NM Draw Apps Open 22

Hi all, hope someone can help me answer a question that i can't seem to find an answer to in NM regulations. *(pointing out page in regs works too so i can read it on my own).
this will be my first year applying in NM, figured might as well throw my name in there for some of the 1% draw units. Not actually expecting to draw any, but someone has to get lucky and if i did i'd give my other states hunts for NM.

if applying as a party 2 or 3 people. Does every person in Party App has to draw in order for party to get Tags, which probably hurts odds even more?
or do they over-allocate like WY does where Party is seen as a SINGLE application and once drawn all in that party get a Tag?

thank you.
 
Hi all, hope someone can help me answer a question that i can't seem to find an answer to in NM regulations. *(pointing out page in regs works too so i can read it on my own).
this will be my first year applying in NM, figured might as well throw my name in there for some of the 1% draw units. Not actually expecting to draw any, but someone has to get lucky and if i did i'd give my other states hunts for NM.

if applying as a party 2 or 3 people. Does every person in Party App has to draw in order for party to get Tags, which probably hurts odds even more?
or do they over-allocate like WY does where Party is seen as a SINGLE application and once drawn all in that party get a Tag?

thank you.
 

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I enjoy applying in New Mexico. It's like a raffle, and you never know what might happen. I've gotten really lucky in New Mexico once already, and it resulted in a wonderful hunt.

I see a lot of people online and have even met a lot of New Mexicans that complain about the draw system. Most when you talk to them you find out that they don't read/understand odds and that that's where their problems stem from. That said, I do think the outfitter draw sucks, and would rather have straight 90/10 than the 84/10/6 they have now. (I think those are the splits.)

I say all this just to say I love the state and its history and any tag they call my number on is a good tag to me. This year, they probably won't have to bother with a long-haired Georgian swinging a rifle around though, because I'm thinking to just roll the dice on a low-odds deer or pronghorn tag. (Low-odds pronghorn tag is a bit of a redundancy in New Mexico, I know.)
 
I enjoy applying in New Mexico. It's like a raffle, and you never know what might happen. I've gotten really lucky in New Mexico once already, and it resulted in a wonderful hunt.

I see a lot of people online and have even met a lot of New Mexicans that complain about the draw system. Most when you talk to them you find out that they don't read/understand odds and that that's where their problems stem from. That said, I do think the outfitter draw sucks, and would rather have straight 90/10 than the 84/10/6 they have now. (I think those are the splits.)

I say all this just to say I love the state and its history and any tag they call my number on is a good tag to me. This year, they probably won't have to bother with a long-haired Georgian swinging a rifle around though, because I'm thinking to just roll the dice on a low-odds deer or pronghorn tag. (Low-odds pronghorn tag is a bit of a redundancy in New Mexico, I know.)
thanks, thats how i'm looking at NM,
being resident in CO i get plenty of OPPORTUNITIES, and plan on multiple hunts as i have past 3 years

NM could be that 1% chance at Premier hunt experience, so worth the raffle cost.
 
I enjoy applying in New Mexico. It's like a raffle, and you never know what might happen. I've gotten really lucky in New Mexico once already, and it resulted in a wonderful hunt.

I see a lot of people online and have even met a lot of New Mexicans that complain about the draw system. Most when you talk to them you find out that they don't read/understand odds and that that's where their problems stem from. That said, I do think the outfitter draw sucks, and would rather have straight 90/10 than the 84/10/6 they have now. (I think those are the splits.)

