Unit 15 (Gore Pass)

With no agency harvest numbers or deer narrative, the play is simple: find the open ground, glass it hard at first and last light, and move only when you've seen something. Check CPW's current brochure for your season dates and legal weapon before anything else.

Glass from Green Ridge and Walton Peak

Choose a perch that overlooks a park rather than one that just has altitude. Green Ridge, Walton Peak and Lone Spring Butte all sit above 10,000 feet on public ground, and the holding country beneath them (Deadman Park, The Slide, Wheeler Basin) is exactly where we'd spend the first and last hour of light. Get set up before it's bright. Mornings, thermals generally rise as the slopes warm, so keep the wind in your face when you drop in after a buck.

Once the sun is up, stop walking the open and glass the shaded timber edges. Bucks bed close to feed in this kind of country.

Work the gravel and the saddles

Graded gravel is how you reach the middle of the unit: CR 6 (6 miles), Buffalo Park Trail (5.4 miles) and BLM King Mountain Road (6.3 miles) are all passable in a 2WD with a small trailer. CO 131 and CO 134 are paved and get you to the unit's edge. Other hunters will use the same roads, so walk a mile past where the trucks stop and glass from there.

Gore Pass (9,537) and Lynx Pass (8,959) are the two named gaps. Saddles funnel animals moving between drainages, so they're good places to sit when a storm or a hunting-pressure push gets deer moving. We can't tell you they're migration routes, and you'll have to confirm that by watching

CPW's own unit material gives us the boundary for 15 and nothing on moose. The boundary description reads: U.S. 40 on the north, the Muddy Creek-Yampa River (Gore Range) divide and Canyon Creek on the east, the Colorado River on the south, Colo. 131 on the west. That's a legal line, not a map of animals. What follows is our terrain read, and nobody has counted the moose for us. The unit is part of herd area M-3 and covers about 492 square miles.

Deadman Park and the high basins

Start in the public-land holding country on the Routt side. Deadman Park (about 9,493 feet), The Slide (9,306), Wheeler Basin (9,115) and Deadman Gulch (8,727) are all public ground, and they're the kind of benches and drainages where we'd expect moose to sit in timber and brush. Moose want willow, wet ground and cover. Look for those features first and ignore the elevation lines.

Buffalo Park and the Gore Pass side

Buffalo Park, in Grand County at roughly 9,235 feet, is public and reachable by the graded gravel Buffalo Park Trail (5.4 miles, fine for 2WD). Gore Pass (9,537) is a travel gap, as is Lynx Pass (8,959) over on the Routt side. Moose use saddles like these to move between drainages, so check the wet ground on either side. Red Gorge, down at about 6,828 feet in Grand County, is the low end of the unit, near the Colorado River country. We'd treat it as a late-season option if snow pushes animals down.

Glassing points

Gore Mountain (10,658), Walton Peak (10,561), Green Ridge (10,535) and Lone Spring Butte (10,246) are public summits that give you a look into the basins below. Yarmony Mountain (9,507), Congor Mesa (8,727) and Blacktail Mountain (8,681) work as lower perches. Moose are dark and often tucked into willow, so glass from above and look for movement on openings at the timber edge.

Country to skip, and who owns what

Roughly 60% of the unit is national forest and 15% BLM, which is a lot of room. State trust is about 8%, and private or other land is about 17%. Several named places sit on land our terrain read doesn't mark as public: Long Park, Coberly Gulch, Pleasant Valley and Yellow Jacket Pass. Black Mountain is the same. Don't plan a hunt around any of them without confirming ownership on your onX or BLM map. Also, the lakes and ponds here are few; we count about 20 lakes and 745 tanks. We have no springs counted, so bring your own water and don't plan around finding it.

The agency material for this unit doesn't give moose-specific hunting guidance, so this is our approach built on the terrain and access we do know. Check CPW's current moose rules, your license category and season dates before you go. We won't guess at those.

Glass the wet ground at first and last light

Moose are big, dark and often in thick cover. Early and late are when they'll step into openings. Set up before light on a perch like Green Ridge or Walton Peak and work the willow, creek bottoms and timber edges of Deadman Park and Wheeler Basin. Then scan again at dusk. Don't glass midday; spend that time moving to your next spot or checking sign on the ground. Fresh tracks, droppings and browsed willow tell you more than a hot afternoon of glassing will.

