Unit 147

What CPW publishes for unit 147 is a boundary, not a mule deer map. 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 Las Animas County.

The lines of the unit: Las Animas-Otero Co. line, Purgatoire River and Chacuaco Creek

CPW has unit 147 bounded on the north by Las Animas-Otero Co. line; on the east by Purgatoire River and Chacuaco Creek; on the south by U.S. 160; on the west by San Francisco Creek, Purgatoire River, Colo. Interstate Gas Pipeli Rd., east boundary of U.S. Army Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. 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: O V Mesa and Heart Rock

Named high points inside the unit include O V Mesa at 5,417 feet and Heart Rock at 5,191 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: Bachicha Canyon, Trementina Canyon and Gutierrez Canyon

Below them sit Bachicha Canyon at 5,043 feet, Trementina Canyon at 5,012 feet, Gutierrez Canyon at 4,962 feet, Whitewater Canyon at 4,847 feet and Perly Canyon at 4,770 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

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 147 is one piece of it. The rest of D-45 is unit 128, unit 133, unit 134, unit 135, unit 136, unit 141 and unit 142. 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.

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 147 at archery 24% and rifle 54%. 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 O V Mesa and Heart Rock

Take a position on one of O V Mesa (5,417 ft) and Heart Rock (5,191 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. Work the glass in strips and go back over ground you already covered — animals appear in country you looked at ten minutes ago. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Where unit 147 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 147 behind 3 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.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Heart Rock as places to see from, and Bachicha Canyon, Perly Canyon and Henry George Canyon 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

323 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.