Colorado Pronghorn Mule Deer

Unit 136 (Lamar / Arkansas Plains)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Pronghorn, Mule Deer

Unit 136 lies in Otero, Bent and Las Animas counties. CPW bounds it by Colo. 109 and Purgatoire River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 37%. Federal land covers about 6% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

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Public Land

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Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 136

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 136

CPW's material on unit 136 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its pronghorn live. 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 Otero, Bent and Las Animas counties.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 109, Purgatoire River and U.S. 160

CPW has unit 136 bounded on the north by Colo. 109 and Purgatoire River; on the east by Colo. 109; on the south by U.S. 160; on the west by Chacuaco Creek and Purgatoire River. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Seven D Pocket, Bar Four Pocket and Clark Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Seven D Pocket at 5,592 feet, Bar Four Pocket at 5,579 feet, Clark Hill at 5,409 feet, Kim Hill at 5,027 feet and Dave Wright Hill at 4,765 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: Cherry Canyon, Soldier Canyon and Turkey Spring Canyon

Below them sit Cherry Canyon at 5,143 feet, Soldier Canyon at 5,089 feet, Turkey Spring Canyon at 5,085 feet, Sherman Canyon at 5,072 feet and Cherry Canyon at 5,071 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Public ground to start from: Antelope Tank STL, Poitrey Canyon STL and Tobe Creek STL

CPW lists Antelope Tank STL, Poitrey Canyon STL and Tobe Creek STL 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 6% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Brown Spring

Named sources include Brown Spring. 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-13

CPW does not manage pronghorn unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit A-13, and unit 136 is one piece of it. The rest of A-13 is unit 130, unit 137, unit 138, unit 143, unit 144 and unit 146. Read a neighbour in the same herd before you read the state average — the herd, not the unit line, is what the agency is steering.

Unit 136 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Holding ground: Tobe Canyon (4,985 ft), Poitrey Canyon (4,924 ft), West Maverick Canyon (4,776 ft), Antelope Tank STL, Poitrey Canyon STL, Tobe Creek STL, Brown Spring

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 Pronghorn in Unit 136

CPW's own harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 136 at 37% across all manners of take. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. 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 Clark Hill, Kim Hill and Dave Wright Hill

Take a position on one of Clark Hill (5,409 ft), Kim Hill (5,027 ft), Dave Wright Hill (4,765 ft) and Courthouse Rock (4,713 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

Where unit 136 sits inside A-13

Across A-13, CPW's 2023 pronghorn success runs 40% in unit 143, 37% in unit 136, 31% in unit 137, 30% in unit 138 and 29% in unit 130. That puts unit 136 behind 1 of the 5 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 143 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: Colo. 109 and U.S. 160

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: Colo. 109 and U.S. 160. 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 Tobe Canyon, Poitrey Canyon, West Maverick Canyon and Antelope Tank STL 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

570 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. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

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.

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 take37%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 136 at 37% — 66 animals taken by 178 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)	5	71	7.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	3	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	6	94	6.4%	1
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	3	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	12	29	41.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident)	1	3	33.3%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	3	96	3.1%	6
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	23	127	18.1%	1
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	4	20	20.0%	1
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	36	57	63.2%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	4	4	100.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	1	216	0.5%	29
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	0	0	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 136, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

AM136W2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 216 applicants for 1 licences, 0.5% drawn, 29 preference points needed
AM136O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 127 applicants for 23 licences, 18.1% drawn, 1 preference point needed
AF136W2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Doe Only, resident: 96 applicants for 3 licences, 3.1% drawn, 6 preference points needed
AF136O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 94 applicants for 6 licences, 6.4% drawn, 1 preference point 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 8 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 136

Unit 136 lies in Otero, Bent and Las Animas counties. CPW bounds it by Colo. 109 and Purgatoire River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 52%. Federal land covers about 6% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 136

CPW draws an exact line around unit 136 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 Otero, Bent and Las Animas counties.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 109, Purgatoire River and U.S. 160

CPW has unit 136 bounded on the north by Colo. 109 and Purgatoire River; on the east by Colo. 109; on the south by U.S. 160; on the west by Chacuaco Creek and Purgatoire River. 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: Courthouse Rock, Seven D Pocket and Bar Four Pocket

