Ichcguide, what if after 10+ years of waiting you get assigned a 2,000 acre ranch or unit with only mediocre antelope! What if the only other ranch in the immediate area is another 2,000 acre ranch with few antelope? You are screwed! The season is only 2 or 3 days and if you don't know which ranch you will be assigned or change to another one you are unfamiliar with you are at a definite disadvantage over the guided hunters!
From the ranch lists I've seen a majority of the ranches in the program are only a few thousand acres which can be covered in little to no time at all! If you are assigned one of the handful of super ranches in the program you have won the lotto and ought to have a great hunt! I hope after all these years of waiting that you aren't assigned a crummy ranch and you have a good hunt!
The Martinez guy (won't mention names) told me and my son when we arrived that all hunters would be dropped off and hiking. There would be no driving allowed on the ranch. The guy wouldn't allow me to drive my truck and personally dropped my son and I off to walk in a crummy corner of the ranch all morning! I was super upset when we finally hiked to where there were antelope and the guided hunters were running up and down the roads and were hardly spending any time hiking! When we finally were picked up around noon we went back to the ranch house and all the guided hunters had filled their tags (some were pretty good bucks). We saw 5 antelope in all the miles we hiked. Does that sound fair to you? When I finally ran into the guy that dropped us off he wouldn't even look me in the eye or talk to me because I know he felt guilty for what he did to my son! The only people left to fill their tags in the afternoon was my son and another girl that had a public tag. My son and the girl were the only ones on the ranch that year that had public tags. I wonder which corner he sent the other girl?
I'm not exactly sure why you are stating that NM system is great for the public hunter when you haven't drawn a tag and you have no idea what ranch you will be hunting once you do draw! On the outside the present system "sounds" good but if I was a NM resident I would be complaining!
If it were me I would much rather apply for a rifle unit that I knew had super bucks available on public land! I would have the option of scout the unit hard myself prior to the hunt, knock on a few ranch doors and gain permission, or hire a guide. How it now sits public hunters have to apply for a group of units and have no idea where they'll be hunting! Just doesn't make any sense to me!
If this is such a great system why doesn't the NMG&F offer elk and deer tags this way as well! NM rifle antelope tags are the only tags in the entire US that are done this way and I really think it is a screwy system! It is pretty obvious that the outfitters, ranchers, and guides in NM like the system but the public hunters?
As you can probably tell I still have fire flaming out my nose and ears and it has been a couple years since my sons hunt!
