Arizona Bighorn Sheep Turkey

Unit 13BN (Virgin River Gorge and the Virgin Mountains)

Arizona Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep, Turkey

The 13B North bighorn hunt is the Virgin River Gorge and the Virgin Mountains in Arizona's far northwest corner, bounded by the Hurricane Rim on the east, the Nevada line on the west and the Utah line on the north. The whole Virgin River Gorge along Interstate 15 holds bighorn, and the Beaver Dam Mountains between the Utah line and I-15 carry good numbers too. What makes this hunt unusual is how much of it can be glassed from near a vehicle — the BLM campground, the Cedar Pockets road, pull-offs along I-15 and a radio tower above the gorge are all productive vantage points. Tags are a very limited draw.

View Draw Odds Arizona Hunting Guide

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94%

Public Land

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Bighorn Sheep guide Turkey guide

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Bighorn Sheep Hunting in Unit 13BN

Where the rams are in 13B North: the Virgin River Gorge and the Beaver Dam Mountains

This hunt area runs from the western edge of the Hurricane Rim at the Utah line, south along the rim to Mohave County Road 30 (Navajo Trail), west to County Road 5 (Mount Trumbull Road), north to BLM Road 1004, west to County Road 101 (Mud Mountain Road), southwest to the Nevada line, then north and east along the state lines back to the rim. Carry that description with you — the corners of it are where tags get hunted illegally by accident.

The Virgin River Gorge

The entire gorge along Interstate 15 contains bighorn. The BLM campground and the Cedar Pockets road are good places to spot from, and there are pull-offs along I-15 that work for glassing as well. Glassing from the radio tower overlooking the gorge is, in the agency's words, very effective. That makes this one of the few sheep hunts in Arizona where your first morning can be productive without a pre-dawn climb.

Sullivan's and Mountain Sheep Canyons

Focus on the tops of the plateaus around Sullivan's Canyon and Mountain Sheep Canyon, and on the low-lying ground below those plateaus. Sheep use both, and the two zones are hunted differently — plateau tops reward a long glass from across the gorge, while the low ground below them is where animals move between water and cover.

The Beaver Dam Mountains

The Beaver Dams, and the country between the Utah state line and I-15, hold good numbers of bighorn. Some access comes out of Bloomington, Utah — the Blake Lambing Grounds among them — and lets you glass this area from above, which is the position you want.

The Grey Points and Purgatory Canyon

The guide tells you not to forget these, and access is good from the Low Mountain Road. Named points and a named canyon with road access is a rare combination in sheep country; it means you can be glassing within an hour of leaving camp.

Unit 13BN terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Bangs (7,938 ft), Black Rock Mountain (7,372 ft), Poverty Mountain (6,781 ft), Last Chance Knoll (6,761 ft)

Holding ground: Shivwits Plateau (6,339 ft), Lake Flat (6,170 ft), Penn Valley (5,955 ft), Lizard Spring, Mokaac Spring

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

How to hunt 13B North: glass from the road first, then climb to the ram you found

This is a desert sheep hunt with unusually good roadside access, and the smart way to use that is as a locating tool rather than a shortcut.

Day one belongs to the vantage points

Work the known positions in order: the radio tower above the gorge, the BLM campground, the Cedar Pockets road, the I-15 pull-offs, and the Bloomington access onto the Beaver Dams. Spend the first day finding sheep rather than hunting them. Sheep in this gorge country are visible from a distance on the plateau tops, and a day of counting tells you which drainage deserves your legs.

Then go to him

Once you've got a ram located on a plateau rim or in the low ground below it, the hunt becomes a stalk with a long approach. Plan the route from the glassing position — the gorge walls are steeper than they look from the interstate, and a line that works on a map can dead-end at a cliff band. Pick the shot that drops him where you can reach him.

Mind the state lines

Three of this hunt area's four boundaries are state lines or a county-road description. Nevada is west, Utah is north, and the Hurricane Rim defines the east. Your Arizona tag is worth nothing a hundred yards into either neighbour, and from a glassing point above the gorge those lines are invisible. Load the hunt-area boundary into your GPS, not just the unit.

Heat, traffic and the interstate

The gorge is low, hot country and I-15 runs through the middle of it. Two consequences: carry all your water, and think hard about backstops. Arizona prohibits shooting from, across or into a road, and the interstate is the most obvious road in this unit. Set up so that the gorge wall is behind the animal, never the highway.

Arizona rules that decide your day

Summarised from AZGFD regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken only during daylight hours — from sunrise to sunset. Check the sunrise and sunset times for your unit, not for Phoenix.

