Matt,
It is a fool?s paradise in the WY preference point game for many non-residents in your situation. The only way it makes any sense IMO for you to stay in the game with 8 preference points is to actually front the tag fee and apply for a random bull moose tag every year. At least you have a chance, albeit slim, of drawing a bull tag. Your other option would be to target an antlerless moose tag in the draw although those took a minimum of 12 preference points to draw last year. There are few NR applicants so you never know, especially if you apply in unit 38 that issued one random tag last year.
A review of the data shows that there are 5,080 NRs going into the Moose draw this year with 9 or more preference points. WY issued 56 NR bull tags last year so it will take approximately 90 years to clear out the preference point levels ahead of you to get to your point level. Then you will be battling it out with the other 486 NRs at your current 8 point level for tags for another 9 years or so until you draw your tag. This of course assumes that all current point holders with 8 or more points continue to get a preference point every year going forward and the NR quota remains the same. We know from watching the current trends however that this is not the case. What we don't know is what the drop out rate and the NR quota will be in the future.
Of course, if WY continues to raise the preference point costs for NR and applicants ahead of you continue to drop out this will decrease your wait time assuming you continue to apply and buy a point every year. On the flip side, if the NR quota is decreased either through continued moose population declines or by changing the NR quota from 20% to 10% (as has been proposed in the past), your wait time for a tag could potentially double to almost 200 years!
The only other reason to continue to buy points without actually applying for a random tag would be to keep your ground hoping that WY modifies the preference point system in the future. Perhaps they will convert them to bonus points and then square them (i.e. Nevada) which would give an applicant with more points better odds as opposed to an applicant with fewer points...or some new hybrid system hereto unknown that gives applicants with more preference points better odds than those without.
My personal opinion is that the WY moose NR preference point fee, application, and tag fees will continue to increase over time as is the trend in all western states. As prices continue to increase, the number of avaliable NR moose tags will continue to decrease. At some point in the future, the revenue from the WY NR moose preference point fees will sharply drop as NR applicants come to realize that they will not live long enough to ever draw a preference tag and bail out of the system. At that point, WYG&F will have to make major changes to the system in order to maintain the $1.7M+ the current NR moose preference point fees are generating for their budget or replace that renenue from another source. It is a tough situation for sure for both the department and the NR hunter wanting to hunt a Wyoming moose some day.
I hope this helps and good luck to you on whatever you decide to do with your points this year...
Horniac