Many Texans have hunted in New Mexico for years and even decades. This includes me. However, due to the cost of a new additional license for non residents and the change by NM legislation to increase the number of the tags for the locals, which leaves only 6 % of the total number of tags going to out of state hunters, I'm just wondered how many Texans are going to stay home. The deer population is way down compared to past years on top of all the other things mentioned. I'm thinking we need to go play somewhere else... Alaska maybe!!! Do you hunt in New Mexico, and if so , are you going back? What do you think?

Ill always hunt in new mexico, but im from there and im able to get a private lands tag every year. I dont agree with the new draw regs because I think that the state will get less money from hunters and that will certainly not be good on the habit and preservation of the wildlife. I also agree that the deer population has been going down, but there are still some good mulies there!!

My brother just moved to NM and I was pretty excited about the prospect of hunting there....until I looked at the regs. Don't think I'll waste my time with it now.

Wyoming looks fairly inviting.

new mexico hunting is tough.

shame too, they have some beautiful country there

Haven't had the urge to go yet.

Think I'm putting in this year for NM

You get a refund on the liscense if you don't draw, 12% to non-residents, but thats combined with the guided hunts. Hunting nm is still cheaper than for me to get a lease in texas or even a guided hunt.

New mexico is my favorite place to hunt...To Heck with the draw process...I just buy a landowner tag for DIY every year. LOT is not the most economical but it affords me to hunt every year.

I know the some residents are excited about the new law..but from the people I know in NM they all just get LOT's anyway, so I dont really see the benefit to what G and F did. I am sure its going to hurt the outfitters that are in New Mexico ( I know for a fact it did hurt alot of the Montana outfitters big time "guarantee outfitter tag") and it will prob drive the NM LOT's price tag up.

Alaska, now that is a place I have not been but it is on my radar for the future, too bad non-residents cant hunt sheep as a DIY. I am researching sheep outfitters now for a future hunt but dang they are expensive...can do several nice elk hunts for what a sheep hunt cost.

For everyone that says they will quit hunting New Mexico, there will be several that will step up to fill that spot.

I hunt every year in NM and will continue. I have a good relationship with a ranch owner and buy a landowner tag each year. I've talked to a NM outfitter and he said the reason for the changes were due to residents complaining about not getting selected in draw hunts. Another issue was outfitters from out-of-state setting up operations in NM and claiming residency in order to get a state outfitter number but then not actually living in NM. The recent changes required proof of residency.

I've hunted New Mexico many many times in the last 30 plus years and I believe I may have taken my last hunting trip to the land of enchantment. The chances of drawing a DIY tag in a decent unit are rediculious. I used to hunt unit 34 every year with an OTC tag until it went to draw only and have only been drawn one time since then. I expect the local business owners in the small rural communities to pay the price for this change in tag allocations. I believe the NM legislators have underestimated the amount of money non resident hunters added to the states economy. The fact that the (greatly reduced # of tags) majority of the non resident tags go to hunters that have to hire an outfitter is nothing short of an outfitter welfare program. As was stated previously it is cheaper than getting a lease in Texas and that's true but only if you can draw a decent tag. If you have never hunted some of the easier to draw units in NM don't think that heck "a tag is a tag and I'm hunting" because nothing is more frustrating than paying over priced fees for tags and licenses only to be covered up in other hunters and no game. Sorry for the rant but I've been playing the non resident game in multiple states out west for over 30 years. Good Luck to everyone in the draw this spring. Baker

Of course there's the other ugly issue of all the tree huggers buying up tags and burning them to keep them out of the hands of hunters. I hear that this is pretty bad in NM.

SHHHH.....dont tell anyone....

I've tried to hunt NM since 1997; I say try, because I haven't always gotten drawn. Since I don't have any "land-owner" connections, although my cousin does live there(just don't want to over do my invite). So, I must go thru the draw, especially for elk. Although I did buy a surplus tag for mule deer two years ago.

The system NM has now will discourage many of the elk hunters, since the majority of those tags for the better units are draw only. Non-res tags were hard before, now the new regs make it extemely difficult to get drawn, even for cow elk hunts.

The loss of revenue from the non-res tags will make NM to make some changes soon. It represented over half of their revenue, not to mention the side benefits to the local merchants.

I look for NM to go to preferance points before long, that's what most of the other states offer. That will be of some benefit for the non-res.

The mandatory hunting license is not that big of an issue, but it still will not make up the loss non-res revenue - $780 for a non-res bull elk and $1630 for non-res oryx - those fees are more than double the resident fees.

Granted you will get the license fees returned if you do not get drawn, but NM gets to keep the hunting license fee and the application fees, so their losses won't be as bad. But they will lose money from the loss of non-res hunters!

I put in for Utah this year....no New Mexico for a while...at least for elk!

