New Mexico · Elk · any legal big-game sporting arm
New Mexico elk hunt ELK-1-157
Unit 5B. Bag limit mature bull (MB). 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 2022 draw did
New Mexico offered 87 licences on hunt code ELK-1-157 in 2022 and issued 87 — the hunt filled. Among the three pools the state draws separately, 70 nonresident applicants ranked it first and 2 drew it, 2.86%; 278 resident applicants ranked it first and 54 drew it, 19.42%; 82 guided (outfitter) applicants ranked it first and 8 drew it, 9.76%.
This hunt code stops appearing after 2022. The department's 2026 report does not carry it, and this site does not map a retired code onto a current one — a renumbered hunt is not necessarily the same hunt, and the department has published nothing that says which is which. What is below is the record of the 4 years it was drawn.
First-choice draw rate, by pool and year
| Year | Pool | Ranked it first | Drew on first choice | First-choice draw rate | Ranked it 2nd or 3rd | Licences to this pool | Share of the quota |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Resident | 278 | 54 | 19.42% | 469 | 74 | 85.06% |
| 2022 | Nonresident | 70 | 2 | 2.86% | 100 | 5 | 5.75% |
| 2022 | Guided (outfitter) | 82 | 8 | 9.76% | 50 | 8 | 9.2% |
| 2021 | Resident | 224 | 54 | 24.11% | 444 | 74 | 85.06% |
| 2021 | Nonresident | 70 | 3 | 4.29% | 86 | 5 | 5.75% |
| 2021 | Guided (outfitter) | 46 | 7 | 15.22% | 64 | 8 | 9.2% |
| 2020 | Resident | 185 | 38 | 20.54% | 355 | 74 | 85.05% |
| 2020 | Nonresident | 42 | 3 | 7.14% | 52 | 5 | 5.75% |
| 2020 | Guided (outfitter) | 20 | 5 | 25.00% | 28 | 8 | 9.2% |
| 2019 | Resident | 156 | 47 | 30.13% | 298 | 74 | — |
| 2019 | Nonresident | 15 | 4 | 26.67% | 36 | 5 | — |
| 2019 | Guided (outfitter) | 9 | 8 | 88.89% | 7 | 9 | — |
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.
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.
| Year | Licences offered | Licences issued | Applicants who ranked it first | Applicants in total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 87 | 87 | 430 | 1,049 |
| 2021 | 87 | 87 | 340 | 934 |
| 2020 | 87 | 87 | 247 | 682 |
| 2019 ⚠ | 87 | 88 | 180 | 521 |
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
- 2022-Complete-Report.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2022-04-12, fetched 2026-08-31
- 2021-Big-Game-Drawing-Odds-Complete-Report.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2021-04-14, fetched 2026-08-31
- 2020-Drawing-Odds-Complete-Report.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2020-08-03, fetched 2026-08-31
- 2019-Drawing-Odds-Complete-Report.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2019-06-26, fetched 2026-08-31