I am from NM and the only way to be sure of elk, deer and antelope tags every year is to buy landowner tags. I moved to Colorado 20 years ago. In Co I generally get two or more elk tags per year, one deer tag, an antelope tag, a bear tag and simply driving three hours to Nebraska I can have 2 buck tags, and basically unlimited doe tags. Or I can drive to Wyoming and have plenty of hunting there as well.
While I do miss NM in some aspects the paucity of tags and the cost of landowner tags is not one of the aspects I miss at all. NM was good to me though, I killed an Oryx in White Sands , Ibex in the Floridas, guided my father on a Siberian Ibex in the Canadian river gorge, (no longer available to hunt), Barbary sheep, multiple elk, antelope, and a few deer, Mt Lion and bear. I was a guide up in the Pecos for about a decade mainly hunting bear and Lion.
That being said Colorado has been exceptional, I’ve drawn moose and killed a record book bull, drew and harvested a Mt goat, and generally get between one and two elk per year with the ability to hunt more if I wanted to. I get a mule deer about every other year and antelope anytime I want to. The only special tag I haven’t drawn in Co is a bighorn. The problem with Colorado is that the human population has exploded in the last decade but especially in the last 5 years. While it is easy to get elk tags the hunting for elk in most OTC or low draw point units is freaking over crowded and miserable. I don’t do it anymore.
Colorado needs to to start limiting tags on elk because the quality of elk and the quality of hunting is horrendous on easily accessible areas. When I hike or ride 5 to 10 miles in and I’m seeing dozens of other hunters, many of whom just got scammed by a low rent outfitter on low yield lousy quality ground it makes me not want to hunt there. These poor schleps are paying $7 to $10,000 to hunt OTC units with very low success rates. It’s a scam and these types of hunts are heavily oversold.
