NM landowner tags under fire

[Stubborn_bowhunter]

Familiar with a LO in nm, 100% of his tags are used on his property. He leases his ranch to a cattle operator in the summer for $7500 for 2000 acres. Had 3 groups of hunters, 5 days each group, 4/group. Total revenue from hunting 54k.
Barely covering costs, wants to leave to his children, eliminate LO tags, he is out of business and who is going to buy 2000acres for the cattle revenue. This business paradox exists throughout the state, suspect politically its a heavy lift to eliminate. Doubt the state wants to pay depredation damages to landowners in lieu of permits. As others have said, other alternative is shoot and let lay.

Maybe he should charge the cattle operator more.

NM is a fence out state. You have to build fences to keep cattle off your property if they're coming into your land.

Landowners can fence out elk if they are too much of a nuisance for a three month summer cattle operation on 2k acres.

I believe the system needs to be reevaluated. 2,000 acres with ranch only tags is a lot different than 1 acre properties getting unit wide tags.
I don't see the big ranches being as big of a problem for number of tags than a lot of small properties getting them

Tax breaks or some other incentive to provide habit tag should be enough for small properties.

Big ranches should be approached differently.

 

[Bogner24]

Familiar with a LO in nm, 100% of his tags are used on his property. He leases his ranch to a cattle operator in the summer for $7500 for 2000 acres. Had 3 groups of hunters, 5 days each group, 4/group. Total revenue from hunting 54k.
Barely covering costs, wants to leave to his children, eliminate LO tags, he is out of business and who is going to buy 2000acres for the cattle revenue. This business paradox exists throughout the state, suspect politically its a heavy lift to eliminate. Doubt the state wants to pay depredation damages to landowners in lieu of permits. As others have said, other alternative is shoot and let lay.

Thanks for the info. If animals are in someone's property and they will sell access for the tag it seems like a win/win. I don't like the idea that LOs can have a bunch of tags and they don't get used at all but this doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[wapitibob]

Does NM have any data to show that LO use all tags allotted to them?

The conversion rate is below 100% last I recall. Cow tags mostly go unconverted.

 

[yfarm]

Where he is at they lay the fences down in the winter or migratory animals destroy the fence, lease rate is market for the area.

 

[HornPorn]

If a landowner owns thousands of acres where he is proving elk habitat for the majority of the year, then he should be incentivized to continue to keep that land in its current state. Favorable tax treatment and tags to hunt and kill animals that he provides habitat for, are a couple of ways.

You guys that don’t own shit and think you are entitled to go out and hunt on their property sound like communists. Go buy your own land, or play the draw game like everybody else.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Sorry, I should be more specific. Does anyone use them (completely) or are they simply doled out and disappear into thin air?

They are depredation reimbursement. 8k buys a lot of hay, fence repair, replacement heifers aka a lot of tolerance

Best

 

[cuerro viejo]

Maybe he should charge the cattle operator more.

NM is a fence out state. You have to build fences to keep cattle off your property if they're coming into your land.

Landowners can fence out elk if they are too much of a nuisance for a three month summer cattle operation on 2k acres.

I believe the system needs to be reevaluated. 2,000 acres with ranch only tags is a lot different than 1 acre properties getting unit wide tags.
I don't see the big ranches being as big of a problem for number of tags than a lot of small properties getting them

Tax breaks or some other incentive to provide habit tag should be enough for small properties.

Big ranches should be approached differently.

Why would a cattle operator pay more for less grass and lower carrying capacity. the Higher the carrying capacity the less his expensive are as a %. gas is same wether go check 10 head or 100

Small ranches put in for Unit wide which opens their ranch to public access.

You are right though thousands of acres of HF and subdivisions are the answer. that’s great for wild life

Think NM does the LO system the right way. They open up a lot of access.

If people have an issue with they system then just make it an
Opportunity state like CO. elk tags for everyone

 

[WannaBeRambo]

Just finished listening to the most recent Hunt Quietly podcast episode. It covers the issues with tag allocation in New Mexico. I've always heard there's a lot of landowner tags but apparently around 40% of elk tags go to land owners. WAY more than any other state with similar programs. Obviously Matt has his agenda to push so I'm curious what general sentiment out there is on this topic.

While they may own the land, the state (people) owns the animals. Can’t privatize the animals anymore than water or air as all are transient.

 

[Stubborn_bowhunter]

Why would a cattle operator pay more for less grass and lower carrying capacity. the Higher the carrying capacity the less his expensive are as a %. gas is same wether go check 10 head or 100

Small ranches put in for Unit wide which opens their ranch to public access.

You are right though thousands of acres of HF and subdivisions are the answer. that’s great for wild life

Think NM does the LO system the right way. They open up a lot of access.

If people have an issue with they system then just make it an
Opportunity state like CO. elk tags for everyone

I'm joking. I get that it's not worth shit compared to his tags.

There's a lot of useless UW "small ranches."

 

[cuerro viejo]

I'm joking. I get that it's not worth shit compared to his tags.

There's a lot of useless UW "small ranches."

There are some that open up 1000’s of acres of public also. There is no perfect system but I think NM is a fair balance of wildlife tolerance incentive and access

 

[RuggedYogi]

in my opinion there is nothing inherently wrong with landowners getting tags. EPLUS is a good system in theory, but I see a lot of big ranches in winter range that get a lot of tags. Opening these units up to the public during hunting season is useless.

