To anyone in the boot heel or experience with 26

[TFAvalanche]

Hello all,

I wanted to put this out to anyone with recent experience in the boot heel of NM, specifically in 26. Coming from Santa Teresa we have a huge illegal crossing problem and it’s truly massive in scale. I cross through the Mt Cristo area every morning on my way to work and 3/5 days BP has anywhere from 10 to 50 persons detained at the river.
I have an archery tag for 26 and plan on getting as deep as I can into the unit but know it’s a heavily used crossing for unsavory characters and questionable activities.
My question is to anyone who has been or lives down in that area, how bad is the wave right now or does anyone have any experience with the unit and encountering illegal activity / BP presence.
My thoughts are if there are heavily trafficked corridors id like to avoid them as I’m sure animals avoid them also, but I also don’t want to bring a bow to a gunfight.
I’ve called the wardens down there but was blown off and BP refuses to share any information citing “immigrant privacy”. Any information is greatly appreciated….

 

[Bluehair]

We did a piece of the border fence down there 10 years ago. Beautiful country that was just being destroyed. The rancher who we leased some space from was murdered along with his wife.

It was a terrible shame what was happening back then. I hope it’s not worse. Good luck to you.

 

[gburk]

“Immigrant privacy”... you gotta be jokin me

 

[JJhunt]

I spent a lot of time in 26 last year and never came across anything unusual. All the BP were very friendly.

 

[mozey]

It's been over a decade since I was last in that unit, but I was still happy to buy a leftover archery tag. I'm counting on the BP to tell me where they've seen deer...

 

[sbeard4]

Overall you should be safer as a hunter than a resident I would think. Not as much reason to expect anything from you and harder to predict. A man working on his ranch is going to be much more of a target. Food, supplies, money and predictable. Sorry to hear about the rancher and his wife.

 

[TFAvalanche]

Appreciate all the responses, looks to be quite the unit in terms of sweat equity. I keep dreaming about the untouched herds on that Animas ranch…. At least I imagine they’re untouched pretty much impossible to get in that range.