Unit 127
Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer
Unit 127 lies in Kiowa and Prowers counties. CPW bounds it by Colo. 96 and Arkansas River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 45%. 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.
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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 127
Unit 127 lies in Kiowa and Prowers counties. CPW bounds it by Colo. 96 and Arkansas River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 45%. 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 127
CPW's material on unit 127 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its mule deer live. 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 Kiowa and Prowers counties.
The lines of the unit: Colo. 96, Arkansas River and U.S. 287
CPW has unit 127 bounded on the north by Colo. 96; on the east by KS; on the south by Arkansas River; on the west by U.S. 287. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Tenmile Point and Stony Point
Named high points inside the unit include Tenmile Point at 3,702 feet and Stony Point at 3,654 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: May Valley and Coon Valley
Below them sit May Valley at 3,845 feet and Coon Valley at 3,769 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Public ground to start from: Deadman SWA, Queens STL and Queens SWA
CPW lists Deadman SWA, Queens STL, Queens SWA and Red Dog 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.
The herd this unit belongs to: D-28
CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-28, and unit 127 is one piece of it. The rest of D-28 is unit 122, unit 125, unit 126, unit 129, unit 130, unit 132, unit 139 and unit 145 and 1 more. 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.
Unit 127 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Tenmile Point (3,702 ft), Stony Point (3,654 ft)
Holding ground: May Valley (3,845 ft), Coon Valley (3,769 ft), Deadman SWA, Queens STL, Queens SWA, Red Dog SWA
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 127
CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 127 at archery 8% and rifle 45%. 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 Tenmile Point and Stony Point
Take a position on one of Tenmile Point (3,702 ft) and Stony Point (3,654 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.
Getting past the roads
There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter. 7 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.
Where unit 127 sits inside D-28
Across D-28, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 47% in unit 129, 43% in unit 126, 42% in unit 139, 40% in unit 130 and 40% in unit 145. That puts unit 127 behind 6 of the 8 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 129 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.
The way in: Colo. 96 and U.S. 287
We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: Colo. 96 and U.S. 287. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Pick the edge nearest the country you mean to hunt and work in from it on foot, rather than driving the perimeter looking for a way through.
A first plan from the pins on this page
The map above marks Tenmile Point and Stony Point as places to see from, and May Valley, Coon Valley, Deadman SWA and Queens 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
957 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. 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.
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.
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.
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.
Mule Deer Success Rates
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 127 at 33% — 95 animals taken by 290 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 — 8% success, 6 taken by 81 hunters
- Rifle — 45% success, 85 taken by 190 hunters
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.
Mule Deer Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident) | 18 | 73 | 24.7% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident) | 24 | 74 | 32.4% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident) | 29 | 136 | 21.3% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) | 2 | 12 | 16.7% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident) | 30 | 139 | 21.6% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) | 5 | 17 | 29.4% | — |
Data from 2021 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineCPW's 2021 draw recap for mule deer in unit 127, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- DM127O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 139 applicants for 30 licences, 21.6% drawn, no preference points needed
- DM127L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 136 applicants for 29 licences, 21.3% drawn, no preference points needed
- DF127O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 74 applicants for 24 licences, 32.4% drawn, no preference points needed
- DF127L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 73 applicants for 18 licences, 24.7% 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. 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.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit 127?
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 127?
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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 Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 127, 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