New Mexico Outfitter Draw Set-Aside is Toast -Finally !

[abqbw]

Yesterday a group of 16 New Mexico legislators sent a request to New Mexico Attorney General requesting an opinion if the New Mexico 10% outfitter draw set aside is illegal.

The legislators also asked if the lumping of bighorn hunt codes by the game commission is illegal. The reason bighorn hunt codes are lumped together is to skirt the quota statute to generate outfitter draw set aside tags.

Long story short. The outfitter draw set aside is illegal. Bighorn hunt code lumping is illegal.

New Mexico as most fairly well informed hunters in the west know privatizes more nig game tags then any other western state. Mostly via private landowner permits. But also via the 10% outfitter set aside.

The legislative/ AG action will only end the outfitter set aside. But it’s a damn good start for both public resident and public nonresident hunting.

Those of us working on this initiative intend to have the outfitter set aside stricken during the Jan 2027 legislative session. To be replaced by the standard 90% resident and 10% nonresident quota for most western states.

Currently the unguided nonresident quota is 6% in NM. In all liklehood that will become 10%. Which if you do the math is a 60% increase in unguided nonresident quota. Not too shabby for our fellow public tag public land hunters.

 

[LopeHunter]

E-Plus strips out tags for landowners from the approved total tags for a species before the remaining tags are then split into resident, non-resident and guided buckets, yes? That implies the potential 10% allotment for non-residents is actually less than 10% of total approved tags. Any idea what % of each species is set aside for E-Plus?

I seem to recall around 40% of elk tags never reach the draw that would provide 10% of the remaining tags to non-residents. Might have my wires crossed.

 

[Mallardsx2]

It’s about time the outfitter welfare is stopped. What an atrocity that entire situation is/was.

 

[cgasner1]

Great news it’ll be interesting to see what the draw odds look like moving forward

 

[ccc23454]

While I absolutely hate the whole outfitter welfare system the true problem is eplus. This if comes to fruition is step in right direction, while the NM outfitter lobby isnt big i bet they are about to spend a lot of $ fighting this or finding alternative.

Eplus: all unit wide tags are in draw!

 

[cgasner1]

While I absolutely hate the whole outfitter welfare system the true problem is eplus. This if comes to fruition is step in right direction, while the NM outfitter lobby isnt big i bet they are about to spend a lot of $ fighting this or finding alternative.

Eplus: all unit wide tags are in draw!

I think this will probably actually make draw odds worse for nr diy guy. It needed to happen though

 

[Forkyfinder]

Yesterday a group of 16 New Mexico legislators sent a request to New Mexico Attorney General requesting an opinion if the New Mexico 10% outfitter draw set aside is illegal.

The legislators also asked if the lumping of bighorn hunt codes by the game commission is illegal. The reason bighorn hunt codes are lumped together is to skirt the quota statute to generate outfitter draw set aside tags.

Long story short. The outfitter draw set aside is illegal. Bighorn hunt code lumping is illegal.

New Mexico as most fairly well informed hunters in the west know privatizes more nig game tags then any other western state. Mostly via private landowner permits. But also via the 10% outfitter set aside.

The legislative/ AG action will only end the outfitter set aside. But it’s a damn good start for both public resident and public nonresident hunting.

Those of us working on this initiative intend to have the outfitter set aside stricken during the Jan 2027 legislative session. To be replaced by the standard 90% resident and 10% nonresident quota for most western states.

Currently the unguided nonresident quota is 6% in NM. In all liklehood that will become 10%. Which if you do the math is a 60% increase in unguided nonresident quota. Not too shabby for our fellow public tag public land hunters.

Awesome!

 

[Nameless Range]

Great job. You guys have been working on this for what - a decade? I remember when I first became aware of how goofy NM is with its tag allocations on hear many years ago, and at the time it just seemed like that's how it was gonna be. Just goes to show that change can be a long slog, and you're likely still in for one, but just getting a conversation started can plant a seed, and the change you want might dink and dunk its way to something better.