New Mexico Mule deer

i have info from around carlsbad- if you need it.

You huntin' private land? If not, do yourself a favor and get a BLM "land ownership" map. Its topo and will tell you who owns the land. Lots of state, federal land out here. Lots of folks hunt up there. good luck!

I realize this is a little late but it might help for next year. I've been hunting NM on and off for the past 20 years. I just returned from a 4 day hunt in the Lincoln National Forrest, actually the area I hunted is in the Capitans Mts. This is ruff country, and with the weather being as mild as it has been the rut is late in starting. Doe and yearlings were down around the 6100 - 6400 feet, while the buck were still up in the 7000 ft level. In the area I was camped in there were about 25 camps with anywhere from 1 to 5 hunters. Out of all these hunters, Sunday when the season closed there were only 3 buck hanging and they appeared to be young ones. Talking to the NM G&F officer, they hadn't seen many deer taken in that area all year (including bow, blackpowder or rifle). They blame the weather, normally by mid-Oct the average temp is in the upper 40's to low 50's. On Thursday, opening day, the temp max'ed out at 72 in my camp. On Saturday afternoon a front came in and the temp was 23 on Sunday morning, a little more normal but too late for this season.

Re-reading my post I failed to mention the recent drought. The entire southern part of NM has been surffering the effects of a drought for the last 5 to 7 years (depending on who you talk to). This has had a drastic effect on the local deer population. Depending on who you talk to the SE region has suffered the most. Fawn mortality (sp) is high and again depending on who you talk to is anyware from as low as 20% to approaching 45%.

thx, singleshot