Motorized retrieval

Arizona permits motorized big-game retrieval only where the unit's travel-management decision allows it, and in several units only for elk. Where it is allowed it means one vehicle, one trip, within one mile of a road shown open on the Motor Vehicle Use Map — never inside a quiet area, a wilderness or a closed area. Pull the MVUM for your ranger district and confirm before you shoot somewhere you cannot carry an animal out of.

Tagging

Sign your tag before you go afield and attach it to the animal immediately after the kill. Hunters aged 10–13 must carry their Hunter Education card with the licence and tag.

Leaving meat

Leaving edible meat in the field is illegal. Edible meat means the four quarters and the loins at a minimum.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No shooting within a quarter mile of an occupied farmhouse, cabin, lodge or building without the owner's permission. That rules out shooting toward most lakeside cabin tracts.
Campsites and developed areas — Forest Service rules prohibit discharging a firearm within 150 yards of a residence, building, campsite, developed recreation site or occupied area.
Roads and water — No shooting from a vehicle, and no shooting on, across or into a road. No shooting across a body of water adjacent to a Forest road.

Bighorn Sheep: where to put the shot

Broadside or quartering away, on the back edge of the front leg about a third of the way up the body.

Shots to refuse

Nothing behind or overlapping the animal you picked.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have shot a three-shot group into a paper plate from the rest you are carrying.
Pass the shot you are talking yourself into.

Plan the carry: roughly 40– 120 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two large coolers. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Bighorn Sheep Success Rates

Rifle75%

Success rates for Unit 13BN run in the 90%+ range given the high ram density and careful scouting. With roughly 2–3 tags issued annually, every hunter typically takes a mature ram. Trophy quality is strong — 160–175 B&C class rams are regularly harvested, and occasional bruisers top 180.

Bighorn Sheep Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Rifle — General Rifle bull/buck only (combined pool)	3	512	0.6%	—
Rifle — Late Rifle Nov bull/buck only (combined pool)	3	632	0.2%	—
Rifle — Late Rifle Dec bull/buck only (combined pool)	2	403	0.0%	—

Data from 2023 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number. This agency publishes no point thresholds, so the Pts column stays blank and these are pool odds, not what a point total draws.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

Unit 13BN is one of Arizona's premier bighorn draws. With only ~8 tags over three years and 1,208 applicants, odds per applicant run around 0.7%. The weighted bonus-point system sends 20% of tags to max-point holders first; the remaining 80% come through a random weighted draw. Serious sheep chasers should plan on 18–25+ bonus points to be realistically competitive for this unit. Arizona residents who harvest a bighorn in any unit become ineligible to apply for bighorn again.

Turkey Hunting in Unit 13BN

Unit 13BN covers the northern portion of GMU 13B on the Arizona Strip, including the North Rim country and the upper Marble Canyon drainage north of the Grand Canyon. Merriam's turkeys in 13BN inhabit the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer belt on the Kaibab Plateau's north end and the ponderosa-pinyon-juniper transition zones above the canyon rim. The unit receives very light hunter pressure due to extreme access difficulty and limited tags, making it a genuine trophy Merriam's destination for hunters willing to commit to the logistics.

Where the turkeys are in 13B: Mount Dellenbaugh, in the 13B South hunt area

One thing to settle before you plan anything. GMU 13B has a single population of Merriam's turkeys, the result of transplants by the department, and that population sits in the Mount Dellenbaugh country — which falls inside the 13B South turkey hunt area, not the northern one. If you're holding a 13B turkey tag, Dellenbaugh is where you're going.

The hunt area, as the agency draws it

The 13B South turkey hunt GMU begins at the western edge of the Hurricane Rim and Mohave County Road 30 (Navajo Trail), runs south along the Hurricane Rim to County Road 5 (Mount Trumbull Road), west to the town of Mount Trumbull — Bundyville — then south on County Road 257 to BLM Road 1045, south to Cold Spring Wash, down that wash to Whitmore Wash, down Whitmore Wash to the Colorado River, west along the river to the Nevada line, north to County Road 101 (Mud Mountain Road), northeast to BLM Road 1004, east to County Road 5, south to County Road 30, and east back to the rim. Load that into your GPS. The corners are remote enough that nobody will correct you.

Mount Dellenbaugh itself

Dellenbaugh stands at 7,054 feet, high enough to carry the ponderosa and oak that transplanted Merriam's need on the Strip. Habitat treatments have been worked into the country around it, which is part of why the birds hold there. Start with the drainages below the summit that carry big pines for roosting, and the openings between them.

