Unit 145
Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer
Unit 145 lies in Baca County. CPW bounds it by U.S. 287 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 63%. Federal land covers about 18% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 145
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 145 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.
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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 145
Unit 145 lies in Baca County. CPW bounds it by U.S. 287 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 63%. Federal land covers about 18% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 145
What CPW publishes for unit 145 is a boundary, not a mule deer map. 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.
What bounds unit 145
CPW has unit 145 bounded on the north by CR M; on the east by KS; on the south by OK; on the west by U.S. 287. 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: Murray Draw, Moore Draw and Mitchell Draw
Below them sit Murray Draw at 3,873 feet, Moore Draw at 3,689 feet, Mitchell Draw at 3,646 feet and Spring Canyon at 3,566 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Public ground to start from: Cimmaron River STL and Moore Draw STL
CPW lists Cimmaron River STL and Moore Draw 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 18% 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 145 is one piece of it. The rest of D-28 is unit 122, unit 125, unit 126, unit 127, unit 129, unit 130, unit 132 and unit 139 and 1 more. 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 145 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
Named features inside the unit
Holding ground: Murray Draw (3,873 ft), Moore Draw (3,689 ft), Spring Canyon (3,566 ft), Cimmaron River STL, Moore Draw STL
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 145
CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 145 at archery 63% and rifle 28%. 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.
Finding a view in unit 145
No named high ground falls inside this unit, which changes the method rather than ruling it out. Height comes from the vehicle or from a bank above a watercourse, and either is enough at first light. 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.
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. One mapped public entry point falls inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.
Where unit 145 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 145 behind 3 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.
A first plan from the pins on this page
The map above marks Murray Draw, Moore Draw, Spring Canyon and Cimmaron River 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
309 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 145 at 40% — 21 animals taken by 52 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 — 63% success, 14 taken by 22 hunters
- Rifle — 28% success, 7 taken by 25 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) | 5 | 14 | 35.7% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident) | 7 | 37 | 18.9% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) | 7 | 19 | 36.8% | — |
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 145, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- DM145L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 37 applicants for 7 licences, 18.9% drawn, no preference points needed
- DM145L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 19 applicants for 7 licences, 36.8% drawn, no preference points needed
- DF145L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 14 applicants for 5 licences, 35.7% 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. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit 145?
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 145?
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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 145, 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