Some changes to the way that the system is set up and tags are allocated would make sense to me. It’s a shame that residents can’t even draw a cow tag consistently every year.

 

[RockAndSage]

While they may own the land, the state (people) owns the animals. Can’t privatize the animals anymore than water or air as all are transient.

The public may own the animals - but the public does not own the alfalfa or other crops the elk, deer, antelope feed on nightly, nor does the public own the land and infrastructure those game animals damage and destroy, like fences and watering systems.

Landowner tags became a thing to compensate farmers and ranchers who are having their property eaten and damaged by game animals - and to incentivize them even further to encourage the protection of the game animals, rather than treating them like a problem.

The number of tags a landowner gets is determined by how many animals are eating their crops - on big spreads those will include resident animals, but far, far more live on public lands but eat up that private property nightly on smaller holdings.

When a landowner is incentivized to cultivate and set aside game animal habitat, and the more deer, elk and antelope a landowner has on their property, the more tags EVERYBODY gets, because of the increased carrying capacity that landowner has provided at their own cost.

Some guys on here are acting like these landowners are feudal barons or some crap - the vast majority are broke ass multi-generation ranchers barely paying their bills, "land rich and cash poor".

Every extra bull or buck they are responsible for surviving is an increased chance at you getting a draw tag. They don't deserve this communist mentality getting thrown at them - as though you have the slightest right to hunt on their homes.

 

[dtrkyman]

They should absolutely end unit wide land owner tags!

Too many folks making money on them so I doubt they go away.


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[cuerro viejo]

They should absolutely end unit wide land owner tags!

Too many folks making money on them so I doubt they go away.


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Why? thought that’s the result everyone says they want. It Opens private land up to the public to hunt and cross through.

 

[roadrunner]

They should absolutely end unit wide land owner tags!

Too many folks making money on them so I doubt they go away.


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No, what they should do with the UW tags is out them into the draw with it's own hunt code. NM applies the standard license fee plus whatever the LO wants for the voucher.

The chances if drawing a higher priced tag are way better than the regular public land only tag.

LO gets what they want, a hunter gets what they want...

 

[swavescatter]

No, what they should do with the UW tags is out them into the draw with it's own hunt code. NM applies the standard license fee plus whatever the LO wants for the voucher.

The chances if drawing a higher priced tag are way better than the regular public land only tag.

LO gets what they want, a hunter gets what they want...

That's literally how it works now with unit wide tags? The LO sets a price and they all sell. 100% draw odds if you got the cash.

In AZ there is no LO tag allocations. How does that play out? Serious question.

 

[butcherboy]

Eplus can be a good thing. Any landowner enrolled in the program has to allow access to their land. Which means, a tag holder from the public draw can hunt the property. They don’t even have to ask permission but most do just to be courteous. The landowner does not have to allow the tag holder to drive onto their property so most of us park and walk in. It also allows opportunities for youth hunters that don’t draw a tag if their parents can afford to buy a UW cow tag or others who can’t draw a tag. The landowner also has to own so many acres of land. I don’t know of any that own 1 acre and get elk tags.

I bought a youth encouragement tag for my son last December because NM has a program for resident youth hunters if they don’t draw a tag for anything. We stayed at an AB&B on an older woman’s property. We hunted her property which is mostly hay fields in the morning while we walked across accessing BLM land behind her property. She is enrolled in the Eplus system so we could hunt there without buying a UW tag. We could also hunt a few more ranches around her for the same reason. Even talked to one of the owners of another ranch and he just asked us to not drive in and if we shot one to let him know and he would help us get it out. Granted, not all landowners are this generous.

Having UW tags as another hunt code wouldn’t be a bad idea but then I think the access to their property and BLM or FS would end unless you drew that tag.

 

[Okie-hunter]

I don’t think I could sit through another podcast listening to Matt Rinella crying about literally anything he doesn’t agree with. My perspective is the NM EPlus system can certainly be improved but overall gives landowners and non-landowner hunters more hunting opportunity. Landowners benefit through guaranteed tags they can use or liquidate and non-landowner hunters benefit through more access to both private and hard or otherwise impossible to reach public ground.

 

[Seth]

There’s a lot of ignorant comments on here from folks who have taken no time to understand the program before wanting to blow it up. It seems most who think it should be done away with have zero idea of the benefits E-Plus provides to the herds and other wildlife.

A ranch must provide habitat improvements; in my area this is developed water. It’s very limited on public.

UW opens over 600k acres of landlocked public that you otherwise cannot access. That’s in addition to the ranches themselves.

If you don’t have something that values the wildlife habitat and increased carrying capacity, you will reduce herd numbers. Herds are currently thriving and expanding in most units and E-Plus is a driver. Bigger herds = more tags. Jenning’s law is still on the books in NM, which allows the landowner to take depredation into their own hands. Smaller herds = less tags.

Here’s the reality of taking E-Plus away; elk tags likely go OTC on private, much like the secondary management areas. You will still not improve your draw odds, those that can afford access will hunt, but you, the public land hunter, will lose access.

 

[Brooks]

NMG&F must be doing something right. The elk herds are as good as ever and hundreds of thousands of hunters try for NM elk tags every year. Landowners with their water tanks, ponds, wells supply much needed water to elk and all wildlife in NM. Parts of NM are in a drought and have been for a long time and so much water is gone because of it. Some of the best elk hunting is on private land that the eplus system opens to all licensed elk hunters. Great program.