I have either hunted or been on hunts in Northern NM, The Gila, Mount Taylor, Cloudcroft/Ruidoso, The Zuni's The Jemez and out of all of those, including Valle Vidal, the best number of elk and the largest bulls come from the Gila. You will stumble on a big bull now in then in the North Country, but The Gila, especially the wilderness and close to the AZ border consistently produces big bulls. I'm like you and hunt more for meat than bone, but experience has definitely put larger headgear on the southern animals....at least in my experience. As far as your hunting experience, NM in general is a phenomenal state to hunt and has just about every type of hunting you could ever ask for. The better units are of course much harder to draw, but are worth the wait!
For Deer Unit 2C, 5A, and 5B are trophy unit with the huge bucks being taken every year from those area. 2B has large numbers of deer. Unit 23 and 30 has good deer populations along wth unit 34. Not sure about 23 and 30 as far as pressure, but i can tell you in Unit 2 and 34, you'll see as many orange dots and windshields as you will deer. People everywhere, even on the bow hunts. My upcoming 34 bow hunt has 800 hunters...which is a crazy amount...too many in my opinion. Also there is good road access in most of those areas.
Good Luck!
