points you have. If you don't have any points, that's fine. You can always do something. But look at the points you have. For us, for Abby and I, we looked, I knew, I knew our hunt was going to come down to three different states. It's either going to be a Montana mule deer, Wyoming mule deer, or Colorado mule deer. That's where we've built most of our points. Abby doesn't have any Utah points. And with, with Abby's work schedule, she has to bid her vacation like six to nine months ahead of time. And so,

We really can't wait till the end and do an over the counter option. We need to know the dates we're going because she has to put in her vacation request very early. And so we need to we need to draw almost certain tags, which is why I love Go Hunt's point or draw odds feature. And they're filtering 2.0. And actually, one of the exciting updates I have for you all, Go Hunt is launching predictive draw odds this year. So after years of doing

some of the draw odds statistics that they've done next Friday. So February 14th, this will be four days after this podcast releases, there's going to be eight preference point states where they'll have predictive odds. They'll have odds on everything else just like always, but in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, and Kansas, those eight states that are that are preference point states, they are going to show a

addictive draw odds row as well. This is going to basically be intended to help you look at point creep. Every year point creep changes and so last year you might have drawn a tag with three points or last time you hunted a unit you might have drawn with three points. Now you go to look and it's not even guaranteed at four points anymore and it looks like it might start to to creep into the five point range. This is what they're going to do. They're going to have a row that says we predict

Brian Krebs (07:11.694)

You know, here was the 2024 draw odds. Here's what we predict 2025 draw odds are going to be. You know, maybe it'll say in Colorado for whatever unit five points 2024 draw odds 75 % 2025 draw odds prediction 52%. Now you have a good idea. It's gonna be backed by a lot of data, but it's a prediction. It's not going to be guaranteed. But then you can say, well, if it's in the 50 range, do we want to roll the dice? Do we have a backup option?

For us, we don't have backup options. We need to draw this tag. We need to know what dates we're gonna hunt. And so we like to bank on guarantees. And so for us, we looked at the three states and it turned out Colorado Mule Deer is going to be the state where we have the best opportunity with the points that we have. And so we're gonna build our application strategy in 2025 around Colorado Mule Deer. Now I also have to apply for North Dakota Mule Deer and I say have to in air quotes.

because in North Dakota you have to apply to keep building points and I've built five or six points now because I used to live there. And so I'll have to put that in as well if I want to keep adding to my points. If I draw that tag then I just view that as a bonus hunt. I'll have to find a time to go on that hunt. But Colorado is the guarantee, not the guarantee but the priority and we want to draw that. So.

Some people you have to decide is your high priority hunt swinging for the fences on a limited entry tag. There's places like Wyoming, New Mexico, over the counter, random odds, stuff where you can try to really swing for the fence. Like New Mexico doesn't have a point system. So all of them are random odds. It's a lottery. Utah has a very small portion of the tags that are random.

Same with Arizona and Wyoming. So you could swing for the fence on some of these great units, but then you're kind of left needing a backup plan. Other folks like to have a very secure option. it depends on where you are, but plan out your main hunt first. Now, if you like to swing for the fences, you can always use over-the-counter tags as backup options, especially for elk. It's a little trickier for antelope and mule deer. There's just not as many over-the-counter options for those two species.

Brian Krebs (09:21.592)

There are some units that are zero point units that don't sell out and you can always try to use one of those tags, that's kind of the, elk it's easier with mantelope and mule deer. It gets kind of tricky to leverage backup options for over the counter tags. It's just, there's not a lot of them out there. So we had a, we actually did a post, go look it up on our social media channels. It's actually on our two bucks channel. So Brian underscore two bucks and Instagram, but we did a.

There's a hack. There's a way you can stack a bunch of elk applications in a row that you continually put in different applications to swing for the fence yet still have a backup option. So for elk, it's a perfect example. You have to do your non-resident Wyoming application first. Even if you don't have enough points for the general in Wyoming, if you are dedicated and you really want to go elk somewhere, I suggest putting in because there's always a random aspect. I think it's about 10 % of the tags go to zero point holders in the random draw.

And so you have to do that one by January 31st. Then you can do Arizona Elk and you can really swing for the fences in Arizona because you have that general option as one backup and you always have Colorado over the counter as a last resort. So then you swing for the fences in Arizona. Arizona's results come out right before the Montana and the Colorado deadline. So then if you don't try Arizona, now you come to Montana and Colorado.

In Colorado, it's a preference point state. So you really should know if you're going to draw or not. But you might be at a point where you have like seven points and you want to hunt and the unit you're looking at breaks at the seven point mark, which means 50 % of seven point holders draw the tag. You could swing for the fence and see if you draw that tag. That might be better than Wyoming General. Or you switch to Montana, you try to do the Montana big game combo or the elk combo and then try to draw a limited entry permit in Montana.