Why the season moves

AZGFD manages this hunt with a season proposed year by year, based on the population structure that year. That's unusual and it matters: don't assume last season's dates or permit level. Check the current regulations before you apply, and again before you travel.

Shotgun only

The 13B turkey season is now a limited-weapon season — shotgun shooting shot only. No rifle, no muzzleloader. Pattern the gun you're bringing at 40 yards with the load you'll carry.

No services, in any direction

This is one of the most unpopulated corners of Arizona. Be ready to camp remote with nothing available: shelter, food, water, extra fuel and more than one spare tire. The nearest full-service towns are St. George, Utah and Mesquite, Nevada, both off Interstate 15, and both a long way from Dellenbaugh.

Unit 13BN terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Bangs (7,938 ft), Black Rock Mountain (7,372 ft), Poverty Mountain (6,781 ft), Last Chance Knoll (6,761 ft)

Holding ground: Shivwits Plateau (6,339 ft), Lake Flat (6,170 ft), Penn Valley (5,955 ft), Lizard Spring, Mokaac Spring

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

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How to hunt 13B turkeys: roost them the night before, then work the openings at first light

Shotgun success on this hunt has run about 35 percent, which is respectable for a transplanted population on a limited season. The hunt rewards hunters who treat it as a two-day problem: locate birds, then hunt them.

Find the roost first

Merriam's favour canyons with large pines to roost in, and they're usually off the roost by sunrise and back to it an hour or so before dark. That gives you the single most useful evening of the hunt — sit a high point above the Dellenbaugh drainages at last light and listen for birds flying up. Where they roost tonight tells you where to be before light tomorrow.

Mornings: listen, then move

Be in position before first light and let the woods tell you where the birds are. Park at closed roads and walk them at first light rather than driving in. Toms strut in small openings but generally prefer heavy cover, so set up where an opening meets timber rather than in the middle of a park.

Calling and camouflage

You're imitating a hen to draw a tom. Full camouflage matters — turkeys have excellent vision and will catch a bare hand or a face. Sit still and don't make sudden movements. If you're new to this, a box call with a plunger is the forgiving choice, and worth practising with before the trip rather than in the field.

Shot discipline with a shotgun

Keep it to 40 yards and under, head and neck. Know your pattern at that range on paper first. And never shoot at sound or movement in cover — on a limited-permit hunt in remote country the other hunter you can't see is still a possibility, and so is a hiker.

Weather and wind

On a spring hunt, follow the snow line up the mountains as it retreats and hope for a still morning — wind kills your ability to hear a gobble, which on this hunt is your only way to locate a bird. If it's blowing, change tactics: cover ground quietly and glass the openings instead of listening.

Arizona rules that decide your day

Summarised from AZGFD regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken only during daylight hours — from sunrise to sunset. Check the sunrise and sunset times for your unit, not for Phoenix.

Motorized retrieval

Tagging

Sign your tag before you go afield and attach it to the animal immediately after the kill. Hunters aged 10–13 must carry their Hunter Education card with the licence and tag.

Leaving meat

Leaving edible meat in the field is illegal. Edible meat means the four quarters and the loins at a minimum.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No shooting within a quarter mile of an occupied farmhouse, cabin, lodge or building without the owner's permission. That rules out shooting toward most lakeside cabin tracts.
Campsites and developed areas — Forest Service rules prohibit discharging a firearm within 150 yards of a residence, building, campsite, developed recreation site or occupied area.
Roads and water — No shooting from a vehicle, and no shooting on, across or into a road. No shooting across a body of water adjacent to a Forest road.

Turkey: where to put the shot

Head and neck with shot, at 40 yards or less. On an archery bird, the wing butt broadside or the base of the neck.

Shots to refuse

Know the limit of your pattern. Pattern the gun on paper at 40 yards with the load you are carrying.
Never shoot at movement or sound in cover. Spring woods are full of other hunters stalking the same gobble.
In spring, legal is a bearded bird. Look for the beard, not the gobble.

Plan the carry: roughly 5– 9 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — a small cooler is enough. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Turkey Success Rates

Shotgun35%

Merriam's turkey success on the Kaibab Plateau runs high — hunters with tags for this area consistently report 40–60% success with gobblers responding well to calling in the open ponderosa parklands. The low hunting pressure in 13BN preserves bird behavior, making traditional roost-and-call tactics more productive than in pressure-educated units.