I say all this just to say I love the state and its history and any tag they call my number on is a good tag to me. This year, they probably won't have to bother with a long-haired Georgian swinging a rifle around though, because I'm thinking to just roll the dice on a low-odds deer or pronghorn tag. (Low-odds pronghorn tag is a bit of a redundancy in New Mexico, I know.)
Totally agree on most people who claim they “can’t draw a tag in NM” ESPECIALLY residents. There are a lot of hunts with fantastic draw odds for residents. They aren’t the hunts we all want to draw, but as a resident who can pay the resident fee and has an easier time scouting due to distance, they have nothing to complain about. If they aren’t drawing tags, they don’t want to go hunting, they want to hunt a tag that is literally impossible to guarantee them an opportunity at regardless of the system. However, the odds have been getting progressively worse, which for NRs has really harmed the “value” of the state. It’s actually a function of supply and demand rather than a disfunction of the draw system though. NM doesn’t have nearly as many animals, and thus tags, available as CO. NM gives out 22371 elk tags through the draw, and if I understand correctly CO gives out over 105,000 tags in the draw, plus has an overwhelming number of OTC tags. While the total number of applicants has increased over the years, what has surprised me the most is which hunt codes have been most effected. The top tier units have really only experienced slight increases in demand, while the low tier units have become swamped!

When I started applying in NM, the license was refunded if you didn’t draw and you didn’t have to purchase stamps, so you were actually only out $13 if you didn’t draw. Compare that to getting a point in CO for a few years and NM was quite a bit cheaper. Why not take a $13 shot? The low tier units had tags about $100 cheaper than CO as well, so if you wanted to learn an easy to draw unit, it was still a little cheaper than CO. The first elk tag I drew in NM had only 1 NR tag and 1 OT tag in each of four rifle seasons, and in the previous 3-4 years had only had 1-2 total NR applicants spread over all four seasons(literally there were dates with no applicants every year) and 0-1 OT applicants(again some years not a single OT applicant for any of the four tags). Odds were basically 100% if you applied for it on two different dates as two of your choices. Other low tier units with more tags had 30%-50% draw odds. Were those great elk hunts? No. BUT because I live on the NM border, making scouting a lot easier than driving across the country, and because I could really draw it every few years, I could learn some of the low tier units while throwing my name in the hat for some top tier units at a low cost. After that hunt, I decided I was never going to apply for it again. There was so little public that wasn’t land locked it just required too much luck to even find an elk on public land whether you knew the unit or not, but some of those 30%-50% units still held some promise. That’s not the case today. The license is not refundable which makes the increased expense of CO less of a burden. It’s $82 out the window if you don’t draw NM vs $100 in CO. The highest odds rifle tag in the whole state is 16%. It’s not a better hunt than when it was 50% or higher. That’s 7yrs to be guaranteed a tag in a preference point system with a chance in year 6. You’re looking at roughly a once per 7 year frequency in a random system as well. Below is a comparison of some similar options across different states.

NM 16%. Highest odds rifle elk tag
1 hunt code with odds that high.
Harvest 10%
Trophy 310”
If you applied seven consecutive years you’d have a 65% chance that you already drew once, and a 16% chance at drawing in your seventh year(whether you’d drawn before or not)

CO @7pts Limited entry rifle
114 codes 100% draw at 7pts
Harvest% 100 of the 114 codes were in units with 10% or greater harvest success. Most were far greater. 86 of 114 hunt codes were in units with 50% or greater harvest success. Many individual hunt codes had 75%-100% harvest success.
Trophy potential 300”-340”. One was 370” and it was only 2% public. The next highest was 340”. 91 codes were units with 310” or greater potential.

^^^I guess at 7pts you’re going into your 8th year applying, but I’m not looking that stuff up again.

Does NM look as high value as it used to? Not to me.

AZ. This needs some explanation. We’re examining 7yrs into your app cycle because that’s what it would take to clear all NM apps in a preference system like CO. In AZ, if you’ve applied 6 times(going into year seven) you should have 8pts. I’m not going to take the time to figure out your odds of drawing along the way since the point system changes those odds every year, but we’ll look at anything with a better than 65% chance at 8pts with a rifle. Some years prior to your seventh, you would have had a better than 16% chance at some rifle hunts in AZ.

