Arizona Pronghorn

Unit 2B (Salt Lake Road and the St. Johns grasslands)

Arizona Hunting Guide — Pronghorn

GMU 2B is the high grassland between St. Johns and the New Mexico line, split through the middle by the Salt Lake Road, with the Navajo Reservation's New Lands forming its northern edge. The pronghorn population here has decreased over the past few years, and AZGFD recommends scouting the unit before the hunt. Habitat is intermixed through most of the unit, with the better concentration south of the Salt Lake Road toward Highway 60; the northern portion holds fewer animals, has very limited access, and much of it has been subdivided in recent years. Most of the unit is checkerboard private, State Trust and BLM, where hunting is legal on the public sections but crossing permission is not guaranteed.

View Draw Odds Arizona Hunting Guide

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5,801–7,299 ft

Sampled elevation

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Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Arizona Unit 2B 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.

Pronghorn guide

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Logistics & Planning Guide →

Access roads, campgrounds, elevation, monthly weather, stock tanks, cell coverage, and nearest-town services for Unit 2B.

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Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 2B

Where the pronghorn are in 2B: south of the Salt Lake Road

The pronghorn population in 2B has decreased over the past few years. Scouting the unit before the hunt increases your chances — on a declining herd in intermixed habitat, that's the difference between a hunt and a drive.

The southern half holds more animals

Between the Salt Lake Road — running easterly from St. Johns to New Mexico — and Highway 60, there's generally a greater concentration of pronghorn. Numerous roads crisscross that country, which makes it both reachable and glassable.

The northern half, and what has happened to it

Between the Salt Lake Road east of St. Johns and the New Lands, pronghorn density is lower and access to that part of the unit is very limited. Much of the area has been subdivided over the past several years, which is both an access problem and a safety one.

Where to get in

Access from Highway 191 is almost non-existent. Come off Highway 60 or the Salt Lake Road. Named entries include Apache County Road 4003 from Highway 60 near milepost 396, ACR 6001 from ACR 6040 east of St. Johns, and ACR 6268 from Highway 191 near milepost 327.

The land status

Mostly checkerboard — alternating private with State Trust, or private with BLM — plus a strip of mainly State land along the southern border with small private parcels inside it. Hunting is legal on all State Trust and BLM ground; access to it is not guaranteed and you need permission to cross private land. Some ranches have been closed in the past.

The subdivisions

With the northern country subdivided, expect scattered houses in open grassland. You cannot discharge a firearm within a quarter mile of an occupied building without permission, and on a flat where you can see three miles, that rule will come up.

Unit 2B terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,801–7,299 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,368 ft ; peaks can run higher.
823.3 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

299 tanks
16 springs
67 stream segments
14 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), Mesa Parada (6,841 ft)

Holding ground: Round Valley (6,895 ft), Aguaje Draw (5,773 ft), Ceadro Spring, Flowing Well, Burns Well

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 2B pronghorn: glass the southern grass, and respect the checkerboard

Rifle success on Arizona's drawn pronghorn hunts runs high, and the work that produces it here is in the scouting and the access rather than the shooting.

Scout a declining herd carefully

With numbers down, don't assume last season's bucks are where they were. Spend scouting days in the southern half between the Salt Lake Road and Highway 60, counting animals and noting which public sections you can stand on.

Glass from whatever relief exists

This is high open grass. Get on any rise, bank or juniper-topped knoll before light and work the country with binoculars on a tripod. Pronghorn are active most of the day here, so you aren't limited to dawn and dusk — but a bedded buck in the shade of a lone juniper is easy to glass past.

Close with the swales

Pick the stalk route from the high ground before you drop off it, use every swale and wash, and be prepared for a long approach. Decoys work during the rut. For archery, a water sit is the realistic plan.

Mind the houses

Subdivided ground in the north means scattered occupied buildings. Mark them while scouting, keep the quarter-mile rule in mind, and always know what lies beyond your target across flat country.

Off-road driving is the issue landowners raise

It's illegal with any vehicle including ATVs and UTVs on State and BLM land, and criminal charges can follow for damage to private ground. An OHV under 1,800 pounds needs a decal on State or Federal land. Keep the wheels on existing roads — the agency ties continued access directly to it.

