NM Goat
I live right next to NM (3 miles away) and have hunted antelope there as a non-resident a few times over the years. I apply every year but drawing a tag is hard to impossible. Due to the new low quota's starting next year, drop the hard part and just call it darn near impossible. But here is how it works......
With a few exceptions, when applying for the antelope tag, you will apply for an "area". This "area" is comprised of several "units". You will not pick the specific, "unit" you want, only the "area". If you are fortunate enough to draw a tag, the State "assigns" you to a specific ranch when you draw a tag. You can ONLY hunt that ranch. The landowner of the ranch has to let you hunt, he cannot charge you anything. In turn for the landowner giving the State assigned hunter access to his ranch, the landowner gets "land owner tags" which he in turn can sell to anyone of his choosing or use them himself.
If you are applying as a "group" there is also the potential that everyone in your party may not be assigned to the same ranch. BUT...the State says you will be "close" to each other. In the 3 times that we have drawn, there have always been 2 of us together and we have always been assigned to the same ranch.
The ranch assignmen can or cannot be a good deal. It's purely the luck of the draw, you might be assigned to a good ranch or you might be on a not so good ranch. In 19 years of applying, I have drawn 3 NM antelope tags, only 1 of the ranches that I was assigned to had trophy antelope on it BUT on all 3 hunts I had a great experience with the land owners. They were very helpful and went out of their way to be nice to me. On one hunt there was an outfitter hunting the ranch with clients. He came to us the night before the hunt started and asked us where we wanted to hunt on the ranch giving us 1st choice on where to go. That way we did not get in each others way.
Earlier I said with a few exceptions you will go the ranch assignment way...there are a very small number of tags that are open for public land. These tags are very, very few and you had better know where you want to go as 99% of the antelope in NM are on private land and with the exceptions of the State issued tags, landowners are not very antelope hunter friendly!
Before applying, read the reg's carefully! Make sure you know what type of tag you are applying for
but my question is where is the list for landowners under the new GMU draws because all I can find is the old ones when it was still AMUs