Guide

How to read Montana FWP drawing statistics

Updated October 18, 2026

From 2021 to 2025, Montana elk hunters killed an elk at a rate of 20.9%. In HD 455 the rate is 49.7%, one of the best in the state. The catch is that elk hunting in HD 455 is by drawing only, so your odds of getting in matter as much as the rate. Those odds are no longer printed in the regulations. Starting with the 2025 booklets, FWP dropped the odds tables and sent hunters to the drawing statistics online, because, in FWP's words, the old charts "were largely misleading." Here is where the numbers live and how to read them.

3

drawing statistics reports FWP publishes after each drawing

April 1

2026 deadline for deer and elk permits and nonresident combination licenses

Dec 31

end of the July 1 window to buy a preference point without applying

Where FWP publishes the statistics

The numbers are in the Search Drawing Statistics tool on MyFWP. You start with one Animal dropdown: Antelope, Elk, Goat, Moose, Nonresident Combination, Other, Sheep, or White-tailed/Mule Deer.

Results come by LPT code, short for License/Permit Type. FWP says the first three digits most often represent the hunting district, so 455-20 is an HD 455 elk permit and 652-50 is an HD 652 deer permit.

Each result has three columns: # Applicants, # Successful, and % Successful. All three count first-choice applicants only, and residents and nonresidents are counted together. A % Successful of 20 means one in five people who put that license or permit first drew it. It does not tell you your odds at your point level or your residency.

That gap is why the tables left the regulations. FWP's 2025 announcement said the charts didn't account for residency status, bonus points, or landowner preference applications, and that in some cases they were simply inaccurate.

The three reports and what each one answers

FWP publishes three kinds of drawing statistics report.

• Drawing Statistics Reports. These do not consider bonus points. They show the final quota drawn, the applicants in four groups (resident landowner, nonresident landowner, resident, and nonresident), and the share of each group that drew.
• Detailed Bonus Point Drawing Statistics Reports. These cover only the drawings that use bonus points. For each license or permit, they show the share of applicants at each bonus point level who drew, by residency.
• Nonresident Combination Preference Point Statistics Reports. These show the preference point levels of the hunters who drew in the primary nonresident combination drawing. The Big Game Combination and the Elk Combination are reported together because they share one quota of 17,000. Fractional point levels come from party applications: a party's points are the average of its members' points, rounded to the third decimal.

Which one to open depends on what you are applying for:

• A permit in one district, such as elk permit 455-20: start with the Drawing Statistics Report for your residency group's share, then the Detailed Bonus Point report for the row that matches the points you will hold.
• A nonresident combination license: the preference point report. The bonus point reports don't apply, because combination licenses run on preference points.
• A Deer B or Elk B license: the Drawing Statistics Report for the quota and your group's share. If the license also shows up in the Detailed Bonus Point report, its drawing used bonus points and you can read your point level there.

How bonus points show up in the odds

FWP squares bonus points before the drawing. Your saved points plus the point you buy this year are squared, and your application adds one more chance. FWP's example is 3 saved points plus 1 bought now: 4 points, squared to 16, plus 1, for 17 chances. Ten points give you 101.

The rules that decide what you bring to the drawing:

• You can buy one bonus point per license year for each type of license or permit. You buy it with your application, or, if you did not apply, separately from July 1 through September 30.
• If you apply without buying a point, your saved points are not used that year. You get one chance and keep them.
• Drawing with your bonus points resets them to zero. Missing your first choice and drawing your second or third choice does not.

FWP calls the bonus point system "completely random by design," so the same point level can draw one year and miss the next. A 6-point applicant can fail where a 2-point applicant succeeds. Read more than one year of reports before you decide a district is out of reach.

Three rules also move the numbers before points come into it. Nonresidents, landowners included, are limited to 10 percent of a drawing quota, and that 10 percent is not guaranteed; if every resident who applied draws, nonresidents can get more. Resident landowners can receive up to 15 percent of the quota. And landowner preference is the first stage of the drawing, so those licenses are gone before the general pool is drawn.

Nonresident combination licenses and preference points

The nonresident combination drawing works differently. 75 percent of nonresident combination licenses go to applicants in order of the preference points they hold. The other 25 percent are drawn at random from applicants who have bought no preference points.

• You can hold at most 3 preference points.
• You lose them if you draw a combination license, or if you don't apply in consecutive years.
• If you apply for a combination license and an elk permit and choose the 80 percent refund option, then draw the combination license but miss the elk permit, you get the refund and your preference points reset to 0.
• If you are not applying for a combination license, you can buy one preference point for $100 over the counter from July 1 through December 31.

