WapitiBob is accurate, the workings of PointGuard were developed and known to all involved, not a loophole. It was built by design to allow a surrender of the tag one time without loosing bonus points by the applicant, whether as an individual or part of a group application. Who applicants apply with isn’t a concern to the Dept or the computer program.
The biggest complaints seem to come from applicants who view the process as some sort of a “line” with a certain spot held in that “line” and feel someone cut in ahead of them. AZ is not a preference point system, it is a bonus point system with a random draw. it is based on the luck of a random draw incentivized by securing extra randomly issued placement numbers in the form of bonus points to secure the lowest number possible to affix to the application. The luck component are the actual numbers the computer randomly generates based on your bonus points and your current application. If you have 20 BPs and the computer generates 21 numbers for your app that fall into the
100’s of thousands and the lowest number was 103,247, you had bad luck and you’re not going to draw. Another applicant who just took up hunting, completes an AZ Hunter Education Course and secures the Education BP submits their app and has two random numbers generated and one of those numbers is a low number, let’s for example say it’s 57, bingo, the applicant is likely going elk hunting somewhere in AZ. It amazes me that those who are at near max points and don’t have the Education Point, what is holding then back from securing that extra point?
The random generation of numbers takes place 3 times, once for each phase of the draw, so every application has an opportunity to get lucky and pull a magic low number. Most applicants looking for bull tags don’t put selections in the 3-5 positions on their app for bull elk hunts as bull tags have historically all been issued in the BP Pass and the 1-2 Random Pass and all that’s left are antlerless hunts with the possibility of isolated LO bull hunts and Hopi hunts. Bonus Points do work but you still need some luck mixed into the process to get the bull tag you dream about.
Good luck to all who applied and happy hunting to those who draw.