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No drawing needed to hunt antelope on private ranches in New Mexico |
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A popular way to hunt trophy antelope is to buy an unguided hunt on a ranch in New Mexico. Most years we usually have several to choose from. What you're paying for is a landowner permit voucher, which allows you to hunt a specific ranch as well as to buy a tag from the state. Some ranches include checkerboarded state or federal ground as well as deeded property, so the state issues a percentage of the allocated tags to the public in an annual computer lottery.
Rick Oubre of Louisiana bought a landowner permit through us for a 13,300-acre ranch in eastern New Mexico. Rick said that his wife Mara enjoyed the trip almost as much as he did. "She got along just great with the rancher's wife," he said. "I missed a giant antelope and still got a great buck. I had four chances, and three of the bucks were bigger than the one I killed. He's still a beautiful trophy with good mass." This part of New Mexico has an antelope hunt every other year. The cost of a landowner permit varies from year to year, depending on demand, and also from ranch to ranch and area to area. Most of the ranches that are well-known for producing top-end bucks do not allow self-guided hunting, while those with a percentage of so-called state hunters (citizens who have drawn a tag in the lottery) often do sell their landowner vouchers to do-it-yourselfers. In many cases landowners hold out for top dollar early in the year and then agree to sell their vouchers at a lower price to do-it-yourselfers when summer arrives. The season is two days long in September. In parts of northern New Mexico hunting begins in August, but most landowners there won't sell landowner permits until after the August season. The landowner permit in some parts of New Mexico authorizes you to hunt one ranch the first day of the season, and if you don't find what you're looking for, you can have a game warden assign your permit to one of the other half dozen ranches that receive unitwide permits. In other areas landowner vouchers are valid only on the ranches for which they're originally issued. If you are interested in a self-guided antelope hunt in New Mexico, let us know in advance so that we can find the best possible tags for the money. Keep in mind that landowner permits often are not available until mid-summer. Until then landowners and outfitters are still hoping to book guided hunters for more money. So tell us what you're willing to spend as well as your trophy standards and then be patient until the price drops down to a level you require. Keep in mind if your trophy standards are too low and your budget too low, it's very likely that outfitters or other hunters will buy all the vouchers that become available. |
Rich LaRocco of Hunts.Net with a buck he shot the last minute on Day 2 of the two-day September season after passing on much bigger animals, hoping to take a top-end Boone and Crockett animal that ended up staying within shooting range on the bordering property.
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