2b youth New Mexico

[swampokie]

I’ve seen a lot of strong opinions for and against this hunt. What do u guys think the draw odds will be and do u think they will kill mostly mature or immiture bucks? What about the hunt in 2a?

 

[Trial153]

I think it was silly to offer this hunt with the number of tags it’s giving in one of if not the only unit in NM that is still known for trophy mule deer on public land. First year in years I didn’t apply for a unit 2 tag in NM.

 

[lif]

I assume your talking about the rifle hunt at thanksgiving. They’ve already had a January archery hunt for youth as well. The rifle tags are crazy to me. I applied my son because it’s a great youth opportunity but it’s a ridiculous management plan at face value. 250 tags I believe, for a hunt that is a migratory hunt in essence, when there was zero tags last year. . From what I understand all those bigger bucks there are coming in from Colorado And Colorado fish and wildlife not happy.

 

[Foldem]

I put my kids in. With the new dates I'd guess odds are in the low single digits, but should be an awesome opportunity for some youths. It's probably not the best management move as far as harvest on the mature bucks, but I'm assuming most kids won't be passing bucks to hold out for a 200"er.

 

[Cjdad]

My son hunted last year in the youth archery 2B with a guide (we are nonresident) and had a look and the opportunities were there for a good deer (150-160+) but he never could get a really good shot at one. My observations were that most of the youth archery will shoot anything with horns. There were a ton of young deer. We prefer not to do that and will gladly eat tag soup which we did.

We also applied for the Thanksgiving youth rifle hunt through the outfitters pool. My son is a lot more accomplished on the rifle side of things and we feel that we can go where most others arent willing to and find a good trophy buck. We are very willing to log the miles/hours for the right one, but those roads do get a little crazy and seems like a free for all. My advice is park the truck and take off a foot, glass long and hard....they are there.

 

[Jeepers87]

Hard to tell, i know when I was a kid I was just as happy and excited to knock down a spike just to show my dad I was like him. Here we are giving youth a chance to take a trophy which I am not against, but my gut tells me this is going to turn into one kid and a pack of adults harvesting a good buck. But maybe I am a pessimist on such things. I hunted 2b late rifle last year and with some work there is great bucks to be had, but also most bucks were smaller at that time frame. I guess I’ll have a more rounded opinion after harvest this year to see how many mature bucks get dropped.