I feel like most of the guys that complain about never getting drawn for an SOA hunt are also the guys who go through and cherry pick certain areas/dates. If you only register for 5-6 hunts you have a lot less of a chance of getting drawn than if you’d registered for all 100+ hunts. I’ve registered for every single hunt they’ve offered since the program began and have gotten drawn or gotten to go with a buddy who drew every single year.
You have extraordinary luck sir, both me and my dad have also registered for every adult deer hunt (with the the exception of two weekends in October for VT grouse hunting) and I have been drawn once (and it was not for one of the coveted areas). I think I remember some speculation that for the first few years, anyone who was picked in previous years got added to a different pool that actually gave them significantly higher draw odds. It seemed like there were a LOT of people who were drawn the first year that also got selected in years 2 and 3.
