Unit 113

CPW draws an exact line around unit 113 and says nothing about where the mule deer 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 Lincoln and Cheyenne counties. It runs to about 211 square miles.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 40, Cheyenne CR 8 and Colo. 94

CPW has unit 113 bounded on the north by U.S. 40; on the east by Cheyenne CR 8; on the south by Colo. 94; on the west by Co. Primary 109. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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.

Holding ground: Schoolhouse Gulch and Folger Gulch

Below them sit Schoolhouse Gulch at 4,676 feet and Folger Gulch at 4,605 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.

Public ground to start from: Hugo SWA, Kinney Lake STL and Kinney Lake SWA

CPW lists Hugo SWA, Kinney Lake STL and Kinney Lake 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: Lofdahl Springs

The water inside the unit line comes to 26 mapped stream reaches, 1 lakes and 28 stock tanks. Named sources include Lofdahl Springs. 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-46

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-46, and unit 113 is one piece of it. The rest of D-46 is unit 107, unit 112, unit 114, unit 115, unit 120 and unit 121. 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.

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 4,618 to 5,225 feet, averaging 4,853 — 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 113 at archery 12% and rifle 29%. 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 113

No named high ground falls inside this unit, which changes the method rather than ruling it out. Use the edges instead of the elevation — a field margin, a shelterbelt, the lip of a draw. 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 26 mapped stream reaches and 28 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 80/47°F, Oct 67/33°F and Nov 54/22°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 1.1 in. in Sep, 1 in. in Oct and 0.3 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: US 40 / US 287 and CO 94

US 40 / US 287 and CO 94 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 113 sits inside D-46

Across D-46, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 41% in unit 112, 40% in unit 107, 40% in unit 114, 37% in unit 120 and 25% in unit 113. Unit 113 is the lowest of them, so whatever drives success in this herd is happening somewhere else in it. If the draw lets you choose, unit 112 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 Schoolhouse Gulch, Folger Gulch, Hugo SWA and Kinney Lake STL as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Walk between two of them rather than driving between four, and you will learn more in a day.

What a day here costs you

211 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 Hugo, about 14 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.

What we can't tell you

Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.