New Mexico Antelope Draw!

jims · Nov 30, 2008

I'm somewhat amazed that no one has mentioned that the New Mexico G&F is currently taking public comments in regard to proposed changes to their antelope regulations. As far as I am concerned this is a MILESTONE to all of you that enjoy DIY hunting public land in the Western US!

NMG&F's current antelope policiy requires rifle hunters to apply for a group of units and are "randomly" assigned a ranch within these units. My son drew a public tag and was assigned a ranch a couple years ago. I was embarrassed with many of the things that happened on his hunt (and it was his first hunting experience). With the present system, there is no way a hunter can research, scout, and draw a tag for a particular ranch or unit.

Millions of acres of New Mexico BLM, national forest, and state land is currently inaccessible to draw and hunt with a public rifle tag!

You can look over the current proposal at the following website: http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/commission/documents/ProposedRegulationChanges.htm

I invite everyone to email your comments to the NMG&F at the following address:
[email protected]

Cozmo8 · Nov 30, 2008

Jims,

Help the rest of us out. I have never drawn an antelope tag in NM. What are the changes? I went to the website and I am not sure what is taking place.

jims · Dec 1, 2008

The biggest proposed change I see is making it possible for hunters to apply for a unit in the public draw rather than being assigned a random ranch. There are currently no units available in NM to draw a rifle tag and hunt public land!

As it currently stands hunters have no choice but to hunt a ranch that he is randomly assigned after the draw. As stated earlier, there are millions of acres of public land available in NM; however, rifle hunters have no access to this land when they draw a tag!

With the present system there is no way to research and scout a unit because you have no idea which ranch you will be assigned when you apply. You apply for a grouping of units and pray that you are assigned one of the few decent ranches in the units. A majority of these ranches are only 2,000 acres in size and can be hunted in a matter of a couple hours! The quality of bucks on these ranches may also not be the quality you are after...but you are stuck where you are assigned...you may get re-assigned but may end up on another 2,000 acre ranch with dink bucks!

The draw odds for most of these hunts are very high; however, if you get stuck on a crummy ranch you have wasted all those years of waiting for a tag! If I am going to wait years to draw an antelope tag you can bet I would prefer to know where I am applying and where I'll be hunting! Obviously there are a handful of super ranches in NM that offer great hunts...but there are literally hundreds of small ranches with little trophy potential! If you are like me, you would much rather research a unit and apply for that particular unit rather than not knowing where you will end up when you apply!

With the current system you are allowed to scout 2 days prior to the season on the assigned ranch. Ideally ranches are supposed to give public tag hunters equal access to the entire ranch. There are guided hunters on these ranches at the same time that pay upwards of $3,000 to hunt. I'll leave it up to you whether you think the public hunters get a fair crack at the same bucks that guided hunters have! Obviously some ranches are a lot fairer than others but the current system is a joke! My preference is to research, scout, and hunt hard to find a whopper buck on public land! Believe me, New Mexico has vast land masses with public land that currently are not available to the public rifle antelope hunter!

I would encourage everyone that enjoys hunting public land to email a short word of encouragment to the NMG&F that you would like the opportunity to hunt public land in New Mexico with a rifle!