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“Study the ground before you stake your claim.”
– Percival
The Tag Prospector builds personalized western big game draw odds reports for hunters applying in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, and Nevada. The data hunters need to make smart application decisions is published by the states every year, but it sits in dense PDFs written for no one in particular. We compile it, run it against your exact situation, and hand back something you can actually use, in minutes instead of days.
Every report is built on a structured, tiered data foundation drawn from published state draw results, harvest reports, and population data, then ranked by the Hunt Quality Score. The factors named here are only a subset of what the Hunt Quality Score weighs: your draw odds at your point level, harvest success, herd health, and point trajectory are a sampling, not the full recipe. The complete formula stays locked in the TTP assay office, and we aim to keep it that way. What it answers is the part that matters: not just whether you can draw a hunt, but whether it is worth drawing. The full breakdown of the concept lives in our explainer on the Hunt Quality Score.
The Tag Prospector was started by Jereme Nielsen, a western big game hunter and operations and IT analyst who built the tool to answer his own application questions across five states. Behind it now is a small team of hunters and entrepreneurs who keep the data current and the reports shipping. It is a lean, independent operation under Inclivity LLC, not a full-service consultancy, and it is priced for the working hunter: most reports are $9.99, with no subscription and no account to manage.
“Draw the right tag, and days like this find you.”
– Point-Creep Percival
Three products cover how hunters apply. The Tag Report is a personalized draw odds report for a single state and species at your exact point level, built from a host of data points, with point creep trends and harvest statistics among them. The Prospector's Playbook maps your point balances across up to 15 state and species entries into a five-year, multi-state application strategy. The Scout Report projects your draw year for a single target hunt and calculates its total cost of ownership through draw day. And Reading the Vein is our $19.99 draw-strategy e-book: nineteen named Plays plus a Colorado 2028 bonus chapter that read your point balance into the right move across all five states.
Not everything The Tag Prospector makes costs money. The Zero to One Report is a free resource we rebuild every year for hunters sitting at zero or one point: a curated list of confirmed draw opportunities you can realistically pull right now, across all five states, while your long-game points keep stacking. And 5 Things the State Draw Reports Don't Tell You is our free guide to reading a draw the way the data actually works, the fastest way to get sharper before you ever buy a report.
Want the step by step? Percival walks through it in How to Read Western Big Game Draw Odds.
Well now. You found the About page. That right there tells me you're the kind of prospector who scouts the terrain before you stake your claim. I respect that. Pull up a stump and let old Percival bend your ear for a spell.
Before you go anteing up your hard-earned gold dust, you ought to know what you're getting into — and what you ain't.
What you're holding — well, what you're about to hold once it hits your inbox — is a detailed report on draw odds trends for your specific state, species, residency, and preference point total. It's built from publicly available historical draw data, compiled and laid out so a regular person can make sense of it without needing a geology degree or a government decoder ring.
This report will let you hit the ground running. Print it out. Write your own notes all over it. Frame it on the wall if it moves you. It's yours. Maybe it leads you right down a dusty trail into a tag. Maybe it jogs loose a memory of that old wallow you'd near forgot about. Maybe it shows you a gem that other hunters been walking right past for years.
It's a view of the way things have been, laid out clear and honest, so you can use that noggin of yours and maybe start to see how things might shape up down yonder in the years to come. There's plain-English tables for the everyday hunter, and enough technical stats to satisfy those of you so inclined.
These reports reflect the most current draw data available at the time they're built — compiled fresh each season from the latest published results. This ain't a dusty old almanac pulled off a forgotten shelf. It's the real work, done right.
“Wherever you stand, there’s a play in it.”
– Percival
Now listen close here, because this is the part that matters most depending on where you're sitting in the point game.
If you're at zero points, you're in quite the odds predicament, friend — no sugarcoating that. But don't you go throwing this report in the fire just yet. You just might be surprised what's out there. And at the very least, you'll glean a nugget or two to help you plan those future years with a whole lot more wisdom than guesswork.
If you're sitting at or near maximum points, well pardner, you likely don't need this report for the actual draw tables — you already qualify for most every hunt worth drawing. But you may find real value in the trending data. See how that applicant pool has been shifting. Watch the pressure building on certain units. That kind of intelligence don't show up on a tag application. Cache those points in, and know what you're walking into.
Reports run from 0 points up to whatever drew at that species' maximum the year prior. You'll find your situation in there.
Now here's a thing worth sayin' plain before we go any further. Hunt codes — those unit numbers and hunt designations your state prints on the draw application — they ain't carved in stone. States shuffle 'em, renumber 'em, split 'em up, and recombine 'em from one season to the next. Arizona in particular has a habit of reorganizing things regular as the monsoons.