If you don't draw the permit, you can elect to return your big game tag, your general tag, and then you're nothing. If you draw the big game combo and then you draw your limited entry permit, that's like a limited entry tag. Either way, then you withdraw your Wyoming application. have until the last, you have until May 8th to withdraw your Wyoming application. So.

Brian Krebs (11:39.81)

You could either do Colorado or Montana. can't do both because they have about the same time period and you shouldn't really need to. You should really know if Colorado is an option for you or not using the Draw Odds tool on GoHunt. So now you get to Wyoming. If you drew Arizona, Colorado or Montana, you withdraw your Wyoming app and you're not on any money. If you didn't, you leave your Wyoming app in. If you have enough points for general, you'll draw the general tag. If you don't, you hope for the random.

Now if you don't draw Wyoming either, you can always hunt elk in Colorado as an over the counter or one of the zero point archery units. And so that's how you hunt elk every year but still swing for the fences. That can be your application strategy for elk. We've tried it before, we've done it before. I have never applied for Arizona actively but it's a good option. So that's one way you can kind of build in some limited entry swinging for the fence into your application strategy. One second.

Brian Krebs (12:41.9)

need some more caffeine for y'all. So once you have your main season, your highest priority hunt plan for the year, you got you got that strategy, you got the group, you got your what applications are going to do. The next part of your application strategy is just deciding which states you're going to start investing in and building points in. So this is a this is where the application strategy really takes on kind of the fingerprint.

a mindset because a lot of people do the elk application stuff. A lot of people apply for Wyoming general do all that stuff. But everyone's different on what states they build points in. So if you're new to the Western hunting game and you're just looking for like, want to get started. I don't have an unlimited budget. Very many of us don't. Where do I begin? I know I want to hunt elk. I know I want to do this.

I know I'm going to try to, I think we're going to go to Colorado over the counter this year because we don't have any points yet, but in the future I want to build points. Where do I start? What states do I build points in? Well, we say it all the time. There's three states that are fundamental in building points. Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. If you build points in these three states, you will have the opportunity to basically hunt elk every year for the foreseeable future by utilizing some Idaho

over the counter and some Colorado over the counter. You can also do all three states have good antelope hunting. They all three states have good deer hunting as well. Colorado is the king of mule deer, by the way. those are the three states. They're also the cheapest states to build points in per point. So that's what I recommend. If you can afford all three, I would afford all three for the species you're interested in. Now, be careful. You don't need to buy sheep.

points, moose points, goat points, bison points, all of those things before you start investing because most states that's hundreds or $200 a year, look at the draw odds, go out to go hunt, look up the draw odds for some of those hunts and start doing the math on if that's worth it. I think right now, some of those sheep and goat tags are maybe once in a lifetime, most people probably don't even draw after an entire lifetime of applying. And so

Brian Krebs (14:59.97)

Be very mindful of those. But deer, elk, antelope, and those three states is a good choice. So from there, you have to decide if you want to put any points in the long-term elk. So when I talk about application strategies, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana could be your short-term. It could be a mid-term. And sometimes it can be a long-term, but it's not the best. So what I mean by short-term, mid-term, long-term.

Your application strategy should have three, I call them time domains because I'm an engineer. You have short term. What am I going to hunt this year? What am I going to hunt next year? You have your midterm. What am I going to hunt in three to five years? Right? Every three to five years, I'm going to draw these takes. And then I have a long term. What am I going to be waiting for five, 10, 15, 20 years? Those are.

When we say long term, it's because there's something special about those units you want to hunt. Either incredible high trophy quality, incredible landscapes, a very rare species, something that makes them special. It's not just because you take that long. No one's going to wait 15 years to hunt over the counter Colorado. It's not worth it. So it's got to be something special. But that's what we talk about. This year, next year, three to five, five plus. This year and next year short term.

That could be if you have points in like Montana General, Colorado over the counter, Colorado zero point, Idaho over the counter. Those are your short term options. You can hunt those every other year, every year if you want. Now you have your midterm options. Unfortunately, Wyoming General for elk is in this midterm option, but antelope, it can be a short term. Wyoming antelope can be short term. Wyoming deer can be a short term. Montana deer can be short term. Montana antelope, probably a little bit more midterm.