Price at $160 for a license that can be used for two draws, that’s about $95/yr to apply. Basically the same as NM and CO now.
23 results with equal or better draw odds going into your seventh year of applying in AZ as your cumulative odds going into your seventh year in NM for the ONE NM hunt with draw odds that high. All AZ hunts were draw odds with 8pts 100% actually. In NM there’s a 29.5% chance of applying for a 16% hunt seven consecutive times and still not drawing.
Harvest% a low of 22% a high of 80%. AZ harvest success is not as reliable as NM, but still. The 22% is actually for a hunt that can be drawn 100% with fewer than 8pts.
Trophy potential ranges from 300”-370” but all of the tags valid in 300” units are also valid in 310” units and again, those can be drawn 100% at fewer than 8pts.

How’s NM looking now?

I’m still going to apply in NM. It’s the closest western state for me, and I apply for deer in some units that are almost entirely private, plus I have a customer with land in NM and an open invitation to hunt deer on his land if I don’t draw, so I’d have to pay for the license and stamps anyway. If I was a few states away, I’d have a hard time considering NM over CO, AZ, WY, MT, or ID. I’m blown away by the interest in hunting it’s marginal hunts. They might be worth it if you can go 1/2 years, but 1/6 to 1/8 I’m not so sure.

I don’t want them to change from random to preference. That would just make it even worse.
 
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I enjoy applying in New Mexico. It's like a raffle, and you never know what might happen. I've gotten really lucky in New Mexico once already, and it resulted in a wonderful hunt.

I see a lot of people online and have even met a lot of New Mexicans that complain about the draw system. Most when you talk to them you find out that they don't read/understand odds and that that's where their problems stem from. That said, I do think the outfitter draw sucks, and would rather have straight 90/10 than the 84/10/6 they have now. (I think those are the splits.)

I say all this just to say I love the state and its history and any tag they call my number on is a good tag to me. This year, they probably won't have to bother with a long-haired Georgian swinging a rifle around though, because I'm thinking to just roll the dice on a low-odds deer or pronghorn tag. (Low-odds pronghorn tag is a bit of a redundancy in New Mexico, I know.)

Going to 90/10 would help a little, but not as much as most think. Most of the improved odds would come from the low tier units that outfitters advise against anyway. You’re talking about splitting 62.5% of the current tags with 100% of the current applicants. Now if they went closer to 85/15 and ditched the outfitter pool I’d be 100% on board. My guess is that outfitters wouldn’t lose any hunts at all. The application services that guide just enough hunts to keep a license and transfer the rest of their clients to other outfitters if they draw might loose some business.
 
Whoa whoa whoa. I was thinking we needed to go 95/5!

The more I read about how other states run their draws, I'm thankful to live here...
 
Whoa whoa whoa. I was thinking we needed to go 95/5!

The more I read about how other states run their draws, I'm thankful to live here...
I think as soon as the West locks out non-residents you’ll see a move to ban hunting on federal land.

Non-resident hunting benefits a state in a LOT of ways beyond the money that comes in on license sales.
 
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Get rid of the outfitter welfare. It is only 5% of tag revenue & that could be doubled, ez.
Raise resident fees $10.
Go to 90/10%.
If you want to go to 90/10 then you want to go to 90/10.

BUT, I’m not sure how you’re getting to that 5% of “tag revenue” number. Perhaps looking at the actual numbers it’s somewhere in that range, but again, I’m not seeing how. Looking at tags through the draw, and avoiding adding up every single one, NRs pay about 8X(6-9X depending on fee type) as much for a deer or elk tag, and 15X as much for Ibex, and 20X as much for a sheep. You and I both know that ALMOST 100% of the outfitter pool goes to NRs(Residents have better odds in the resident pool on almost every single tag and can hire an outfitter after the fact if they want to, and when the outfitter pool has better odds, there is nothing preventing a resident from using an outfitter to enter that pool) Just going with 8X the tag price and 10% of the tags, the outfitter pool pays roughly 38% of the total tag revenue from the draw, and the rest of the NRs pay about 23% of the tag revenue that comes through the draws. 38% is a long way from 5% and I don’t think it’s remotely possible for OTC deer and pronghorn to bring that number down. For most units the private only tag numbers are somewhere between equal to and far lower than the public tag numbers. Maybe they’re all going to NRs at the NR price making the outfitter portion of the DRAW a smaller percentage, but it would surprise me greatly if it got 38% down to 5%, and if it did, that would mean that NRs are paying WAAAAAAAAAY more than 61% of the tag revenue in NM)