Getting in and staying out: unit 2B

Named routes and what they need

County Road 6268 (Ranch Road) — 13.7 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
US 180;US 191 — 9.3 mi · Paved (all rigs)
US 191;AZ 61 — 7.9 mi · Paved (all rigs)
US 60 — 6.9 mi · Paved (all rigs)
ranch road — 3.4 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR A001;BLM 2214 — 2.1 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

Saint Johns — 9.7 mi · lodging
Springerville — 25.4 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging
Eagar — 27 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging
Nahata Dziil — 42.1 mi · no services listed
Zuni — 44.3 mi · fuel, groceries

Developed camps

LYM-3
Lyman Lake Campground
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan50° / 20° · 0.5" precip
Aug87° / 57° · 2.1" precip
Sep83° / 50° · 1.2" precip
Oct72° / 37° · 0.8" precip
Nov60° / 26° · 0.6" precip
Dec49° / 19° · 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.

Pronghorn: where to put the shot

Broadside, straight up the front leg, a third of the way into the body. Pronghorn are shallow-chested and the lungs sit forward.

Shots to refuse

Range it, then range it again. Open country makes 400 yards look like 250.
Wait for the buck to stop. Nobody kills a running pronghorn cleanly on purpose.
Mind the backdrop. A miss carries a long way across a flat.

Plan the carry: roughly 30– 45 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — one large cooler with ice already in it. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Pronghorn Success Rates

Unit 2B pronghorn success rates typically run 70-85% for rifle hunters per recent AZGFD hunt report averages. Archery success is much lower at 20-30%. Buck quality is above the statewide average with mature bucks in the 72-82 inch range common.

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Muzzleloader — Early Muzzleloader bull/buck only (combined pool)	9	307	2.3%	—
Rifle — Early Rifle bull/buck only (combined pool)	9	307	2.3%	—

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 2B pronghorn is a mid-tier draw in Arizona's weighted bonus point system. Rifle tags typically require 8-14 bonus points depending on hunt dates. The 20% set-aside gives 0-point applicants a realistic long-shot each year. Apply annually to build points and the loyalty bonus toward a confident draw.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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RV Sites

Limited developed sites. Dispersed RV camping on BLM land near St. Johns.

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Camp Sites

Dispersed camping on BLM and state trust land with a recreation permit. Flat camps easy to find.

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Trailer Access

US-191 and Highway 61 are paved. Back roads vary — many graded gravel suitable for short trailers.

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Water

St. Johns for water fill and basic services.

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Road Conditions

Main roads paved. Interior roads graded gravel to rough two-track. 4WD recommended after wet weather.

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Terrain Difficulty

Easy to moderate. Open grasslands with rolling PJ hills — no technical terrain.

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Hunting Pressure

Low to moderate. Pronghorn unit pressure is light compared to deer and elk units.

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Weather

August-September hunts can be warm (70-90°F). Monsoon thunderstorms possible. Later hunts bring cooler temps and potential snow.

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Cell Service

Coverage in St. Johns. Spotty in the backcountry grasslands.

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Nearest Town

St. Johns (basic to moderate services). Springerville (30 min southeast) or Holbrook (50 min northwest) for fuller services.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How hard is it to draw Unit 2B pronghorn?

Unit 2B pronghorn is a mid-tier Arizona draw. Rifle hunt codes typically pull with 8-14 bonus points. The 20% set-aside for 0-point applicants means new hunters have a real long-shot chance each year.

Is state trust land important in Unit 2B?

Yes. A significant portion of Unit 2B is state trust land. Purchase a current Arizona State Land Department recreation permit before hunting, and map boundaries to avoid unintentionally hunting on private or non-permitted parcels.

What is the best approach for pronghorn in Unit 2B?

Vehicle glassing from high points is the primary method. Once a buck is located, terrain-feature stalks using drainages and PJ edges close the distance. Water ambush from a ground blind is a reliable backup on hot afternoons.

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 2B — Unit Landing Page — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Canonical unit info page, St. Johns area boundary, Pronghorn habitat summary · accessed 2026-04-17
2026 Arizona Pronghorn and Elk Regulations — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Pronghorn season structure, Tag quotas for Unit 2B, Hunt area boundaries · accessed 2026-04-17
AZGFD Draw Portal — Hunt Drawing Information — Arizona Game and Fish Department · supports: Weighted bonus point system, Hunter-ed bonus point, 20% set-aside for 0-point applicants · accessed 2026-04-17
Arizona State Land Department — Recreation Permits — Arizona State Land Department · supports: State trust land access requirements, Recreation permit purchase, Lease boundaries · accessed 2026-04-17