And then you have your long-term states now, here's what I'll say Montana has some long-term Limited entry permits for elk they have some units with deer that have maybe mid or long-term potential But probably not worth waiting 10 years for honestly Colorado has some incredible long-term units for elk the northwest corner. I think it's 1 2 10 and 2 10 unbelievable elk units, but

Brian Krebs (17:22.614)

It's so long term that if you started building points now, you probably will never draw. won't live long enough. There's too many people at max points already that unless something drastically changes and they start giving out way more elk tags, which will hurt the unit, you're not going to mathematically be able to draw that tag. So I don't count Colorado as a very good long term state. It can be a good midterm state. Build points in Colorado while hunting over the counter and then cash in at that five to 10.

portion there, but long term it just doesn't have it. And so that's what you have to decide. Are you going to start building points for long term hunts? Now, a couple of options could be a Utah limited entry elk tag. That could be 20 years, but if you really want to chase a 400 inch bull, that could be a good option for you. Arizona could be a good long term option. 10 years for an archery or a late trifle tag could be a good option. Giant antelope in Nevada.

that could be an option for you. A Gila Strip Mule Deer Tag. I mean, these are all long-term units that if you just really want, like, I really want to hunt 200-inch mule deer. I really want to try and see a 400-inch bull. They have them in every state, but there's certain states that have more of them and a better chance at them. And so you have to determine that for yourself. That's where your application strategy is going to take on its own.

characteristics, its own identity, because everyone's different. For example, in Utah, you have to buy your hunting license to buy points. That's 160 bucks, but the points are only $10 apiece. So if something else causes you to apply for Utah every year, could be very cheap to buy the points anyway. If you have a camp that always does a Utah spike only elk hunt, well, now you're buying points for basically free. So maybe that works for you. For me, I don't ever hunt Utah. So to

to spend $160 on the hunting license just to buy points, doesn't really make sense to me. The same could be true for any number of these states. Arizona, a loophole, there used to be a loophole where if you bought your hunting license on the last day of 2025, it lasted for 360 days. So next year for points, you already have an active license and you don't need to buy it again. So you can build points for two years in Arizona for the cost of one hunting license. So there's all kinds of things like that.

Brian Krebs (19:46.338)

that could make these units worth it or not worth it for you, for the individual person. And so that's how you think about them. Now, once you've put all of this together, obviously the key in your application strategy is following through on it. We did the application calendar, the Western Rookie application calendar. It's out there on our website. We've talked about it. There's over 75 different deadlines in the year. There's an application deadline in every single month of the year.

There's points deadlines that go all the way to December. There's so much to remember that I think it's almost impossible to just keep it all together in your head. And so then you're really banking on somebody telling you, you're seeing a reminder, an email, or you can go get our free calendar and you can download it. You can select what states and apps you are interested in, or you can import the entire thing and it creates little reminders in your calendar. So when you're at work,

You're looking at your schedule for the week and then you see 10 o'clock Thursday, the Wyoming non-resident LTCH deadline. And they're all five days ahead. So if you see it, you have five days to plan out your application. There's a link to the state website in the little meeting notice. And they show up as free, so it's not gonna interfere with your actual work meetings. They also show up as private. So if you have anyone in your office that's like an anti-hunter, they're not gonna get all bent out of shape because you've got an application deadline for an LTCH.

That's one thing that I think is critical. mean, South Dakota points all the way to the end of the year. Oregon points all the way to the end of the year. Montana's in September, October's in Wyoming. So many deadlines. Colorado, you have to do an application in the spring just to get a point. You might get all the way to the fall and be like, all right, I'm gonna go buy all my points and you realize you miss Colorado. And nothing sucks as, there's a lot of things that suck in life, but missing a point deadline, it's a special kind of suck because it's just,

bothers you, you just know you wasted a whole year. So that's why we built this. That's why we built this tool, made it free so everyone can use it. And so it's out there on our website, westernrookie.com. Go check that out. And with that, there is a ton of information out there about all this application stuff. And you might be thinking, it's just overload, right? There's too much application information. It's too complicated. I want it simple.

Brian Krebs (22:10.09)

I want to do X, Y or Z and I just want to know what to do for that. I don't need to know everything. Or you could say, Hey, I have a, I've been doing it a long time. I want this very specific thing and I don't know how to get there. Well, that is exciting because GoHunt, our partner, our title sponsor just informed us. I just got an email from their marketing team. They are doing a soft launch of insider plus.