FWP says the odds for zero-point applicants may be higher or lower than for applicants with points, depending on how many people buy them. The preference point report is where you check which way it went in the last drawing. It covers the primary drawing only, and it does not count licenses that were refunded and reissued afterward.

Costs, dates, and the Alternate's List are covered in the Montana nonresident guide.

Pair the odds with the district's success rate

Drawing odds tell you whether you get to hunt. A success rate tells you how the hunters who got in did. Read the two together.

In 9 Montana districts the 2026 regulations list no General Elk License season at all, so the drawing is the whole question. HD 455 is the clearest case. FWP heads its elk section "ELK hunting by drawing only," and the entries are two either-sex elk permits, 455-20 and 455-21, due April 1, plus Elk B license 455-00 for antlerless elk, due June 1. Its 49.7% is the rate for the people who drew. The % Successful for 455-20 is the share of first-choice applicants who became one of them.

HD 217 works differently. The general license covers antlerless elk only, and a brow-tined bull takes drawn permit 217-10. Its elk rate is 20.3%, and that number includes the antlerless hunters on the general license as well as the permit holders.

For deer, HD 652 posts one of the top mule deer rates in Montana at 63.4%. Its General Deer License lists no mule deer season, and a mule deer buck takes deer permit 652-50, with a quota of 100.

Montana's rates count every hunter in a district, whatever license they carried, so permit holders are part of the rate. These are the top five Montana elk districts by pooled 2021–2025 success rate:

1. HD 455 49.7%
2. HD 360 40.3%
3. HD 445 39.3%
4. HD 580 39.1%
5. HD 417 38.4%

See the full ranking: Best elk hunting units in Montana

HD 455 is drawing only, and in HD 417 the General Elk License is good for antlerless elk only. Read each district's section in the regulations before you plan around its rate. For districts where you don't need a draw for a bull, open the Montana planner with "General license includes bull elk" turned on. The shortlist method is in How to pick an elk unit, and the permit details for HD 217 and HD 455 are in Montana's general elk license vs. permits.

What the statistics don't tell you

• Second and third choices. The counts are first choice only. They don't show how the drawing handled anyone's second or third choice.
• This year's quota. The quotas printed in the regulations can change before the drawing on FWP biologists' recommendations, within the range the Fish and Wildlife Commission approved. Last year's quota may not be this year's.
• A trend. One year's % Successful is one drawing, and the bonus point system is random by design. A single season's success rate has the same problem, as How to read hunting success rates explains.
• Small nonresident moose, sheep, and goat districts. Those with quotas under 10 are added together into regional quotas, so their numbers won't line up with a single district.

This site doesn't show Montana drawing odds. It shows harvest-based success rates from FWP's harvest reports. Use the MyFWP reports for your odds of drawing and the Montana planner for what happened after the draw.

Sources

1. Montana FWP — Drawing Statistics — the three report types and what each shows, the shared 17,000 combination quota, party point averaging, refunded and reissued licenses excluded, the 10 percent nonresident limit, the 15 percent resident landowner allocation, landowner preference as the first stage, quota changes within the Commission-approved range, "completely random by design," and the combined small moose, sheep, and goat districts. Accessed October 2026.
2. Montana FWP — MyFWP Search Drawing Statistics — the Animal dropdown, the LPT definition, and the first-choice # Applicants, # Successful, and % Successful columns. Accessed October 2026.
3. Montana FWP — 2025 news release on drawing statistics — the removal of the odds tables from the regulations, the "largely misleading" quote, and the three reasons. Accessed October 2026.
4. Montana FWP — Bonus and Preference Points — bonus point squaring and the 10-point example, the 75/25 split, the three-point cap, the $100 over-the-counter preference point from July 1 through December 31, how points are lost, the 80 percent refund reset, and zero-point odds. Accessed October 2026.
5. Montana FWP — License and Permit FAQ — one bonus point per license year per type, the July 1 to September 30 purchase window, the 17-chance example, applying without a point, and when points reset. Accessed October 2026.
6. Montana FWP — Applications, Drawings, and Bonus Points — the 2026 April 1 and June 1 deadlines. Accessed October 2026.
7. Montana FWP — 2026 Deer, Elk, and Antelope Regulations (PDF) — the district sections for HD 217 (p. 62), HD 417 (p. 96), HD 455 (p. 106), and HD 652 (p. 116). Accessed October 2026.
8. Montana FWP — Harvest Reports — the hunter and harvest counts behind every Montana rate. Accessed October 2026. See the Data page for the per-unit sources.

Glass Montana elk or Glass Montana as a nonresident