Turkey Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Shotgun — Spring bearded turkey (combined pool)	0	119	2.5%	—
Rifle — Spring either sex (combined pool)	0	119	2.5%	—

Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number. This agency publishes no point thresholds, so the Pts column stays blank and these are pool odds, not what a point total draws.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

Unit 13BN is a limited-tag turkey draw. Arizona's weighted bonus-point system provides incremental draw advantage, and 13BN turkey tags are competitive given the unit's reputation for quality Merriam's hunting in remote country. Most hunters draw within 0–4 bonus points; the Hunter Education bonus provides meaningful improvement in draw probability. Apply every year and complete Arizona Hunter Ed to maximize your chances.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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Trailer Access

US-89A is paved and handles any rig. House Rock Valley Road and FR 445 are graded dirt/gravel and friendly to short trailers in dry conditions. Wilderness areas require foot access only.

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Water

Limited. Fill at Jacob Lake, Marble Canyon, or Fredonia. Some seasonal springs inside side canyons, but do not rely on them.

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Road Conditions

US-89A paved. House Rock Valley Road and Kaibab NF roads (FR 445, FR 610) are graded dirt — passable 2WD when dry, 4WD when wet or snowed. Wilderness access is foot-only.

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Terrain Difficulty

Extreme. Cliff bands, exposed scrambles, loose talus, and multi-thousand-foot vertical descents into canyon drainages.

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Hunting Pressure

Minimal. 2–3 tags per year across thousands of square miles.

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Weather

Sheep season November–December. Days 40–65°F, nights 20–35°F. Late hunts may see snow on rim roads.

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Cell Service

None in most of the unit. Satellite communicator required. Cell only in Jacob Lake and along US-89A near Marble Canyon.

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Nearest Town

Jacob Lake (fuel, basic supplies, seasonal lodge). Fredonia (fuel, basic groceries). Kanab, UT or Page, AZ for full services and hospital (60–90 min).

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Permit Notes

Bighorn tag required. Grand Canyon National Park portions are closed to hunting — verify boundaries carefully. Arizona Strip travel management applies on BLM lands.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Unit 13BN better than Unit 15D or Unit 10 for bighorn?

Unit 13BN is one of the top desert bighorn units in Arizona, on par with the classic Black Mountains units. Ram quality and density are excellent. Trade-offs are extreme access and wilderness hunting conditions.

How long should I plan for a Unit 13BN hunt?

Plan a 10–14 day hunt minimum. Multi-day backpack stalks into side canyons are common, and weather or access issues can burn several days.

Does the Unit 13BN tag allow hunting in Grand Canyon National Park?

No. The National Park is closed to hunting. Rams that cross into the Park are off limits — know the boundary precisely before committing to a stalk.

What turkey subspecies is in Arizona Unit 13BN?

Unit 13BN holds Merriam's turkeys in the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of the North Kaibab Plateau. These are classic North Rim Kaibab Merriam's birds, among the most prized in the Southwest.

How hard is the Arizona Unit 13BN turkey draw?

Unit 13BN is a competitive limited-tag draw. Arizona's weighted bonus-point system helps, and the Hunter Education bonus provides a real advantage. Most hunters draw within 0–4 points with consistent annual applications.

How do I access Unit 13BN for turkey hunting?

Primary access is via US-89A from Fredonia, AZ to Jacob Lake, then north on the Kaibab NF forest road network. The North Rim country is 4–5 hours from Phoenix. Fuel in Fredonia or Kanab, UT before heading into the plateau.

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Sources & Verification

Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-04-18.

AZGFD Desert Bighorn Sheep Management — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Bighorn transplant history in Unit 13B, North Rim canyon habitat, Once-in-a-lifetime tag, Robust ram densities in Marble Canyon drainages · accessed 2026-04-17
AZGFD Draw Portal — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Bighorn draw rules, Historical 13BN draw results, Tag caps · accessed 2026-04-17
BLM Arizona Strip District — Bureau of Land Management · supports: House Rock Valley access, Road conditions, Camping rules · accessed 2026-04-17
Kaibab National Forest — North Kaibab Ranger District — USDA Forest Service · supports: North Rim road network, Saddle Mountain Wilderness, Travel management · accessed 2026-04-17
2025-2026 Arizona Hunting Regulations — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Unit 13BN turkey hunt codes, Spring season structure, Tag quotas and hunt regulations · accessed 2026-04-18
GMU 13B — Unit Landing Page — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Unit 13B boundary, Kaibab Plateau habitat, North Rim country access · accessed 2026-04-18