Non-Resident New Mexico drawings

[CrownKiller14]

My advice is start reading on NM fish and game site.. Pick an animal and a season and start filtering through past draw results. But understand those result only tell you half of the story. It takes time and effort to find a unit worth hunting if they odds are to high.
You might see a tag that has 25% chance of drawing for elk, but there might not be any public land or elk have already migrated out of the unit or onto private.

[Txpepper]

Normal expectations. They are not friendly to NR in their draw.

That’s pretty much what I’m seeing across the board.

[LeanMachine]

I have drawn multiple tags in NM and have only applied for a handful of years as a NR. You can get a decent idea off the state site if you have reasonable odds or if it is very low chance of drawing for you. Yes you can put it for super desirable tags and never draw.

[Aggiestad]

This may be a dumb question but are there any other states beside Colorado that offer OTC tags?

I was under the impression all of the other western states were draw only for non-residents.


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[Texans42]

This may be a dumb question but are there any other states beside Colorado that offer OTC tags?

I was under the impression all of the other western states were draw only for non-residents.


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Assuming western.
For elk/mule deer/bear.. Idaho
Archery Mule deer AZ not sure on bear and lion
NM LO mule deer, and quota bear and lion

Okla has OTC elk, pronghorn, mule deer and bears

[Nate Riley]

The hunts are more expensive but your NR odds are better when you apply through a guide. We put in with Bullbuster Outfitters. I haven't drawn anything, but my daughter drew youth season tags for pronghorn and mule deer last year (her first year) and was successful on both.

[Nate Riley]

I hunted 36&37 for mule deer last year on a guided hunt. Never saw a mulie but saw more elk than we could count.

How did you hunt 36 and 37? Different tag units…with a hwy dividing them

Were those Fourth Choice Hunts? Aren't those by quadrant?

36 and 37 are Fourth Choice units, which probably explains why you did see any deer.

[GWHunter]

Are y'all putting in for top quality tags or is this a fairly normal expectation across the board.

No sir, this is middle of the road/ bottom of the barrel units that mathematically give you a better chance of drawing a tag lol…. New Mexico just isn’t kind to out of state hunters. Like I said, we have better luck with mule deer on descent units. I will continue to apply, but have pretty much come to the realization that I’m never gonna hunt elk in New Mexico again. Good luck!

[basschump]

No sir, this is middle of the road/ bottom of the barrel units that mathematically give you a better chance of drawing a tag lol…. New Mexico just isn’t kind to out of state hunters. Like I said, we have better luck with mule deer on descent units. I will continue to apply, but have pretty much come to the realization that I’m never gonna hunt elk in New Mexico again. Good luck!

I deer hunted NM twice. This is a bottom of the barrel unit. The first time I drew a second season rifle tag- there were six total non-resident applicants for 5 tags. The next time I drew there we’re about 20 applicants and I got lucky. I looked this year and I think there were 40 or 50 applicants. I can’t imagine there are that many non-residents interested in the unit. I don’t understand what drives the increase.

NR draw tags for elk are fractions of a percent for premium units.

[Txpepper]

Were those Fourth Choice Hunts? Aren't those by quadrant?

36 and 37 are Fourth Choice units, which probably explains why you did see any deer.

I have no idea, we drew out through the guide. Should have been a red flag that he told us we would 100% draw out. We saw NO deer but the elk were everywhere!!

[Texans42]

Were those Fourth Choice Hunts? Aren't those by quadrant?

36 and 37 are Fourth Choice units, which probably explains why you did see any deer.

No by unit. fourth choice i think is Resident only deperdation hunts

i put first and second choice every year. I see deer all the time sept, Oct and Jan. Missed a stud jan 22. NM isnt CO though

[Bulldawg87]

Couple things

In New Mexico your 1st choice is completing with 2nd and 3rd choice selections of any name pulled from the hat in front of you. So it's entirely possible for a units NR tags to get filled on 2nd or even 3rd choice before your 1st choice of the same unit is pulled.

Unit 12 Definitely has NOWHERE near 100% odds. Anywhere from under 1% to 4% on the desirable tags. There is one late season tag in that unit with higher odds. On 1st or 2nd Archery or Rifle your odds are actually better in other units with many more tags.

You can pull the data easily to see. Look at the Unit 12 data posted above from last year.
Take the tags available per hunt (1st Rifle) 35 tags x .06 to Non-Residents = 2 Tags
then divide that by 1st-3rd entries (230 applicants) for Non Resident Entries to get your odds.

2 Tags / 230 Applicants = Less than 1% draw odds for the 1st Rifle Non-Resident in Unit 12.

Odds are very low in most units as you will see....especially good units

That said, I drew a tag last year that had under 2% odds to draw on the edge of the Gila

[Bulldawg87]

The hunts are more expensive but your NR odds are better when you apply through a guide. We put in with Bullbuster Outfitters. I haven't drawn anything, but my daughter drew youth season tags for pronghorn and mule deer last year (her first year) and was successful on both.

This isn't necessarily true: Outfitter get 10% of the pool, but in many cases there are more applicants for the 10% outfitter pool than the 6% non-resident pool.

Look at 21A, just a quick example I pulled for 2nd Rifle.
35 Total Tags
Non-residents get 2 of those tags, outfitter pool gets 3 tags

Non-Resident Applicants = 66 applicants for 2 tags = 3% odds
Outfitter Pool Applicants = 163 applicants for 3 tags = 1.8% odds.

So, in this example, your odds are nearly double to apply as non-resident (6% tag allocation) with no guide than in the outfitter guided pool (10% tag allocation).

Still slim odds either way

[flywise]

I dosent matter what the odds are fact is you won’t get drawn for anything if you don’t apply.
Typically the odds suck but it is what it is

[Rock63]

Only NM tag I’ve ever drawn was with the outfitter pool. I’m 0 for 7 in normal NR pool and 1 and 1 for outfitter pool.