Unit 103 (Northeast Plains / Pawnee)

CPW draws an exact line around unit 103 and says nothing about where the mule deer stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Yuma County. It runs to about 129 square miles.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 36, Kit Carson-Yuma Co. line and U.S. 385

CPW has unit 103 bounded on the north by U.S. 36; on the east by KS; on the south by Kit Carson-Yuma Co. line; on the west by U.S. 385. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. Its value is practical — those are the features you will navigate by, and the ridges that separate one day's country from another's.

Public ground to start from: Bonny Creek STL, Landsman Creek STL and South Republican SWA

CPW lists Bonny Creek STL, Landsman Creek STL and South Republican SWA inside this unit as ground open to public hunting. Each property sets its own restrictions, and the agency's page for it is where they are written down. Federal land covers about 0% of the unit on top of those.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 31 mapped stream reaches, 3 lakes and 17 stock tanks. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-47

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-47, and unit 103 is one piece of it. The rest of D-47 is unit 109, unit 116 and unit 117. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

What is published about unit 103, and what is not

The public datasets name only 3 features inside this unit. That is the finding. Ground this size held privately is farmed and grazed rather than mapped, and the hunt starts as a conversation with a landowner rather than a route. Work out who owns the ground first, then ask. What the unit does have is 129 square miles of it, and the mule deer living on it are there whether or not anyone has mapped a name onto the ground. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as Private / Other 100%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. A grid sample of the unit reads 3,557 to 3,882 feet, averaging 3,729 — a sample rather than a survey, so read the ends as approximate. There is not much relief, so the animals move laterally rather than up and down.

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 103 at archery 22% and rifle 37%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Finding a view in unit 103

No named high ground falls inside this unit, which changes the method rather than ruling it out. Height comes from the vehicle or from a bank above a watercourse, and either is enough at first light. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat. Cover ground slowly and stop more often than feels sensible.

Water against feed

There are 31 mapped stream reaches and 17 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. A tank with no tracks is a tank with no reason to sit on it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 80/50°F, Oct 67/37°F and Nov 54/26°F. Warm afternoons compress the hunting into the first and last hour, and make meat care the day's real problem rather than the shot. Precipitation runs about 1.8 in. in Sep, 1.3 in. in Oct and 0.6 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: County Road 7 and County Road 11

US 385 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter. One mapped public entry point falls inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

Where unit 103 sits inside D-47

Across D-47, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 36% in unit 117, 30% in unit 103, 30% in unit 116 and 25% in unit 109. That puts unit 103 behind 1 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 117 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Bonny Creek STL, Landsman Creek STL, South Republican SWA and Walk-In Access 89 — G as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Take the pair you can reach on one road and treat the rest as a second trip.

What a day here costs you

129 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The nearest services are at Saint Francis, about 20 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. The ground is gentle enough that the pack-out is a distance problem rather than a climbing one. One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.