Colorado Pronghorn Mule Deer

Unit 111

Colorado Hunting Guide — Pronghorn, Mule Deer

Unit 111 lies in El Paso, Lincoln and Elbert counties and covers about 687 square miles. Ground runs from 5,530 to 6,934 feet. CPW bounds it by U.S. 24 and Colo. 71 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 53%. No federal land falls inside it, so every acre is a permission question. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

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Public Land

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5,530–6,934 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 111

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 111 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 Mule Deer guide

Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 111

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 111

CPW draws an exact line around unit 111 and says nothing about where the pronghorn stand inside it. Every place named below sits inside the unit line. Which of them holds animals in your season is for you to find out. The unit lies in El Paso, Lincoln and Elbert counties. It runs to about 687 square miles.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 24, Colo. 71 and Colo. 94

CPW has unit 111 bounded on the north by U.S. 24; on the east by Colo. 71; on the south by Colo. 94; on the west by U.S. 24 and El Paso CR 523 (Calhan Hwy). 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.

High ground inside the line: Matheson Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Matheson Hill at 5,981 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Pronghorn live in the open and trust their eyes, which is the whole problem.

Holding ground: Deadman Gulch

Below them sit Deadman Gulch at 5,892 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 12 mapped stream reaches, 1 lakes and 32 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: A-8

CPW does not manage pronghorn unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit A-8, and unit 111 is one piece of it. The rest of A-8 is unit 110, unit 118, unit 119, unit 123 and unit 124. That matters twice over: the population objective and the licence numbers are set for the whole area, and the animals move across unit lines inside it without noticing them.

What is published about unit 111, and what is not

The public datasets name only 2 features inside this unit, and no agency access property at all. 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 687 square miles of it, and the pronghorn living on it are there whether or not anyone has mapped a name onto the ground.

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 5,530 to 6,934 feet, averaging 6,071 — 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.

Unit 111 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,530–6,934 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,071 ft ; peaks can run higher.
687.1 sq mi inside the boundary.

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

32 tanks
12 stream segments
1 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: Matheson Hill (5,981 ft)

Holding ground: Deadman Gulch (5,892 ft)

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 Pronghorn in Unit 111

CPW's own harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 111 at 53% across all manners of take. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: spot from a vehicle or a rise at distance, then plan a stalk that uses the only cover there is — the curve of the ground.

Glassing from Matheson Hill

Take a position on Matheson Hill (5,981 ft) and be on it before light. In the dark the air runs downhill. Pick an approach that doesn't send it into the country you want to see, and plan to move once the slope warms. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

Water against feed

There are 12 mapped stream reaches and 32 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. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 77/45°F, Oct 64/32°F and Nov 52/21°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 in. in Sep, 0.9 in. in Oct and 0.4 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: CO 94 and CO 71

CO 94, CO 71 and US 24 are 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.

Where unit 111 sits inside A-8

Across A-8, CPW's 2023 pronghorn success runs 54% in unit 124, 53% in unit 111, 43% in unit 118, 43% in unit 123 and 35% in unit 110. That puts unit 111 behind 1 of the 5 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 124 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 Matheson Hill as places to see from, and Deadman Gulch, US 24;CO 4 @ unit boundary, US 24 @ unit boundary and Simla as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

What a day here costs you

687 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 Simla, about 11 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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 111

Named routes and what they need

CO 94 — 13.7 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CO 71 — 13.1 mi · Paved (all rigs)
Big Springs Road — 11 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Judge Orr Road — 9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Sengbeil Road — 9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
US 24 — 8.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)

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

Simla — 11.3 mi · no services listed
Ramah — 13.5 mi · no services listed
Calhan — 18.2 mi · no services listed
Limon — 22.8 mi · fuel, groceries
Hugo — 27.7 mi · fuel, groceries

Season weather and signal

Jan43° / 14° · 0.2" precip
Aug84° / 54° · 2.7" precip
Sep77° / 45° · 1" precip
Oct64° / 32° · 0.9" precip
Nov52° / 21° · 0.4" precip
Dec43° / 14° · 0.3" precip

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

Colorado rules that decide your day

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

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Colorado has no general off-road retrieval allowance. Travel stays on designated routes, so plan to pack every animal out on your back or with stock. Check the forest or BLM travel map for the roads that are actually open in hunting season.