Now, I don't know if soft launch means I'm supposed to tell you on the podcast, but I'm going to do it because I think it's a really cool tool. And if you're in that boat, this could be beneficial to you. So insider plus at go on, you've already, if you've already got going, you know, insiders full of all kinds of tools, all kinds of resources for you to do your own information in your own research. Insider plus is a special tool where their slogan literally says

Tell us what you want to hunt. We'll take it from there. And what they do is one-on-one help and planning and support and resources. So if you are in that boat, we're like, it's just too complicated. I don't have time to figure all this out. I'm a busy person. I got work. I got a list. got that. This could be great for you. It's one-on-one. They have all of the expertise in-house to help you with what to apply for, where to go, e-scouting, one-on-one walkthroughs, mapping.

gear lists. so with Insider Plus, you get all of this. You get a one-on-one application service. You have one-on-one e-scouting and mapping walkthroughs. You get custom curated gear lists for the hunts you're going to go on. Right? They've probably had someone do this hunt and they say, this is what you're going to need for this unit, this landscape, this hunting style. So you can, this is so you can have the confidence. Cause a lot of times,

All of you are definitely capable of doing the research as well. You listen to this podcast, which is a great start. You know where to find the information, but sometimes, especially if you're new, it can be as simple as the reassurance from somebody that's done it that can really help the confidence of like, yes, this is what we want to do. What I mean by that is, you're spending a lot of time, you're spending a lot of money, you're spending your vacation time buying gear.

Brian Krebs (24:34.222)

time away from the family, there's a lot that goes into traveling to another state to hunt. And if you've never been to a unit, if you've never done a certain hunt before, it can be daunting to do it the first time and know that you're making the right decisions. Is this the right state? Is this the right unit? Is this the right place to camp? We've done all that. And I've heard time and time again from people that want to get into Western hunting that have those same questions.

I'd love to do it, but I don't know how to pick a state. I'd love to do it, but I don't know how to pick where to camp. I don't know how to plan out the East scouting. I don't know how to plan out my hunt plan. This is going to be the perfect option for anyone that's in that boat that would just like the reassurance from somebody one-on-one that has done it before. And so he application service. you can, whether you know exactly what you want to hunt or you're a complete Western rookie, our

The Go Hunt team is here to help you with Insider Plus. They'll walk you through the West, they'll see what you're planning to apply for. They complete and submit the application for you in every state that you're interested in so you don't have to worry about messing up an application, putting the wrong hunt code down on your app, or missing the deadline. They do the e-scouting and hunt planning as well. So once you draw your tag,

you're going to get a dedicated expert to help you with your e-scouting and create a plan for your hunt. So you'll step into the field with more confidence than ever because you had someone that's got that experience walking you through it. It's like joining a group of experienced hunters, right? When you join an elk hunting group, you get the benefit of all of the group's knowledge from day one. They've been here before, they've hunted this ridge before, they know where the elk go. That's what you're getting with Insider Plus. So with that, then they take a deeper dive into the go hunt features, right? Because

They've had the same goal since day one. Make it easier to get in the field and experience the hunts you want. Now with this, it's perfect because you get all of that information from the people that are creating that, that curating that information, making it available. That's their day job and now you get to ask them questions and ask them for help on all of the Go Hunt tools. that, and then when it comes time to go on your hunt, they'll tell you exactly what you need.

Brian Krebs (26:51.02)

Hey, you for this Alpine hunt, you're going to do a really light backpack. You're going to need a really light tent. This is what you need. Or you're going to say, hey, you're base camp an elk. You need, maybe you can truck camp. Maybe you can get by with that. Maybe you have already have a wall tent and we can do that on this one. So they're going to make sure you don't go into the field without something critical. And it's a, I think it's cool service. I don't think this is something that everyone is going to do. This is for specific people out there that, that want this, that are saying, Hey, this is valuable enough to me.

that I want to do this because then I know I'm not wasting my time and I'm not wasting my money on this, you know, to learn. I think it's going to shorten the learning curve for a lot of people out there and that might be valuable. And so if you're interested in Insider Plus, we've got a link in the show notes of today's episode. Go down there and check it out and just review it. If you decide to move forward with it, like I said, it's not going to be for everyone, but if you decide to go with it, just mention that you heard it from the Western rookie from Brian Krebs.

because it helps us and help their partner of ours and we want to show them love. And so just let them know that that you heard about their awesome new program from the Western Rookie podcast. And I appreciate that. But that is what we kind of wanted to cover today. We have application season is kind of gearing up. We had a couple of those early at bats with Wyoming and Arizona. But come March, we are going to be hitting the ground running with probably weekly bonus episodes on application deadlines. And so now is a perfect time.

If you haven't already developed your application strategy, now is the time to do it. And if you haven't already downloaded our Western Rookie application calendar, now is especially the time to do it because you do not want to miss any of these deadlines. Folks, I've missed them before. It absolutely sucks. So I want to make sure you guys don't miss them either. But thank you for being here today and I'll talk to you all next week, folks.

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