So the NR+OT pools pay about 61% of the tag revenue generated by the DRAW. Eliminating the separate pools for the outfitters would not likely cost the outfitters any actual guided hunts. Eliminating AND reducing the total quota from 16% to 10% would likely cost them a few hunts, but the huge drawback is the cost of NR license sales. It doesn’t matter if the license goes to an outfitted NR or a DIY NR, the license price is the same. If you change from 84/10/6 to 90/10 the NR portion of the draw goes from 61% of tag revenue to 47%, and total revenue is cut to 80% of the original tag revenue from the DRAW.

R=resident price

.84R+.16(8R)=2.12R
.9R+.1(8R)=1.7R

1.7/2.12=.802=80.2%

What about 100% resident tags?
1R=1R.
1/2.12=.472=47.2% of the current revenue from tag sales.

That’s going to take a lot more than a $5 increase in resident tag price. At 100% resident tags you’d have to more than double the price of resident tags to make up the money to NMGF, BUT NMGF isn’t the only place that would be losing money.

It also equals a lot fewer non-resident hunters buying gas, eating at restaurants, staying at hotels, getting tires or trucks fixed etc. Those people may not hand you money, but when they hand money to someone in NM, that waitress, or hotel owner, or guide, or tire shop just might hand you money. When I spend money in WY, it takes a lot longer for it to make its way into your hands than when I spend money in NM. When I spend money in China, most of it stays in China.

I’m 100% against the outfitters having their own special pool of tags, but NM benefits from NR hunters. NM residents have very good draw odds for the majority of hunt codes. The hunt codes in which they have extremely low odds have extremely low odds in all three pools, and going 100% to residents would still leave them with extremely low odds. If a resident wants to hunt then best tag in the state, he’s going to have to accept that not everyone is going to get to do that resident or otherwise. If he just wants to go hunting, there is plenty of opportunity.
 
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I think as soon as the West locks out non-residents you’ll see a move to ban hunting on federal land.

Non-resident hunting benefits a state in a LOT of ways beyond the money that comes in on license sales.
That's a good point.
 

License sales isn’t what Hank4elk said, and theoretically wouldn’t necessarily decrease based on the change he mentioned. NR tag sales, however, would drop.

I love do love your chart though. It shows that non-residents are providing over half the funding that NMGF receives from licenses, and we’ve already established they are paying over half of what they get from tag sales as well.

According to your chart NRs are a minimum of 62% of dollars from fishing license sales, and a minimum of 77% of dollars from game hunting license sales. It’s not clear from the chart whether hunting license sales includes “tags” since species tags are referred to as licenses in NM. Because NM offers discounts for resident youth and resident seniors, it’s actually obvious that 62% and 77% are low.
 
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I got my data from the NMG&F full report to the legislature. One of the few in years.
20% hole in staff. Yikes!

I could suggest all kinds of stuff that would get me banned on here & in general.
To raise the needed funds to run the dept. effectively.
Like a backpack tax or an Audobon tax...

The last thing I want to see is NMG&F funds linked to the general fund. That will not fly by me. There is way too much politics involved already.
My only hope is they don't ruin the elk hunting, like they have deer,......... and the list could go on.
Maybe sheep, cause it has grown in numbers of animals.
 

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