Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Resident hunting in New Mexico

Hello all, I'm expecting to receive a job offer soon in northern New Mexico and was hoping someone might be able to give me a resident's view of the hunting situation in the state.

I lived in Wyoming for several years, and it kind of ruined me for hunting, I'm currently displaced but would like to get back to a similar lifestyle.

From reading some regs I gathered that all elk hunting in NM is draw, and it doesn't seem like there are any OTC tags. How does that work out in practice for residents? Are you able to draw a cow or two most years, and have to wait a few to several years for a good bull draw (how it was in my part of WY), or is drawing any tag a once in a decade kind of thing.

I saw a post in a thread here where the author mentioned being on a resident hunt that took 20 years to draw which kind if made me wonder if that is the norm.

Nothing is easy anymore. Lots of new applicants. That being said it’s still luck if the draw. Everyone is on the same playing field every year. I know guys that have drawn great tags several years in a row and I have one friend that has not drawn a tag in 20 years( I still think he pissed somebody off). I’ve been averaging 4-5 years on bull tags with cow tags every couple of years. My wife and I drew 4 tags this year on 3rd choices. There are otc tags for bear and lion and just about everything else on private land-pay to play. I still think a guy could hunt “something” every year if if really wanted to, might just be javelina. It took me longer to draw an antelope tag than it did to draw an ibex tag, but there are people who draw once in a lifetime tags the first year they apply. Just depends on your luck!

What NMpistol said, I had all red this year but have drawn my elk tag 3-years in a row. Not going to get any easier but NM has the best system.

I've pretty much much given up.
I musta pissed someone off or I just don't have the right last name.
I just can't draw, so I got into waterfowl hunting some years ago.
I can hunt every day for over 4 months, and legally kill 14 ducks, and 8 geese a day !
I have lots of fun !

Thanks for the info, it sounds like the hunting situation for residents is a bit worse than I was hoping for. Didn't think it would be like WY (where it was pretty unlikely not to draw some big game, and OTC tags were always a possibility), but thought NM would probably be better than Co if just due to the much lower population.


Am I reading this right, that you can buy OTC tags for a variety of animals, but only for private land, so no public land OTC for anything?


That's a real bummer, I've never lived anywhere that I couldn't draw or buy tags to hunt something, especially over multiple years. Were you just putting in for elk or were you not able to draw any large/medium game?

OTC public land tags for bear, lion, and Barbary sheep are available. Landowner tags can be for public and private land.

Getting skunked in the NM draw is not uncommon. Seems to happen to me every 6-7 years, and I generally don't apply for high-demand hunts, except antelope (all NM antelope tags are high-demand). Not drawing anything for 20 years is unusual. Just bad luck or questionable application strategy (or both).

A friend of mine calculated his application and successful draws over 39 years of living here and applying

He applied for 273 tags.

He drew 14 tags.

He’s moving to Idaho

I left NM 40+ years ago because I could only draw an elk tag once every three years. If real lucky, every other year. I am sure it has not got any better.Since moving to Colorado, I might have missed two seasons. Now though it is a circus. OTC tags are unlimited and so are hunters. A lot of OTC units should be made draw units ,but CPW loves that money, but at least you have chance to go.

NM is not a state to go if you want to hunt elk unles you want to pay trespass fees and hunt private land. Even deer hunting s petty miserable

This has been my experience.

NM does have a solid youth encouragement program if you have kids under 18. We've often done that with great success when the draw came up dry, and I absolutely love hunting with the kids.

I'm in Durango, CO-----It seems like a lot of NM hunters from Farmington & Abq come up to hunt elk in San Juans here in Colorado.

Yep. And Texans. 😬

Used to rifle hunt that area. For years. Finally had enough of dipschitts looking at me through their scopes to see if I was an Elk.

Still stay in Durango when I go fly fish the quality water below Navajo Dam on the San Juan River.
Durango is probably my favorite town in all of Colorado.

I've hunted pronghorns out of the Clayton NM area.

I'm hearing about fires in the NE NM area and was wondering how much of that country is involved.

DF

They are SW of Clayton, great area to hunt antelope!

That's how it was in SE Wyoming, lots of Coloradans trying to get away from the crowds. Lots of Texans too, with some Nebraskans and Kansas mixed in.

I'm sure I'd still put in for the Wyoming draw since I know my old areas pretty well and would rather drive more than fight waves of humanity in Co.

It sounds like NM is ok but not great for hunting, sort of like Utah (which also might be an option). Depending on how much trespass fees are, I might not be against paying them to hunt more often (I knew some folks in Wy that flat refused to pay trespass fees). I'm currently living in AL, and the hunting sucks other than ducks, so NM hunting would probably still fall in the "pros" column instead of the "cons".

"OK" is a reasonably accurate description. It used to be great, but that's progress.

In NM, trespass fees usually equates to buying a landowner tag. Like everything else, they're not cheap anymore.