UPDATED: Hidden Gold In The Colorado Leftover List

This is an update to the Colorado MRS and Dave Hoshour’s Hidden Gold Article from December

There have been several changes so far in 2017 for returned and reissued licenses. Some were announced well after the original announcement. Changes published after the Colorado MRS was written are indicated by NEW below. See the CPW page on reissued licenses at http://cpw.state.co.us/refunds .

Returned Licenses
1. If you return a license you may have your points restored or receive a refund, but not both.

2. You must turn in your license at least 30 days before the season starts – exceptions for extreme medical circumstances of the license holder only (like death or coma) or military deployment.

3. Licenses that took 5 or more points to draw will be issued to the next person in line to draw of that same residency status as the one that originally drew. Up to 5 people will be contacted and if none accept (they may have signed up another hunt), it goes onto the reissue list. So, if a nonresident drew it, only nonresidents will be contacted, same with residents.

4. Sheep, goat, moose, and public Ranching for Wildlife male and either-sex licenses continue to be reissued to the next person in the draw order.

5. New – There will be no more preview list for the returned licenses about to be made available.

6.New – Returned licenses will be put on the web site randomly between 9 am and 5 pm on any business day beginning August 1st. To score one, you will need to keep checking the list more than once every day.

7. Don’t wait until you see new listings to do your research. Highlight the desired hunt codes in the 2017 Big Game Brochure http://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/RulesRegs/Brochure/BigGame/biggame.pdf and then organize them into a prioritized list.

8. New – All in-person applicants for reissued licenses must produce a prioritized list of hunt codes.

9.In-person application by residents requires driver’s license or state-issued ID, SSN, CID, proof of hunter education or CO hunting license, and proof of residency. Getting a reissued tag does not use your preference points.

Leftover Licenses
1. New – Application for leftover licenses can only be made by phone or in person on August 1. Online applications start a day later on August 2.

2.You can only purchase a license for someone else in-person and must have certain information for them. See http://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/Leftover.aspx .

3. Leftover licenses have no separation by residency as with returned license reissues.

4. Leftover licenses were left over for a reason. Last year, just the vast majority of leftover any-weapon licenses had prior year buck harvest success of 0% – 30%. Check the harvest reports. Be careful, the success rate listed in the online report normally includes does, so do your own division – bucks/hunters=buck harvest success.