Barbary Sheep Seen, But No Deer Unit 30

[Educator]

After hunting Unit 30 for the past 45 years, I have decided that the deer population truly sucks, but I did see a large amount of pronghorn and 3 Barbary rams in an area that I NEVER would have expected. How about anyone else? Did anyone see what they would considered a normal amount of deer in Unit 30?

 

[ELKMAN]

I saw 20 deer all doe in five days. The last time that I hunted there. In the day, we would see a hundred deer a day. The entire state is in bad shape.

 

[OCHO]

Imo it was better when it was OTC. We hammer what little is left, especially when the hunts start on the weekend and only run 5 days. People don’t give the little remaining deer a chance like forks and tiny 6 points get hammered. I Fully understand that not everyone is not a trophy hunter as well but anything legal gets hammered.

But the white tail are growing like mad saw a crap load in tuccumcari!

 

[cbat]

I worked on a ranch in the Guads back in the late 80s. It was nothing to see 75 deer a day. Then we started losing the government trappers. It was a downward spiral after losing the contract lion trappers. I also worked with the Jicarillas for a time in the 90s. I asked Tom Watts the bio up there how do you grow big deer ? His answer was , We kill coyotes. They paid a bounty on them and would furnish you free ammo.

 

[Educator]

I agree. When I was in High School in the 80's we would literally see 50+ deer a day just hunting the side roads in Dark Canyon. I drove over 200 miles (stopping and glassing). The boys walked 14.4 miles according to their GPS. We didn't even see a single deer or jackrabbit. I hunted from Marathon to the North Rim, down to the low country around Armstrong Road, and back south all through Dark Canyon. It was unreal.

 

[roadrunner]

Time to reimplement coyote contests...

 

[OCHO]

Utah has bounty on coyotes and you don’t see many spare dogs I’ll say that!

 

[ELKMAN]

Crazy Ed! Times have changed!

 

[NMPROUD]

My son and I just finished up the youth hunt. He got his first buck. We hunted hard for 8 days to get one down. Lots of walking and glassing. We saw several hunters who didn’t see anything. There are far too many tags issued in this unit. Two 800 tag hunts back to back is just crazy. Maybe NMDGF knows where 2,000 bucks are hiding. Here is his buck. Any other bucks from 30?

 

[littlemonster]

My son was able to harvest this older buck on opening day of the youth hunt, my other son was not as fortunate and ate tag soup but it wasn't for lack of trying. Deer numbers are way down in Unit 30. And the few bucks that we did see where up and moving at a run as soon as they spotted us. I see why they have the youth hunt when they do with is being Thanksgiving week and having more time to hunt but its rough on these little guys after having to hunt after 2 rifle hunts and a muzzleloader hunt.

 

[BradA]

Congratulations