Unit 144
Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer
Unit 144 lies in Baca County. CPW bounds it by U.S. 160 and U.S. 287 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 50%. Federal land covers about 32% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 144
Unit 144 lies in Baca County. CPW bounds it by U.S. 160 and U.S. 287 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 50%. Federal land covers about 32% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 144
CPW's material on unit 144 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 Baca County.
The lines of the unit: U.S. 160, U.S. 287 and Baca-Las Animas Co. line
CPW has unit 144 bounded on the north by U.S. 160; on the east by U.S. 287; on the south by OK; on the west by Baca-Las Animas Co. line. 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.
High ground inside the line: Little Black Mesa and Devils Elbow
Named high points inside the unit include Little Black Mesa at 4,730 feet and Devils Elbow at 4,089 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.
Holding ground: Skull Canyon, Big Hole Canyon and Bear Canyon
Below them sit Skull Canyon at 4,553 feet, Big Hole Canyon at 4,543 feet, Bear Canyon at 4,529 feet, Whitby Canyon at 4,475 feet and West Sand Canyon at 4,464 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.
Public ground to start from: Aubrury Creek STL, Edler STL and Kirkwell STL
CPW lists Aubrury Creek STL, Edler STL, Kirkwell STL, North Canyon STL and Pat / Whitby Canyon 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 32% of the unit on top of those.
Water: Dripping Vat Spring, Trujilla Spring and Ramon Spring
Named sources include Dripping Vat Spring, Trujilla Spring, Ramon Spring, Major Spring, Tubs Springs and Hatfield 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-33
CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-33, and unit 144 is one piece of it. The rest of D-33 is unit 137, unit 138 and unit 143. 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 144 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Little Black Mesa (4,730 ft)
Holding ground: North Fork Lone Rock Draw (4,720 ft), Arthurs Canyon (4,300 ft), Aubrury Creek STL, Edler STL, Kirkwell STL, North Canyon STL, Dripping Vat Spring, Trujilla 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 144
CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 144 at archery 50% and rifle 49%. 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 Little Black Mesa and Devils Elbow
Take a position on one of Little Black Mesa (4,730 ft) and Devils Elbow (4,089 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.
Where unit 144 sits inside D-33
Across D-33, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 56% in unit 137, 47% in unit 144, 36% in unit 138 and 34% in unit 143. That puts unit 144 behind 1 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 137 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.
The way in: U.S. 160 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: U.S. 160 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 Little Black Mesa as places to see from, and North Fork Lone Rock Draw, Arthurs Canyon, Aubrury Creek STL and Edler 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
644 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. 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.
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 144 at 47% — 73 animals taken by 155 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 — 50% success, 5 taken by 10 hunters
- Rifle — 49% success, 65 taken by 132 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) | 6 | 49 | 12.2% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) | 0 | 2 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident) | 10 | 79 | 12.7% | 4 |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) | 5 | 42 | 11.9% | 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 144, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- DM144L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 79 applicants for 10 licences, 12.7% drawn, 4 preference points needed
- DF144L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 49 applicants for 6 licences, 12.2% drawn, no preference points needed
- DM144L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 42 applicants for 5 licences, 11.9% drawn, 4 preference points needed
- DF144L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, nonresident: 2 applicants for 0 licences, 0% drawn, no 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. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit 144?
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 144?
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Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & 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 Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 144, 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