This report is built on historical draw data — 2025 and prior seasons. The trends, the odds, the applicant pressure — all of it is real and sourced. But the hunt code printed in your report may wear a different number on this year's draw application. That ain't an error. That's the state doing what states do.
Use this report alongside your state's current draw regulations. Find the unit by its geography and description, cross it with what Percival's telling you about applicant pressure and odds, and you'll have more than most hunters ever bother to dig up. That's the play.
And partner, when you do spot a hunt with a quota of 1 — and some lucky soul drew that very tag with fewer points than you're holding right now — well, Percival calls that a unicorn tag. If you're sitting there thinking the high odds figure in your report means that tag's got your name on it... keep dreaming, friend. One tag is one tag. The numbers tell the story of what happened once. They don't promise it happens again.
“One report’s a start. The bag holds more.”
– Percival
The Tag Report's the foundation — your state, your species, your point total, laid out plain. But not every hunter's working a single state, and not every question's about this season's draw. Here's what else we've been building.
The Prospector's Playbook. When one state ain't enough, this is the map for the multi-state hunter. The Playbook takes your point balances and your hunting profile across however many states you're working — three, five, the whole western range — and lays out a five-year plan to make those points actually pull tags out of the ground. Where to burn, where to build, where the odds are shifting in your favor, and where that vein's tapped out. Same data as the Tag Report, stitched together into a strategy instead of a snapshot. One state's a draw. Five played right is a campaign.
The Scout Report. Got your eye on a specific tag? Punch in the hunt code and we'll tell you two things straight up: when the math says you can expect to draw it, given the points you're carrying right now and the way that hunt's been creeping; and what that tag's gonna cost you over the long haul — past application fees, future ones, and the price of the tag itself when your name finally rolls up. Call it the cost of the dream, calculated. Some tags are worth waiting a decade for. Some ain't. Best to know which is which before you keep feeding the kitty.
Reading the Vein. And when you're ready to stop guessing and start reading, this here's the book for it. Nineteen named draw odds strategy plays — plus a bonus chapter on Colorado's 2028 split — that don't just tell you whether you can draw a tag, but whether it's worth drawing for. Every one carries an honest tier: a LOCK, a LIKELY, or a LONGSHOT, so you always know what you're reaching for. Cash the Claim, Clearing the Floor, Panning the Tailings, and a dozen more, working across all five states. Nineteen ninety-nine, and it'll teach you to read your own claim the way the vein actually runs.
Far and away, the top two complaints about these reports are:
1. The hunt/unit codes don't match. Partner, the states change those numbers from time to time — and some change them every single year. If you're holding a 2026 Tag Prospector report, it's built on 2025 and earlier draw data. It only stands to reason those hunt/unit codes may not match the current year's draw application. Use this report as a companion to your state's current data, not a replacement for it.
2. Our odds numbers don't line up with the state's numbers. In most cases, that's by design. Depending on the state, we do things like remove landowner tags and youth tags, divide resident and non-resident applicants by caps when the state doesn't publish them that way, and a host of other data handling decisions — all to get you a number we think is actually useful. The state publishes what the state publishes. We do the work to make it mean something.
Now I'll be straight with you, the way a good prospector always is.
This ain't a guarantee. It's a map. A good prospector studies the terrain before he stakes his claim — but the mountain don't make any promises. Neither do we. Draw odds are historical in nature, and the future's got a mind of its own.
This also ain't a full-service outfit. We're a lean operation — three pages on this whole website, for folly's sake. If you're looking for the Midas touch — concierge hunting consultants, unit scouting reports, guided application services — there are fine outfitters out there who'll take real good care of you. We wish 'em well.
What we offer is something honest and affordable for the working hunter who wants to make smarter decisions with the information that's available. Ten dollars. That's what you're trading for this. You skipped a designer coffee. If the report hits the spot and puts you on a better path, go grab another one and tell a friend. If it don't, well — Percival apologizes for nothing, but he does tip his hat.
We cover Mule Deer, Rocky Mountain Elk, and Pronghorn Antelope across all five states, for both residents and non-residents. Utah hunters will find additional draw type options reflecting that state's unique general and limited-entry draw structure.
Pick your state, your residency, your species, and your current preference point total right on the main page. We'll locate your report, you complete a secure $9.99 payment through Stripe, and the report lands in your inbox directly — no account to create, no subscription to manage, no waiting around. Watch your spam folder, though. These things have a habit of sneaking in there like a coyote in tall grass.
Well now, if you ain't quite convinced yet and you want to eyeball the goods before you ante up — ol' Percival don't blame you one bit. Have a look at this here sample and see what's waitin' for you on the other side of that payment.
⛏ View Sample ReportIf you're the entrepreneurial type and you've got a notion about some kind of white label arrangement — your brand, our data — well pardner, we're open to that conversation. Use the Contact page. We call that Page Three around here.
Happy tag hunting, friend.
— Point-Creep Percival
