Big Game by StateThe public record of western draws

New Mexico · Deer · any legal big-game sporting arm

New Mexico deer hunt DER-1-196

Unit 16. Bag limit fork-antlered deer (FAD). Of the people who ranked this hunt first, how many drew it — year by year, and separately for each of the three pools New Mexico draws. Every figure comes from a Department of Wildlife report linked at the foot of this page.

What the 2026 draw did

New Mexico offered 300 licences on hunt code DER-1-196 in 2026 and issued 300 — the hunt filled. Among the three pools the state draws separately, 101 nonresident applicants ranked it first and 10 drew it, 9.90%; 445 resident applicants ranked it first and 97 drew it, 21.80%; 17 guided (outfitter) applicants ranked it first and 11 drew it, 64.71%.

Drawn in each of the 8 years the department has published, 2019 to 2026.

Residency pool

First-choice draw rate, by pool and year

The rate is the winners who were awarded this hunt as their first choice, divided by the applicants in the same pool who ranked it first. Both are exact integers the department printed in the same row. A dash means nobody in that pool ranked the hunt first, so the draw answered nothing — it is an absent measurement, not a nought.
YearPoolRanked it firstDrew on first choiceFirst-choice draw rateRanked it 2nd or 3rdLicences to this poolShare of the quota
2026Resident4459721.80%1,98725284%
2026Nonresident101109.90%244186%
2026Guided (outfitter)171164.71%1063010%
2025Resident3999323.31%1,77325284%
2025Nonresident731013.70%253186%
2025Guided (outfitter)221254.55%823010%
2024Resident40110726.68%1,76025284%
2024Nonresident1081412.96%223186%
2024Guided (outfitter)271140.74%763010%
2023Resident41911226.73%1,81225284%
2023Nonresident8889.09%248186%
2023Guided (outfitter)191368.42%723010%
2022Resident1,188594.97%1,7886885%
2022Nonresident7722.60%8345%
2022Guided (outfitter)6634.55%45810%
2021Resident1,476604.07%2,0416885%
2021Nonresident6311.59%11245%
2021Guided (outfitter)35822.86%42810%
2020Resident1,212615.03%1,6386885%
2020Nonresident6734.48%8945%
2020Guided (outfitter)30620.00%16810%
2019Resident1,186605.06%1,47868—
2019Nonresident5335.66%665—
2019Guided (outfitter)14642.86%218—

Share of the quota is the department's own R% / NR% / O% column: this pool's share of the licences offered. It is an allocation split set by state law — a minimum of 84% resident, 10% outfitted, 6% nonresident — and not a chance of drawing. It reads 100% on any hunt residents took in full. It is shown because the department publishes it and a reader will meet it elsewhere, not because it answers the question this page is about.

The first-choice draw rate, year by year

One strip per pool, because the three are drawn separately under different shares and a single averaged line would hide the only distinction most readers are here for. Each figure is a record of what that year's draw did. None of it forecasts the next one.

Nonresident

6%2019
4%2020
2%2021
3%2022
9%2023
13%2024
14%2025
10%2026

Resident

5%2019
5%2020
4%2021
5%2022
27%2023
27%2024
23%2025
22%2026

Guided (outfitter)

43%2019
20%2020
23%2021
5%2022
68%2023
41%2024
55%2025
65%2026

Rounded to whole percentages here; the table above carries them to two decimals. A dash means nobody in that pool ranked this hunt first that year.

Licences offered against licences issued

These are different numbers and the department publishes both. A hunt can fail to fill, and 35 of the 893 hunts in the 2026 report did.

YearLicences offeredLicences issuedApplicants who ranked it firstApplicants in total
20263003005632,900
20253003004942,602
20243003005362,595
20233003005262,658
202280801,3313,247
202180801,5743,769
202080801,3093,052
2019 ⚠80811,2532,818

Applicants in total counts everyone who ranked this hunt anywhere in their three choices, across all three pools. It is a measure of demand, not of competition for a first-choice licence.

⚠ marks a year where two figures the department published disagree with each other: the department recorded more licences issued than it offered. The rows are shown exactly as the department published them and nothing is corrected here, because correcting them would mean inventing a figure it never stated.

Sources for this hunt

Nearby hunt codes

New Mexico grants no preference to previously unsuccessful applicants, so nothing on this page accumulates and nothing here predicts next year. See how these numbers are produced and checked, or the application deadlines.