I enjoy applying in New Mexico. It's like a raffle, and you never know what might happen. I've gotten really lucky in New Mexico once already, and it resulted in a wonderful hunt.
I see a lot of people online and have even met a lot of New Mexicans that complain about the draw system. Most when you talk to them you find out that they don't read/understand odds and that that's where their problems stem from. That said, I do think the outfitter draw sucks, and would rather have straight 90/10 than the 84/10/6 they have now. (I think those are the splits.)
I say all this just to say I love the state and its history and any tag they call my number on is a good tag to me. This year, they probably won't have to bother with a long-haired Georgian swinging a rifle around though, because I'm thinking to just roll the dice on a low-odds deer or pronghorn tag. (Low-odds pronghorn tag is a bit of a redundancy in New Mexico, I know.)
Totally agree on most people who claim they “can’t draw a tag in NM” ESPECIALLY residents. There are a lot of hunts with fantastic draw odds for residents. They aren’t the hunts we all want to draw, but as a resident who can pay the resident fee and has an easier time scouting due to distance, they have nothing to complain about. If they aren’t drawing tags, they don’t want to go hunting, they want to hunt a tag that is literally impossible to guarantee them an opportunity at regardless of the system. However, the odds have been getting progressively worse, which for NRs has really harmed the “value” of the state. It’s actually a function of supply and demand rather than a disfunction of the draw system though. NM doesn’t have nearly as many animals, and thus tags, available as CO. NM gives out 22371 elk tags through the draw, and if I understand correctly CO gives out over 105,000 tags in the draw, plus has an overwhelming number of OTC tags. While the total number of applicants has increased over the years, what has surprised me the most is which hunt codes have been most effected. The top tier units have really only experienced slight increases in demand, while the low tier units have become swamped!
When I started applying in NM, the license was refunded if you didn’t draw and you didn’t have to purchase stamps, so you were actually only out $13 if you didn’t draw. Compare that to getting a point in CO for a few years and NM was quite a bit cheaper. Why not take a $13 shot? The low tier units had tags about $100 cheaper than CO as well, so if you wanted to learn an easy to draw unit, it was still a little cheaper than CO. The first elk tag I drew in NM had only 1 NR tag and 1 OT tag in each of four rifle seasons, and in the previous 3-4 years had only had 1-2 total NR applicants spread over all four seasons(literally there were dates with no applicants every year) and 0-1 OT applicants(again some years not a single OT applicant for any of the four tags). Odds were basically 100% if you applied for it on two different dates as two of your choices. Other low tier units with more tags had 30%-50% draw odds. Were those great elk hunts? No. BUT because I live on the NM border, making scouting a lot easier than driving across the country, and because I could really draw it every few years, I could learn some of the low tier units while throwing my name in the hat for some top tier units at a low cost. After that hunt, I decided I was never going to apply for it again. There was so little public that wasn’t land locked it just required too much luck to even find an elk on public land whether you knew the unit or not, but some of those 30%-50% units still held some promise. That’s not the case today. The license is not refundable which makes the increased expense of CO less of a burden. It’s $82 out the window if you don’t draw NM vs $100 in CO. The highest odds rifle tag in the whole state is 16%. It’s not a better hunt than when it was 50% or higher. That’s 7yrs to be guaranteed a tag in a preference point system with a chance in year 6. You’re looking at roughly a once per 7 year frequency in a random system as well. Below is a comparison of some similar options across different states.
NM 16%. Highest odds rifle elk tag
1 hunt code with odds that high.
Harvest 10%
Trophy 310”
If you applied seven consecutive years you’d have a 65% chance that you already drew once, and a 16% chance at drawing in your seventh year(whether you’d drawn before or not)
CO @7pts Limited entry rifle
114 codes 100% draw at 7pts
Harvest% 100 of the 114 codes were in units with 10% or greater harvest success. Most were far greater. 86 of 114 hunt codes were in units with 50% or greater harvest success. Many individual hunt codes had 75%-100% harvest success.
Trophy potential 300”-340”. One was 370” and it was only 2% public. The next highest was 340”. 91 codes were units with 310” or greater potential.
^^^I guess at 7pts you’re going into your 8th year applying, but I’m not looking that stuff up again.
Does NM look as high value as it used to? Not to me.
AZ. This needs some explanation. We’re examining 7yrs into your app cycle because that’s what it would take to clear all NM apps in a preference system like CO. In AZ, if you’ve applied 6 times(going into year seven) you should have 8pts. I’m not going to take the time to figure out your odds of drawing along the way since the point system changes those odds every year, but we’ll look at anything with a better than 65% chance at 8pts with a rifle. Some years prior to your seventh, you would have had a better than 16% chance at some rifle hunts in AZ.
Price at $160 for a license that can be used for two draws, that’s about $95/yr to apply. Basically the same as NM and CO now.
23 results with equal or better draw odds going into your seventh year of applying in AZ as your cumulative odds going into your seventh year in NM for the ONE NM hunt with draw odds that high. All AZ hunts were draw odds with 8pts 100% actually. In NM there’s a 29.5% chance of applying for a 16% hunt seven consecutive times and still not drawing.
Harvest% a low of 22% a high of 80%. AZ harvest success is not as reliable as NM, but still. The 22% is actually for a hunt that can be drawn 100% with fewer than 8pts.
Trophy potential ranges from 300”-370” but all of the tags valid in 300” units are also valid in 310” units and again, those can be drawn 100% at fewer than 8pts.
How’s NM looking now?
I’m still going to apply in NM. It’s the closest western state for me, and I apply for deer in some units that are almost entirely private, plus I have a customer with land in NM and an open invitation to hunt deer on his land if I don’t draw, so I’d have to pay for the license and stamps anyway. If I was a few states away, I’d have a hard time considering NM over CO, AZ, WY, MT, or ID. I’m blown away by the interest in hunting it’s marginal hunts. They might be worth it if you can go 1/2 years, but 1/6 to 1/8 I’m not so sure.
I don’t want them to change from random to preference. That would just make it even worse.
