While the Colorado Parks and Wildlife have changed the way Re-issued Licenses will become available for the 2021-2022 hunting seasons, the Leftover Watch will still be operational. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be placing Re-Issued Licenses on the Leftover List Wednesdays starting at 11 AM MT. A preview list, of the licenses that will become available, will be posted at 11 AM MT on Tuesdays. If you really want to put one of these licenses into not only your hands, but your friends and family as well, read on.
The most asked question is whether there is a tip on how to be the first person to purchase a license that has a new quota. Unfortunately, the best way to purchase a Re Issued license is to learn the exact timing of when the licenses are placed on the Leftover List, have a secondary browser open while logged in to your CPW IPAWS account navigated as far into the CPW process as you can prior to a quota being available. Pictured here.
From there, good luck. Unfortunately the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission has, until this July, only recognized an average of 234 Manually Re Issued licenses being placed on the Leftover List, unaware of the thousands of other licenses that get sold via the reissue process. Without this information they have installed the most equitable process they could develop for the coming season.
The systems and processes by which we purchase these licenses have been developed by CPW staff and the tools at their disposal. The databases like this have been denied to them until early 2021 by their current internet services provider. You can view our statement on the problem in this video.
In regards to licenses that become available for purchase through the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) reissue process from mid-August to the end of Spring Turkey, there have been many attempts at finding a solution to reach the hunting community with the information of their availability. The CPW has in the past announced the licenses that will become available on a certain day of the week at a specific time with a preview list. This created dozens of days with similar to the problems (crash or queue) thousands of users flooding IPAWS on Leftover Day face in early August. The next solution would be to randomly place these licenses for purchase on the Leftover List on a first come first serve basis Tuesday-Friday during business hours. With the demand for these licenses the CPW was able to disseminate the information to the public with most licenses sold in a matter of minutes. This created a user environment where a few hundred of the 300K+ sportsmen and women had access to these opportunities given the need to manually observe the Leftover List as it updated every 5 minutes throughout the business day via IPAWS, leaving most unknowing of the opportunities. Since, there have been private products that monitor the list in real time for consumers. The Leftover Watch Mobile app was created to notify users of a license’s availability with a link to the CPW IPAWS Shop. With four main screens for users to observe the hunt codes the individual user is watching for along with the codes that have been found;
A screen for users to navigate;
A screen for users to add hunt codes by “Search(ing) Hunt Code”;
And a screen for users to add hunt codes by searching units, species etc;
Using this platform upwards of 20,000 notifications per week from mid-August to the end of Spring turkey week get sent to users regarding the availability of licenses that have newly become available via the CPW reissue process onto the Leftover List.
There are multiple inefficiencies with the current solutions. To begin, while users now have private products disseminating the information that a license has become available for purchase on the CPW Leftover List, their most trusted source for the information still requires manual observation of the Leftover List. While all private companies are providing accurate information, users still have a desire to receive the information directly from the source without needing to manually watch the leftover list.
The first come, first serve process by which these licenses are sold is without question the most efficient method for the CPW to sell them. Given the conversion to a leftover license, and the lack of preference points used, demand is competitively high with most licenses being sold in minutes. However, this environment has led to users being tied to their devices either waiting for notifications, or manually checking the Leftover List. These interruptions, combined with depressingly low odds of actually purchasing a license have led to a frustrating user experience.
Using the same mobile app platform, give users the ability to select the hunt codes they would like to be entered for from the second Tuesday in August to the end of Spring Turkey. Users will not then need to think about the process until they received a text about whether the application was successful or not in a subsequent random draw, with a link to successful applicants to purchase the license. The drawing order will be followed for a certain amount of time TBD for licenses that are not immediately sold, the license will then convert to a Leftover License and be sold via Leftover List. (Our recommendation be that at this stage, given the demand for reissue licenses, successful applicants receive a minimum 30 minutes and no more than 3-hour window to respond to a text).
The State of Colorado recently launched myColorado TM, a mobile app that allows its residents digital access to their government documents. The State allows its citizens to provide myColorado TM as their only legal proof of ID to include driver licensing. Ideally once this automated reissue license draw concept proved successful, discussions could be had about running Leftover Day on the platform, and then the Secondary Draw. From there we could have the discussions about making the complicated regular draw completely automated on a mobile app. Bringing the CPW up to State standards putting information directly into the hands of the widest array of customers regardless of age, sex, class, or race.
As of the end of July 2021... nothing, please. The Commission doesn't need thousands of emails every Wednesday informing them how poorly they operate the State agency they serve. If you watched the video then you know what I'm talking about. We only ask that you check back here for updates throughout the season as we will be adding more information and updating this site throughout the season. Thank you for your patience and understanding for the last few years folks. We can't tell you how much we appreciate that you even read these ramblings.