Named high points inside the unit include Courthouse Rock at 4,713 feet, Seven D Pocket at 5,592 feet, Bar Four Pocket at 5,579 feet, Clark Hill at 5,409 feet and Kim Hill at 5,027 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: Piñon Park Hill, Icehouse Canyon and Tobe Canyon

Below them sit Piñon Park Hill at 5,049 feet, Icehouse Canyon at 5,024 feet, Tobe Canyon at 4,985 feet, Long Canyon Hill at 4,970 feet and Blue Water Canyon at 4,952 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Antelope Tank STL, Poitrey Canyon STL and Tobe Creek STL

Water: Brown Spring

Named sources include Brown Spring. 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-45

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-45, and unit 136 is one piece of it. The rest of D-45 is unit 128, unit 133, unit 134, unit 135, unit 141, unit 142 and unit 147. 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.

Unit 136 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Holding ground: Tobe Canyon (4,985 ft), Poitrey Canyon (4,924 ft), West Maverick Canyon (4,776 ft), Antelope Tank STL, Poitrey Canyon STL, Tobe Creek STL, Brown Spring

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 136

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 136 at archery 29% and rifle 52%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from Seven D Pocket, Bar Four Pocket and Clark Hill

Take a position on one of Seven D Pocket (5,592 ft), Bar Four Pocket (5,579 ft), Clark Hill (5,409 ft) and Kim Hill (5,027 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. 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.

Where unit 136 sits inside D-45

Across D-45, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 64% in unit 142, 63% in unit 141, 53% in unit 134, 48% in unit 147 and 47% in unit 136. That puts unit 136 behind 4 of the 7 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 142 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: Colo. 109 and U.S. 160

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: Colo. 109 and U.S. 160. 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. Park on the boundary and walk; a unit you can only enter from its rim rewards whoever is willing to leave the truck at the rim.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Tobe Canyon, Poitrey Canyon, West Maverick Canyon and Antelope Tank STL 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

570 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

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 take47%

Archery29%

Rifle52%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 136 at 47% — 66 animals taken by 139 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 — 29% success, 8 taken by 29 hunters
Rifle — 52% success, 57 taken by 110 hunters

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 2nd Season either sex (resident)	7	25	28.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	7	17	41.2%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	7	18	38.9%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	1	20	5.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	2	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	16	57	28.1%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	8	40	20.0%	2
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	3	11	27.3%	15
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	37	60	61.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	22	28	78.6%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	4	88	4.5%	21
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	22	33	66.7%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	14	19	73.7%	—
Archery — 3rd Season either sex (resident)	1	9	11.1%	—
Archery — 3rd Season either sex (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—
Archery — 2nd Season either sex (resident)	2	22	9.1%	7
Archery — 2nd Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	1	1	100.0%	—
Archery — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	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 mule deer in unit 136, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DM136W2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 88 applicants for 4 licences, 4.5% drawn, 21 preference points needed
DM136O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 60 applicants for 37 licences, 61.7% drawn, no preference points needed
DF136W2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Doe Only, resident: 57 applicants for 16 licences, 28.1% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM136L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 40 applicants for 8 licences, 20% 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 10 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

Planning Notes

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Trailer Access

Yes — US 50, US 287, and paved county grid. Any rig handles the country.

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Water

Scarce outside pivots and the Arkansas corridor. Carry plenty.

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Road Conditions

Paved highways plus graveled sections. Dirt turns to gumbo after rain.

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Terrain Difficulty

Easy. Flat shortgrass.

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Hunting Pressure

Moderate on WIA, light on private with permission.

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Weather

Warm days, cold nights. Wind is constant.

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Cell Service

Good on highways; drops in remote grassland.

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Nearest Town

Lamar (population ~7,500) for full services; Springfield (~1,300) south.

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Permit Notes

Unit 136 tags mostly limited draw; doe tags often leftover.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 136?

Unit 136 lies in Otero, Bent and Las Animas counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by Colo. 109 and Purgatoire River; on the east by Colo. 109; on the south by U.S. 160; on the west by Chacuaco Creek and Purgatoire River.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 136?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 136 at 37% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 136?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 136 at 47% across all manners of take, and archery 29% and rifle 52% 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 136, 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 136, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22