New Mexico · Elk · muzzleloader, crossbow or bow only
New Mexico elk hunt ELK-3-153
Unit 9, including Water Canyon WMA - mobility impaired only. 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 21 licences on hunt code ELK-3-153 in 2026 and issued 21 — the hunt filled. Among the three pools the state draws separately, no nonresident applicant ranked it first; 11 resident applicants ranked it first and 7 drew it, 63.64%; 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 | Of those, fourth choice | Share of the quota |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Resident | 11 | 7 | 63.64% | 23 | 20 | 0 | 95.24% |
| 2026 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 4 | 1 | 0 | 4.76% |
| 2026 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 2025 | Resident | 16 | 14 | 87.50% | 16 | 20 | 0 | 95.24% |
| 2025 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4.76% |
| 2025 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 2024 | Resident | 10 | 8 | 80.00% | 15 | 20 | 0 | 95.24% |
| 2024 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4.76% |
| 2024 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 2023 | Resident | 7 | 7 | 100.00% | 16 | 19 | 1 | 90.48% |
| 2023 | Nonresident | 0 | 0 | — | 3 | 2 | 0 | 9.52% |
| 2023 | Guided (outfitter) | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 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.
Fourth choice is deer and elk only, and it is the one column with no denominator anywhere on this page. A fourth-choice applicant names one of four quadrants of the state rather than a hunt code, and accepts any hunt in it with the same sporting arm as their first choice — so they never appear in any of the applicant columns above. Those licences are counted inside the pool total and are deliberately kept out of the first-choice rate, because there is no group of people to divide them by.
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 | 21 | 21 | 11 | 38 |
| 2025 | 21 | 21 | 16 | 33 |
| 2024 | 21 | 21 | 10 | 28 |
| 2023 | 21 | 21 | 7 | 26 |
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