Arizona Mule Deer

Unit 2A/2B/2C (St. Johns and Concho checkerboard)

Arizona Hunting Guide — Mule Deer

The combined 2A/2B/2C mule deer hunt covers the high grassland and juniper country of Apache County around St. Johns, Concho and Witch Wells. AZGFD is blunt about the deer: most of this country is very low-density mule deer habitat with a few pockets of higher concentration, and in 2A the majority of the western half and southern parts are not deer habitat at all. Preseason scouting is described as very important. The defining feature is land status — alternating private, State Trust and BLM sections where hunting is legal on the public ground but crossing permission is not guaranteed — plus two reservation blocks, the Navajo New Lands and the Zuni-owned Stinking Springs Mountains, neither well posted and neither open on a state permit.

View Draw Odds Arizona Hunting Guide

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5,182–6,484 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 2A/2B/2C

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Arizona Unit 2A/2B/2C guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.

Mule Deer guide

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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 2A/2B/2C

Where the deer are in 2A/2B/2C: TV Knoll, the southern borders and the Zuni Wash country

Set the expectation first. The majority of this country is very low-density mule deer habitat with a few pockets of higher concentration, and in 2A most of the western half and southern parts are not mule deer habitat at all. Preseason scouting is very important here — not as a platitude but because the habitat is patchy enough that you can hunt for days in the wrong place.

The pockets in 2C

Small pockets of deer occur in the TV Knoll area; along the southern border of 2C; west of Highway 191 between Lyman Lake and St. Johns, where most of the habitat is private; and around Concho, where again most of the deer habitat is private.

The deer country in 2A

Most of 2A's deer habitat lies between a ridge line — starting near the junction of the Salt River Project railroad line and the county road from Witch Wells to Navajo, running mostly south to the Stinking Springs Mountains — and Highway 191, and south of the Navajo New Lands to the Hardscrabble Wash area on the west and Zuni Wash on the east. Main access is County Road 7230, heading west just north of the Highway 191 and 61 junction at Witch Wells, near milepost 345.

The two reservation blocks

Besides the New Lands, about 15 sections in south-central 2A are owned by the Zuni tribe with reservation status — the Stinking Springs Mountain area. Neither the New Lands nor Zuni land is open to mule deer hunting on a state permit, and neither is well posted. Consult the regulations' district boundary section and know where you are.

Access points

For 2A: Apache County Road 6390 from Highway 180 near milepost 355, and ACR 7230 from Highway 191 near milepost 345. For 2C: ACR 4365 from Highway 60 near milepost 383 and ACR 3000 from Highway 61 near milepost 365. Access along Highway 191 between St. Johns and the county road is generally limited.

The checkerboard

Alternating sections of private with State Trust or private with BLM. Hunting is legal on all State Trust and BLM ground; access to it is not guaranteed, and you need permission to cross private land to get there. Some ranches have been closed in the past.

Unit 2A/2B/2C terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up · figures are for GMU 2A

The lay of it

5,182–6,484 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,646 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,426 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

Private / Other — 100%

Roughly 0% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

931 tanks
6 springs
1,313 stream segments
26 lakes

Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Coyote Hills (7,785 ft), Scraper Knoll (7,199 ft), The Rincon (7,192 ft), Smooth Knoll (6,941 ft)

Holding ground: Round Valley (6,895 ft), Mallory Draw (6,375 ft), Atascocita Draw (6,321 ft), Prospect Spring, Ceadro 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 it: scout to find the pockets, then sort out who owns the way in

Rifle success for mule deer across these units runs about 22 percent against low-density habitat. Two jobs decide the hunt, and neither involves a rifle.

Find the pockets before the season

With most of this country not holding deer, scouting is how you avoid wasting the hunt. Work the agency's short list — TV Knoll, the southern borders, the Lyman Lake to St. Johns strip, the Concho area, and in 2A the ridge-to-Highway-191 band south of the New Lands. Look for sign, not scenery.

Then solve the checkerboard

Legal hunting on State Trust and BLM, no guaranteed way to reach it. So map the public sections, work out which county roads and two-tracks reach them without crossing deeded ground, and ask permission where they don't. The agency's reasoning for asking is practical: it builds relationships and stops your hunt being interrupted by a landowner asking you to leave.

Glass the open grass and juniper edges

This is high, open country with scattered juniper. Get on any rise before light and work the openings and the juniper margins with the binoculars on a tripod. In low-density habitat you're looking for one deer moving, not a herd.