Use the roads, then leave them

Access is easy on the edges. Colo. 131 on the west and U.S. 40 on the north are paved, and CO 134 is paved too. The graded gravel runs: BLM King Mountain Road (6.3 miles), CR 6 (6 miles) and Buffalo Park Trail (5.4 miles). Most hunters stay near those roads. Walk a mile or two off them into the timbered benches and you'll likely have moose country mostly to yourself. Towns for supplies are Yampa, Phippsburg, Oak Creek and Kremmling.

Know the ground and the animal

With roughly 17% private, boundaries matter. Before you shoot, make sure the animal stands on public ground and that it matches your license. Moose are easy to identify but the wrong category is still a violation. Plan your retrieval too. A bull or cow down in a drainage like Deadman Gulch is a long way from the nearest graded road, and you'll need a pack-out plan, help and time. Check CPW's current rules on motorized retrieval and travel before you go.

What a realistic day looks like

Be at your glassing perch before first light. Work the wet bottoms and park edges until the morning movement dies. Midday, still-hunt the timber edges slowly or scout the next drainage. Back on a glassing point by mid-afternoon. It's a lot of walking and watching, and if you've done the scouting, it pays off.

Nobody has handed us a harvest rate or a season-by-season pattern for this unit, so treat what follows as a plan to test, not a promise. Check CPW's current brochure for season dates and the rules on what you can legally take before you leave town.

Glass from the high points

Our terrain read tags Gore Mountain (about 10,650 feet), Walton Peak, Green Ridge and Lone Spring Butte as glassing points on public ground. Lower, Yarmony Mountain, Congor Mesa and Blacktail Mountain do the same job. Get up before light and sit on a shoulder that looks down into Deadman Gulch, Wheeler Basin or the edges of Buffalo Park. Glass the openings for the first two hours. Then glass again in the last two before dark. A bear in the open moves slowly, and a black one in shadow is easy to miss, so go slow.

Wind and thermals

Mornings, cool air slides down these drainages. Evenings, it climbs. Plan your approach so the air carries your scent away from the bench you're watching, not into it. If you spot a bear, work out where the wind will be for the stalk before you take a step. In steep timber the wind can swirl, so stay patient and stay low.

Roads, water and a realistic day

CO 131 and CO 134 are paved and fast. U.S. 40 is the north edge. Off them, the named roads (King Mountain Road, CR 6 and Buffalo Park Trail) are graded gravel that a 2WD truck can handle. Beyond that, you're walking. Our terrain read counts thousands of mapped stream segments, 20 lakes and a lot of stock tanks in the unit, but it doesn't show a single mapped spring. Water is everywhere, so it won't tell you much. Feed will. Look for green, productive pockets rather than just sitting at a creek.

A realistic day: drive in before dawn, glass from one high point until the morning thins out, then walk a drainage in the middle of the day, staying on public ground. Pack out a bear the way you'd pack out any heavy animal, and plan the retrieval before you shoot. It's a long way from the gravel to the middle benches.

This is a hunt you earn by scouting. Read CPW's brochure for season dates and weapon rules for A-37. The unit material we have doesn't state them, and we won't guess.

Glassing from the lower summits

Skip the 10,000-foot tops. Pronghorn live below you, and you want to look across open ground, not down through spruce. Congor Mesa (8,727 feet), Blacktail Mountain (8,681 feet) and Yarmony Mountain (9,507 feet) are public summits in our terrain list. Start with those. Be on the glass at first light. Pronghorn move and feed early, and they show up well against sage once the sun clears the ridge. Spend the first hour finding animals, then plan a route to them, not the other way around.

Work the parks like a grid

Buffalo Park and Deadman Park are broad enough that you can glass them from the edges. Drive the graded roads slowly, stop, and look before you walk. A pronghorn that spots you at a mile is gone. Use the gulches and drainage folds, such as Deadman Gulch (8,727 feet) and Wheeler Basin, to close distance out of sight. Check wind before you leave the truck. Open ground carries your scent a long way.

Archery hunters need ground cover within bow range, and a lot of this country won't give you that in the middle of a flat. We'd look at drainage heads and any water the animals use. Rifle hunters can hunt the edges, but still expect long stalks and a long walk back with meat.

Water and boundaries

Our terrain read maps 745 tanks and a lot of stream mileage. Nobody has counted springs for us. Treat any stock tank on public ground as a place to sit a morning, but confirm the ground is public before you set up. With 17% private, a tank can be one fence away from legal ground.

A realistic day

Be up before light, glass from a low summit or a pullout on a graded road until you find animals, and then decide. If you don't find them by mid-morning, move. Drive to the next park or drop toward the Colorado River side and start again. Keep a map open to check public and private lines before every stalk, and carry a way to get meat out. Expect to spend as much time looking as hunting.