New Mexico · Elk · any legal big-game sporting arm
New Mexico elk hunt ELK-1-389
Unit 53: excluding Cerro portion. 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 2026 draw did
New Mexico offered 131 licences on hunt code ELK-1-389 in 2026 and issued 131 — the hunt filled. Among the three pools the state draws separately, 23 nonresident applicants ranked it first and 3 drew it, 13.04%; 50 resident applicants ranked it first and 32 drew it, 64.00%; no guided (outfitter) applicant ranked it first.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Resident | 50 | 32 | 64.00% | 219 | 112 | 85.5% |
| 2026 | Nonresident | 23 | 3 | 13.04% | 68 | 7 | 5.34% |
| 2026 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 19 | 12 | 9.16% |
| 2025 | Resident | 38 | 31 | 81.58% | 191 | 111 | 84.74% |
| 2025 | Nonresident | 17 | 4 | 23.53% | 81 | 7 | 5.34% |
| 2025 | Guided (outfitter) | 8 | 4 | 50.00% | 16 | 13 | 9.92% |
| 2024 | Resident | 40 | 35 | 87.50% | 225 | 122 | 93.13% |
| 2024 | Nonresident | 15 | 2 | 13.33% | 119 | 7 | 5.34% |
| 2024 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 4 | 2 | 1.53% |
| 2023 | Resident | 43 | 30 | 69.77% | 178 | 114 | 87.03% |
| 2023 | Nonresident | 10 | 1 | 10.00% | 69 | 7 | 5.34% |
| 2023 | Guided (outfitter) | 8 | 8 | 100.00% | 3 | 10 | 7.63% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 131 | 131 | 73 | 379 |
| 2025 | 131 | 131 | 63 | 351 |
| 2024 | 131 | 131 | 55 | 403 |
| 2023 | 131 | 131 | 61 | 311 |
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
- 2026CompleteReport.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2026-04-13, fetched 2026-08-31
- 2025CompleteReport.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2025-04-09, fetched 2026-08-31
- 2024CompleteReport.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2024-04-09, fetched 2026-08-31
- 2023-odds_corrected_CN.xlsx — New Mexico Department of Wildlife, published 2023-04-11, fetched 2026-08-31