Actually the opposite is true. Most of the landowner UW and RO tags go to the smaller ranches. We don’t have “lots”. We have deeded acres of parcels. Larger ranches tend to get a higher number of tags than the smaller ranches do. Not a lottery but a pool of qualified ranches with the highest scores. There are leftover LO elk tags for some GMUs. The leftovers are handed out to the ranches with the lowest scores.
If all of the Landowner tags went away and those tags were put into the public draw, then it would be the draw hunter’s choice to book an outfitter and/or pay a trespass fee. Because of competition and elk depredation, those trespass fees would go way down. We see this in other states without LO tags. In states that pay the rancher per acre for public hunting access like Montana’s block management program; the hunting opportunity and regenerative grazing practices on cattle ranches greatly improves across the board.
The “pumpkin patch” hunters are hunting public. UW LO tag holders harvest most of their elk on public lands. The UW tags can be used for any public draw hunt code. In some GMUs the 2nd archery, first rifle, first muzzleloader get awfully crowded. Sometimes twice as many hunters are hunting public lands for a given hunt code. As a result the success rates in some better GMUs have plummeted for HD, Q hunts over the years.
Some of the gates are locked with combo locks during hunting season. There are some ranchers that are friendly to hunters yet some ranchers are not. For deer and pronghorn, it’s even worse for the resident hunter. For any “mediocre” GMU, the draw odds for residents are in the 1-10% range or lower. Public draw tags are few for residents and DIY non-residents alike. Yet the over the counter tag sales are unlimited for landowners. Secondary management ranch only elk are also sold over the counter with no limits. The New Mexico “incompetent and corrupt” game management is “killing off” our hunting opportunity.
The rules for landowner qualifications for the E-PLUS primary management zone:
