Unit 512
Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer
Unit 512 lies in El Paso County and covers about 27 square miles. Ground runs from 6,399 to 7,443 feet. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 87%. Federal land covers about 1% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 512
Unit 512 lies in El Paso County and covers about 27 square miles. Ground runs from 6,399 to 7,443 feet. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 87%. Federal land covers about 1% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 512
CPW draws an exact line around unit 512 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 El Paso County. It runs to about 27 square miles.
What bounds unit 512
CPW has unit 512 bounded on the north by north boundary of U.S. Air Force Academy; on the east by I-25; on the south and west by south and west U.S. Air Force Academ boundaries. See Air Force Academy (AFA), page 60. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. 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: Cathedral Rock
Named high points inside the unit include Cathedral Rock at 7,331 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: Stanley Canyon
Below them sit Stanley Canyon at 7,205 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.
Water in this unit
The water inside the unit line comes to 53 mapped stream reaches, 4 lakes and 65 stock tanks. 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-50
CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-50, and unit 512 is one piece of it. The rest of D-50 is unit 59, unit 511 and unit 591. 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.
What is published about unit 512, and what is not
The public datasets name only 2 features inside this unit, and no agency access property at all. That is the finding, and on public ground it is less of a problem than it looks: unnamed country is still country, and it carries no other hunters following the same name to the same knob. What the unit does have is 27 square miles of it, and the mule deer living on it are there whether or not anyone has mapped a name onto the ground.
Reading the land status
Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 32% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. A grid sample of the unit reads 6,399 to 7,443 feet, averaging 6,833 — a sample rather than a survey, so read the ends as approximate. There is not much relief, so the animals move laterally rather than up and down.
Unit 512 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 6,399–7,443 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,833 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 27.4 sq mi inside the boundary.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 32%
Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 65 tanks
- 53 stream segments
- 4 lakes
Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Cathedral Rock (7,331 ft)
Holding ground: Stanley Canyon (7,205 ft)
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 512
Mule Deer Success Rates
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 512 at 87% — 22 animals taken by 25 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.
- Rifle — 87% success, 22 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) | 4 | 95 | 4.2% | 7 |
| Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident) | 20 | 172 | 11.6% | 13 |
| Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) | 5 | 42 | 11.9% | 13 |
Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineCPW's 2026 draw recap for mule deer in unit 512, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- DM512S1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 172 applicants for 20 licences, 11.6% drawn, 13 preference points needed
- DF512S1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 95 applicants for 4 licences, 4.2% drawn, 7 preference points needed
- DM512S1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 42 applicants for 5 licences, 11.9% drawn, 13 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 512?
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 512?
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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 512, 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