New Mexico · Elk · any legal big-game sporting arm
New Mexico elk hunt ELK-1-171
Unit 51. Bag limit A. 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 252 licences on hunt code ELK-1-171 in 2022 and issued 252 — the hunt filled. Among the three pools the state draws separately, no nonresident applicant ranked it first; 355 resident applicants ranked it first and 151 drew it, 42.54%; 1 guided (outfitter) applicant ranked it first and 1 drew it, 100.00%.
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 | 355 | 151 | 42.54% | 1,192 | 251 | 99.6% |
| 2022 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 2022 | Guided (outfitter) | 1 | 1 | 100.00% | 1 | 1 | 0.4% |
| 2021 | Resident | 333 | 116 | 34.83% | 1,246 | 252 | 100% |
| 2021 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 2021 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 3 | 0 | 0% |
| 2020 | Resident | 255 | 124 | 48.63% | 1,075 | 252 | 100% |
| 2020 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 2020 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 2 | 0 | 0% |
| 2019 | Resident | 235 | 126 | 53.62% | 1,101 | 252 | — |
| 2019 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2019 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 1 | 0 | — |
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 | 252 | 252 | 356 | 1,549 |
| 2021 | 252 | 252 | 333 | 1,582 |
| 2020 | 252 | 252 | 255 | 1,332 |
| 2019 | 252 | 252 | 235 | 1,337 |
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.
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