NE New Mexico Archery Tag

[gp4]

Hello everyone,

I have been fortunate enough to draw a New Mexico archery tag for the NE portion of the state (GMU 46/47/48/ 41-43/ 54-59) along with my son and good friend. It was our first time applying and although it was our 2nd choice we are ecstatic. Wow, never dreamed it would happen! As this is a huge area with about a dozen GMUs I was wondering if you would have an idea where we should concentrate our efforts and if you had any contacts we could talk to. We are from Alberta, Canada. We have all shot antelope before so would be looking for trophy antelope in the range of high 70s to 80. Any information you could share would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again.

Regards,

Garnet

 

[jolemons]

I've hunted spot and stalk and with decoy. It's tough hunt because NM is short grass prairie so you run out of cover the last 200 yrds.

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[WhiteOak]

I live just south of where 41 starts and there are good antelope numbers and size class in pretty much any unit you are eligible to hunt. What i would start with would be the logistics like camping or hotel. There are only a handful of towns that have hotels so if you are planing at staying in town I would pick were you want to stay then scout acess to public around there. If you are going to camp it will open up more of the unit however the northeast is mostly state land with a few small pieces of blm scattered throughout.. you can camp on blm if you want to pick that route, I would pick some blm that has a bunch of state land close by.

 

[gp4]

Thanks for the information. As of now we plan on staying at Clayton Lake campground but also have a wall tent incase we end up having to move somewhere else or camp. Season is August 11-19. do you know if the goats will be in the rut or close to it at this time? IYO would you spot and stock or sit water? where would you concentrate your efforts in this area?

Thanks,
G

 

[archer wapiti]

You can camp on state land with written lessee permission. Most people don't got through the effort, but it can be done if I recall the rules correctly. Look it up if you want to explore that option. There's National Forest (grassland) NE Clayton. Free compared to whatever the state park is charging to camp.

if you don't have something better, this is pretty useful for land ownership. Get Data - NM RGIS
on the left-center side of the screen, there's a directory called 'land ownership' the first result is 'BLM surface land ownership 2014' which you can download and open in Google earth.

 

[elkhuntrr75]

I archery hunted NM last year. It was a different unit though. There was a lot of good bucks. I think that a Onyx Maps subscription really helped out. I found a big section state land during a scouting trip that had several nice trophy bucks. I had originally thought that hunting over water would be ideal, so I brought several pop up blinds. It rained everyday so that was a bust. August is monsoon season in NM. I ended up setting the blinds up in a travel corridor. I saw a lot of antelope but rarely had them under 60 yds. Practice long shots and if you do decide to hunt from a pop up blind I would dig a two foot trench to set it in and brush it in really well. They picked up on the blind not being natural and avoided it. They will be rutting hard and might come in fighting mad at the sight of another buck. Good luck.



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[WhiteOak]

I think it would be most productive in this area to spot and stalk. Most of the antelope are in the front country. I hope to pull a archery tag for northeast or southeast for next year and my plan would be to put miles on the truck scouting all of the public keeping an eye out for antelope or walking to the high spots trying to glass up a buck you want to put the stalk on then try to stalk it.. if you get busted go find another group of antelope and repeat. Randy Newberg has a episode of him beginning with a buddy in NM and they have multiple stalks per day. Another place to look at camping may be ute lake state park. A lot of state land in between there and clayton. May not be as sexy but i think driving around will be the most efficient way to find them. They are not road shy and stick out like a sore thumb. Spot em and make a plan. I see really nice bucks all of the time just driving around not sure what it is about the high plains but somehow it grows studs

 

[CareyJAF50]

I would recommend just finding all the public land you can and figure out what order you want to hit them, theres goats everywhere, just limited public.

 

[trad_bowhunter1965]

Never hunted NM but I have killed two Antelopes with my bow and have helped about a dozen buddy’s get there goats and photographed a bunch, if there in the rut a decoy will increase your odds.