Actually for me, having to buy the non resident small game license is the straw that broke the camels back. Considering less permits to non guided non residents, increased cost if drawing in a high demand unit, no preference point system to have a good idea if you have a chance to draw, makes drawing in a primo game management unit not only expensive, but difficult and in some cases impossible to do. I am not going to give them a nonrefundable $98 plus the interest on my license cost for such a slim chance every year. ($65 small game, $5 online fee, $20 application fee, $8 habitat fee) I will instead give that $98 to Wyoming by expanding what preference points I currently buy there and actually have a good idea when and where I can hunt when I do cash them in for a hunt.

We used to hunt the area around the Cracus Mesa. Then they started the draw. Got drawn and went. Since the last time we were there they had drilled a lot of oil wells and it was over run with the local hunters. Not the same as before and I will not do it again.

I've hunted NM for the last 16 years, don't know if it'll be 17. Now that they have decreased the number of NR tags to just 6% I don't think it's worth the time or money to apply. The reason is what everybody has mentioned, residents were complaining that all the NR were getting thier tags. In my group, there were 5 of us who went every year and I knew another 12 who went as well every year. As far as I know, no one is applying for a deer tag. Dogcatcher is right tho, if we don't go someone else will. I hate having to buy a license just to get in the draw. I guess they are thinking if we don't draw a deer or elk tag we'll go shoot jackrabbits or something. The landowners tags have gotten exspensive now because of this new law as well. Most of the small business owners who cater to the outdoors were against it, they said they will all lose money because of it. I may have an invite to archery hunt an alfalfa field in CO this August. In the long run, it won't hurt NM at all.

We've been Elk hunting in NM off and on for about 9yrs now (when we get drawn). Our group has decided to forgo NM this year, mostly due to them becoming more unfriendly to out of staters. 6% of tags to non resident/non-guided, all cow tags to resident hunters, up-front charge on credit cards for drawing, all add up to them alienating non resident hunters.

We (our group) discussed this at length the other night, with the upcoming deadlines for applications, and it was unanimously agreed that IF we decided to go Elk hunting this year, we'd just go to Co and get over the counter tags.

The NW states are looking more and more attractive now. We'd previously hunted NM because of it's convenience and relative ease of drawing tags in moderate demand units.

As for the statement made earlier in this thread, 'there are plenty of hunters ready to fill the gap left by disgruntled non residents", this may be true, but maybe not. No doubt they'll still have no problems having more app's than tags in all the units. But they are now going to get less money for a percentage of those tags. That also translates to less out of state money introduced into all of the local economies, from the NR hunters. They reduced to percentage on NR guided tags too, so there is another area which will see less money for residents of NM (the guides).

Overall, I see the shift in NM's policies to be a bad thing for their state. Sure, all of the locals who wanted this will be dancing in the street. Until they apply for a tag and don't get drawn, again, due to the larger numbers of residents applying because of the added percentage of tags available for residents. They will then regain the feeling that more be done to enable them to hunt the species they want. And given the general "entitlement" train of thought, which is quite prevalent with a portion of the NM population, I can only see them complaining about something else before too long. It's my feeling that nothing the state of NM does will ever make a good portion of their resident hunters happy.

I wonder how all of you would feel if Texas had a draw system and allocated a large percentage of tags to out of state hunters. The state has some responsibility to take care of their residents. Even in New Mexico the animals belong to the state, which means they belong to the residents of New Mexico.

As I said before, for everyone that drops out, there will be someone to replace them. There have been more applicants than tags for years, I see no difference in the future. In fact with the drop in permits to non residents, more people will not get drawn.

As to the businesses that get hurt, most of that will be the outfitters, you can bet they will be going up on their fees. Some of the other suppliers will have a little slow down, but I doubt if it will be a measurable amount. Every time I hunted we always took what we needed, only bought food and drinks, I doubt that it made a major impact on the local economy.

It can make an impact on the economy. I calculated up our group's expenditures on the Colorado trip this past year b/c everything got ran on 1 credit card acct; it wasn't pretty even being split 7 ways.

Spread out over the state, it is a drop in the ocean. Only a few people actually benefit.

It's not spread out over the state though... that would only be licenses and they're the cheap part.

There were 62,394 applications drawn last year for resident and non-res. I'd say a little more than a drop...!

I believe that's where your missing the point. New Mexico never gave a large portion of their tags to non residents. The odds of drawing a decent tag were poor to begin with now they are just a lottery chance. The business owners that are going to get hurt the most are the small town mom and pop shops that depends on hunting season to make the majority of their yearly income. Just ask some of the business owners in places like Reserve,Weed,Bloomfield,Clayton and others if they feel that a resident will pick up the slack. The welfare system established in NM for the outfitters will ensure most of them will be fine but it's the small business owner that will get hit first and hardest. Baker

The few locals I have talked to last year weren't really for the regs to change. They said it was mainly the people who put in for the high demand units in the north part of NM who were complaining the most and loudest. They think by getting a few more tags open to them they will get to hunt every year. High demand is just that, high demand. The little stores will be the ones that will get hurt the most. I've been going to NM for alot of years but it may be time to go somewhere else.