Tagging

Validate and attach your carcass tag before the animal is moved, and keep evidence of sex attached until the carcass reaches your home or a processor.

Leaving meat

Abandoning edible meat is illegal. CPW counts the four quarters and the loins.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 50 yards of a developed campsite, and never toward an occupied building.
Roads — No shooting from or across a public road, and no shooting from a motor vehicle.

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

All manners of take53%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 111 at 53% — 285 animals taken by 542 hunters. The hunter count is large enough for the percentage to mean something and small enough that a good or bad year still moves it.

These are the agency's own printed figures for this unit, not a modelled estimate and not a state average. They describe one season, so check CPW's current harvest estimates before you read a trend into them.

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	116	358	32.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	2	8	25.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	118	542	21.8%	1
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	6	42	14.3%	2
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	125	311	40.2%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	2	0.0%	—

Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for pronghorn in unit 111, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

AM111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 542 applicants for 118 licences, 21.8% drawn, 1 preference point needed
AF111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 358 applicants for 116 licences, 32.4% drawn, no preference points needed
AF111L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 311 applicants for 125 licences, 40.2% drawn, no preference points needed
AM111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 42 applicants for 6 licences, 14.3% drawn, 2 preference points needed

Colorado runs a pure preference-point draw, so the point figure above is the requirement the agency published for that code in that year, not a forecast for the next one. There are 2 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 111

Unit 111 lies in El Paso, Lincoln and Elbert counties and covers about 687 square miles. Ground runs from 5,530 to 6,934 feet. CPW bounds it by U.S. 24 and Colo. 71 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 38%. No federal land falls inside it, so every acre is a permission question. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 111

CPW draws an exact line around unit 111 and says nothing about where the mule deer stand inside it. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such. The unit lies in El Paso, Lincoln and Elbert counties. It runs to about 687 square miles.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 24, Colo. 71 and Colo. 94

CPW has unit 111 bounded on the north by U.S. 24; on the east by Colo. 71; on the south by Colo. 94; on the west by U.S. 24 and El Paso CR 523 (Calhan Hwy). Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. What it does give you is the way in: the rivers and highways you cross, and the divides that decide which drainage you end up in.

High ground inside the line: Matheson Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Matheson Hill at 5,981 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.

Holding ground: Deadman Gulch

Below them sit Deadman Gulch at 5,892 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 12 mapped stream reaches, 1 lakes and 32 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-48

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-48, and unit 111 is one piece of it. The rest of D-48 is unit 110, unit 118, unit 119, unit 123 and unit 124. 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 111, and what is not

The public datasets name only 2 features inside this unit, and no agency access property at all. 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 687 square miles of it, and the mule deer living on it are there whether or not anyone has mapped a name onto the ground.

Reading the land status

Unit 111 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,530–6,934 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,071 ft ; peaks can run higher.
687.1 sq mi inside the boundary.

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

32 tanks
12 stream segments
1 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: Matheson Hill (5,981 ft)

Holding ground: Deadman Gulch (5,892 ft)

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 Mule Deer in Unit 111

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 111 at archery 30% 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.