Know the unposted boundaries

The New Lands and the Zuni sections at Stinking Springs are neither open nor reliably signed. Load both into your GPS from the regulations' boundary descriptions. This is the single highest-consequence navigation problem in these units.

The off-road rule

The most common landowner complaint here is off-road driving. It's illegal with any vehicle including ATVs on State and BLM land, and criminal charges can follow for damage to private ground. An OHV under 1,800 pounds needs a decal to be ridden on State or Federal land. Keeping the wheels on existing roads is what keeps these units huntable.

Getting in and staying out: unit 2A/2B/2C

Figures are for GMU 2A

Named routes and what they need

US 180 — 28 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 40 — 25.9 mi · Paved (all rigs)
US 191;AZ 61 — 14.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)
Apache County 7230 Road — 10 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Cherrys Road — 6.1 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Apache County N7200 Road — 5.7 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Nahata Dziil — 24.4 mi · no services listed
Chambers — 25.7 mi · no services listed
Holbrook — 28.6 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging
Saint Johns — 30 mi · lodging
Sanders — 30.4 mi · fuel, groceries

Developed camps

Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan49° / 22° · 0.7" precip
Aug89° / 59° · 1.7" precip
Sep84° / 52° · 1.1" precip
Oct72° / 39° · 0.9" precip
Nov60° / 28° · 0.6" precip
Dec48° / 21° · 0.8" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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.

Mule Deer: 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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Mule Deer Success Rates

The Arizona Strip combined hunt posts some of the West's best trophy-buck success. Success rates on mature bucks vary year-to-year but the unit consistently produces 180+ class deer, and 200+ bucks are taken most seasons. Horn quality is the entire appeal of the hunt.

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Rifle — Late Rifle Nov bull/buck only (combined pool)	50	257	9.3%	—
Rifle — General Rifle Oct bull/buck only (combined pool)	40	300	9.0%	—
Rifle — General Rifle Oct either sex (combined pool)	40	300	9.0%	—

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

With ~527 applicants for ~90 tags over 3 years, the Strip is more available than the mythology suggests, but still a significant point-builder. Arizona's weighted-random draw rewards points heavily at this tier, the 20% pass-through gives trace odds to 0-point applicants, and the resident hunter-ed bonus provides an edge. Apply every year and track point breakdowns closely on the AZGFD Draw Portal.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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RV Sites

Kaibab Camper Village and Jacob Lake Inn provide seasonal RV services.

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Camp Sites

Extensive Kaibab NF and BLM Arizona Strip dispersed camping.

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Trailer Access

Paved US 89A and AZ 67 provide trailer access. Interior roads vary.

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Water

Jacob Lake has potable water. Field water is limited — plan to haul in.

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Road Conditions

Main gravel roads are maintained. Spurs deteriorate with moisture.

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Terrain Difficulty

Moderate to difficult. Long days across broken terrain.

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Hunting Pressure

Low per square mile given the combined-hunt size, but concentrated near road corridors.

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Weather

October–November hunts mix mild days with freezing nights. Snow likely above 7,500 ft.

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Cell Service

Limited. Plan for no service in the interior.

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Nearest Town

Fredonia (north) and Jacob Lake (seasonal). Kanab, UT for full services.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Arizona Strip still a trophy mule deer unit?

Yes. The Strip continues to produce 180+ class bucks regularly and multiple 200-class bucks most seasons. It remains among the top trophy mule deer destinations in North America.

How many bonus points for the 2A/2B/2C hunt?

Point requirements fluctuate by year and hunt period. With ~527 applicants for ~90 tags over the 3-year window, mid-to-upper point balances are typical for successful draws. Check the AZGFD Draw Portal annually for current-year breakdowns.

Free Hunt Planning Tools

🎰 Arizona Draw Odds Unit-level tag success rates 📅 Application Timeline Deadlines for all 9 states 🦌 Rut Forecast Peak rut timing by species 💰 Hunt Cost Calculator Budget your entire hunt

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Sources & Verification

Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-04-17.

GMU 2A — Unit Landing Page — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Unit boundaries, Strip mule deer habitat, Land ownership · accessed 2026-04-17
2025-26 Arizona Hunting Regulations — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Combined 2A/2B/2C hunt structure, Season dates, Tag quotas · accessed 2026-04-17
BLM Arizona Strip District Office — Bureau of Land Management · supports: Arizona Strip public land access, Travel management, Road conditions · accessed 2026-04-17