Keeping my Fingers Crossed for the Alaska Meat Lottery

Tomorrow is perhaps the most anticipated day of the year up here, at least among the sporting community at any rate. Tomorrow is the scheduled date that all of the State draw tags are announced. Anticipation is such that, at least the last couple of years, the server crashed from all the queries it received. Several outdoor forums have been plagued by posters eaten with pre-announcement jitters and anticipation.

Although I'm one of the guilty, I haven't been very fortunate in the past. In fact, every year I joke about my "voluntary donation" to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the hopes of drawing some of the more coveted tags. Several of my friends have drawn such tags and I've gotten to participate in the hunt- but always as supporting cast, never as the primary shooter.

Always the eternal optimist I even "doubled down" and applied for multiple tags for the same species (you are allowed three choices per species). ADFG even publishes a listing of your chances based on last year's draw and when I looked at it, it wasn't pretty. In fact, several of the tags I applied for have such a low percentage chance of draw that they qualify as "The Alaska Meat Lottery" more than a hunting permit.

The tags I applied for are:

3 Moose (two choice areas and one cow tag)
3 Bison (two in my community and one remote)
3 Dall Sheep (all walk-in hunts)
2 Mountain Goat (another walk in)
2 Caribou (one close in and one remote)
3 Brown Bears (one on Kodiak, two on other islands)

Not to be misunderstood, as a resident I can hunt all of these (except Bison) on a normal harvest tag- just not in the choice areas these tags are good for.

So friends... wish me luck on the draw tomorrow!