Glassing from Matheson Hill

Take a position on Matheson Hill (5,981 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Water against feed

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: CO 94 and CO 71

Where unit 111 sits inside D-48

Across D-48, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 43% in unit 110, 41% in unit 123, 38% in unit 111, 38% in unit 118 and 37% in unit 124. That puts unit 111 behind 2 of the 5 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 110 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 Matheson Hill as places to see from, and Deadman Gulch, US 24;CO 4 @ unit boundary, US 24 @ unit boundary and Simla 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

687 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 Simla, about 11 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. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

Getting in and staying out: unit 111

Named routes and what they need

CO 94 — 13.7 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CO 71 — 13.1 mi · Paved (all rigs)
Big Springs Road — 11 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Judge Orr Road — 9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Sengbeil Road — 9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
US 24 — 8.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)

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

Simla — 11.3 mi · no services listed
Ramah — 13.5 mi · no services listed
Calhan — 18.2 mi · no services listed
Limon — 22.8 mi · fuel, groceries
Hugo — 27.7 mi · fuel, groceries

Season weather and signal

Jan43° / 14° · 0.2" precip
Aug84° / 54° · 2.7" precip
Sep77° / 45° · 1" precip
Oct64° / 32° · 0.9" precip
Nov52° / 21° · 0.4" precip
Dec43° / 14° · 0.3" precip

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

Colorado rules that decide your day

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

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Tagging

Validate and attach your carcass tag before the animal is moved, and keep evidence of sex attached until the carcass reaches your home or a processor.

Leaving meat

Abandoning edible meat is illegal. CPW counts the four quarters and the loins.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 50 yards of a developed campsite, and never toward an occupied building.
Roads — No shooting from or across a public road, and no shooting from a motor vehicle.

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

All manners of take38%

Archery30%

Rifle37%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 111 at 38% — 50 animals taken by 130 hunters. The hunter count is large enough for the percentage to mean something and small enough that a good or bad year still moves it.

Archery — 30% success, 7 taken by 24 hunters
Rifle — 37% success, 33 taken by 88 hunters

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	26	69	37.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	1	3	33.3%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	43	127	33.9%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	7	16	43.8%	—

Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for mule deer in unit 111, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DM111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 127 applicants for 43 licences, 33.9% drawn, no preference points needed
DF111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 69 applicants for 26 licences, 37.7% drawn, no preference points needed
DM111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 16 applicants for 7 licences, 43.8% drawn, no preference points needed
DF111O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, nonresident: 3 applicants for 1 licences, 33.3% drawn, no preference points needed

No preference points were needed for the codes above in that year, which can change the moment applicant numbers do. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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Camp Sites

No developed campground falls inside the unit in our data — plan on dispersed camping and check the land status first.

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Road Conditions

CO 94, CO 71 and Big Springs Road are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 80 mi paved, 59 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

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Terrain Difficulty

5,530–6,934 ft, averaging 6,071. Gentle ground — distance rather than climbing is the day's cost.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Our land-status read for this unit is approximate, so treat any pressure estimate from it with suspicion and check a current ownership layer.

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Weather

Season normals: Sep 77/45°F, 1 in.; Oct 64/32°F, 0.9 in.; Nov 52/21°F, 0.4 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 21%, AT&T 14%, T-Mobile 7% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Simla (11 mi), Ramah (14 mi), Calhan (18 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 111?

Unit 111 lies in El Paso, Lincoln and Elbert counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by U.S. 24; on the east by Colo. 71; on the south by Colo. 94; on the west by U.S. 24 and El Paso CR 523 (Calhan Hwy). It covers about 687 square miles.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 111?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 111 at 53% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 111 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 111 are at Simla, about 11 miles from the unit's centre, with Ramah at about 14 miles. No developed campground falls inside the unit in our data, so plan on dispersed camping.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 111?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 111 at 38% across all manners of take, and archery 30% and rifle 37% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

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Sources & Verification

Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-23.

Colorado Big Game Hunting Brochure — Game Management Unit (GMU) Descriptions (pp. 79-80-81-82) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, Data analysis unit (DAU) the unit belongs to · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Pronghorn Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for pronghorn in unit 111, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22
CPW CPWAdminData feature service — GMU and sheep/goat unit boundaries — Colorado Parks and Wildlife GIS Unit · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 111, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22