Why Taghunter exists

I picked up a bow five years ago and spent my first elk seasons in Idaho when nonresident OTC was still easy — show up, buy a tag, go hunt. That window closed fast. By the time I wanted to hunt elk every year, I was deep in the draw game across half a dozen western states, and I quickly realized the system was designed to keep casual hunters confused. Different deadlines, different point structures, different odds tables buried in PDFs the state agencies seem to update at random. I'd spend the off-season with a spreadsheet, a stack of regulation packets, and too much coffee, trying to figure out where my points actually went the furthest. The existing tools either cost more than my tag budget or buried the math behind a content paywall — articles about strategy when what I needed was the numbers.

So I built Taghunter. First for me, then for a couple of hunting buddies, then for anyone who's sat at the kitchen table in February staring at a deadline and wondering whether this is the year to burn points or save them. I'm a software engineer who hunts elk across the West — not a celebrity, not a YouTuber, not selling hats. The site stays anonymous on purpose. Partly because I want the product to be the thing you trust, not the personality behind it. Partly because the western draw game is competitive enough without putting my hunting spots one Google search away. If you've ever wanted a draw strategy tool built by someone who's actually drawing tags every year — and has to live with their own bad point strategy when it goes sideways — you're in the right place.