Colorado Mule Deer Elk

Unit 591 (Crown Mountain / Basalt)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk

Unit 591 lies in Pueblo, Fremont and El Paso counties and covers about 216 square miles. Ground runs from 5,343 to 6,879 feet. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 49%. No federal land falls inside it, so every acre is a permission question. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

Public Land

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 591

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 591 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.

Mule Deer guide Elk guide

Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 591

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 591

What CPW publishes for unit 591 is a boundary, not a mule deer map. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Pueblo, Fremont and El Paso counties. It runs to about 216 square miles.

What bounds unit 591

CPW has unit 591 on Fort Carson Military Reservation land. See Fort Carson on page 60. 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: Timber Mountain, Wild Mountain and Booth Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Timber Mountain at 6,879 feet, Wild Mountain at 6,667 feet, Booth Mountain at 6,465 feet, Buck Hill at 6,379 feet and White Butte at 5,801 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: Rule Canyon, Orchard Canyon and Wild Horse Park

Below them sit Rule Canyon at 5,819 feet, Orchard Canyon at 5,733 feet, Wild Horse Park at 5,665 feet, Sullivan Canyon at 5,643 feet and Salt Canyon at 5,436 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

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 591 is one piece of it. The rest of D-50 is unit 59, unit 511 and unit 512. 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.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as Private / Other 100%, 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 5,343 to 6,641 feet, and named ground inside the line runs 5,436 to 6,879 feet — take 5,343 to 6,879 as the spread, because the sample is a grid and walks past summits. With 1,536 feet between the two ends, there is not much relief, so the animals move laterally rather than up and down.

Unit 591 terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Timber Mountain (6,879 ft), Wild Mountain (6,667 ft), Booth Mountain (6,465 ft)

Holding ground: Deadman Canyon (6,227 ft), Sand Canyon (6,091 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 591

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 591 at rifle 49%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from Buck Hill, White Butte and Timber Mountain

Take a position on one of Buck Hill (6,379 ft), White Butte (5,801 ft), Timber Mountain (6,879 ft) and Wild Mountain (6,667 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. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 75/46°F, Oct 63/35°F and Nov 52/24°F. Warm afternoons compress the hunting into the first and last hour, and make meat care the day's real problem rather than the shot. Precipitation runs about 1.4 in. in Sep, 0.9 in. in Oct and 0.6 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Where unit 591 sits inside D-50

Across D-50, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 87% in unit 512, 56% in unit 511, 48% in unit 591 and 42% in unit 59. That puts unit 591 behind 2 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 512 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 Timber Mountain, Wild Mountain and Booth Mountain as places to see from, and Deadman Canyon and Sand Canyon as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Walk between two of them rather than driving between four, and you will learn more in a day.

What a day here costs you

216 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. One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.

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.

Pro Members Only

Unlock mule deer tactics for Unit 591

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Mule Deer Success Rates

All manners of take48%

Rifle49%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 591 at 48% — 87 animals taken by 180 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 — 49% success, 87 taken by 179 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)	29	237	12.2%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	3	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	88	459	19.2%	2
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	4	26	15.4%	2

Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for mule deer in unit 591, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DM591L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 459 applicants for 88 licences, 19.2% drawn, 2 preference points needed
DF591L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 237 applicants for 29 licences, 12.2% drawn, no preference points needed
DM591L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 26 applicants for 4 licences, 15.4% drawn, 2 preference points needed
DF591L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, nonresident: 3 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.

Elk Hunting in Unit 591

Unit 591 lies in Pueblo, Fremont and El Paso counties and covers about 216 square miles. Ground runs from 5,343 to 6,879 feet. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 25%. No federal land falls inside it, so every acre is a permission question. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 591

CPW's material on unit 591 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its elk live. 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 Pueblo, Fremont and El Paso counties. It runs to about 216 square miles.

What bounds unit 591

CPW has unit 591 on Fort Carson Military Reservation land. See Fort Carson on page 60. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Timber Mountain, Wild Mountain and Booth Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Timber Mountain at 6,879 feet, Wild Mountain at 6,667 feet, Booth Mountain at 6,465 feet, Buck Hill at 6,379 feet and White Butte at 5,801 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.

Holding ground: Deadman Canyon, Sand Canyon and Sullivan Park

Below them sit Deadman Canyon at 6,227 feet, Sand Canyon at 6,091 feet, Sullivan Park at 6,030 feet, Limekiln Valley at 5,937 feet and Crooked Canyon at 5,841 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-23

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-23, and unit 591 is one piece of it. The rest of E-23 is unit 59, unit 511, unit 512 and unit 581. 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 591 terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Timber Mountain (6,879 ft), Wild Mountain (6,667 ft), Booth Mountain (6,465 ft)

Holding ground: Deadman Canyon (6,227 ft), Sand Canyon (6,091 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 Elk in Unit 591

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 591 at archery 10%, muzzleloader 0% and rifle 25%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

Glassing from Booth Mountain, Buck Hill and White Butte

Take a position on one of Booth Mountain (6,465 ft), Buck Hill (6,379 ft), White Butte (5,801 ft) and Timber Mountain (6,879 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Where unit 591 sits inside E-23

Across E-23, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 100% in unit 512, 18% in unit 591, 11% in unit 581, 8% in unit 59 and 7% in unit 511. That puts unit 591 behind 1 of the 4 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 512 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 Timber Mountain, Wild Mountain and Booth Mountain as places to see from, and Deadman Canyon and Sand 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

216 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. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

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

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.

Elk: 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. That is lungs, and on a quartering-away angle it picks up the far shoulder.

Shots to refuse

No straight-on and no straight-away shots. An elk's chest is deep and the margin is small.
Nothing standing behind or overlapping the animal you picked. A pass-through kills the elk behind it too.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have put three shots in a paper plate off the sticks you are actually carrying. Not the farthest you have ever hit anything.
Scope on 3–4x. A herd fills a 12x field of view and you lose the animal you picked.

Identification:On an antlerless tag, legal means no antler of any kind through the skin. A spike looks exactly like a cow until it turns its head. If you can't see the head, don't shoot.

Plan the carry: roughly 150– 220 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two to four large coolers, plus bagged ice from town. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

Pro Members Only

Unlock Unit 591 elk tactics

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Elk Success Rates

All manners of take18%

Archery10%

Muzzleloader0%

Rifle25%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 591 at 18% — 56 animals taken by 307 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 — 10% success, 14 taken by 135 hunters
Muzzleloader — 0% success, 0 taken by 2 hunters
Rifle — 25% success, 42 taken by 170 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	36	323	11.1%	2
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	2	10	20.0%	3

Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for elk in unit 591, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EF591L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Cow Only, resident: 323 applicants for 36 licences, 11.1% drawn, 2 preference points needed
EF591L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Cow Only, nonresident: 10 applicants for 2 licences, 20% drawn, 3 preference points needed

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

⛺

Camp Sites

No developed campground falls inside the unit in our data — plan on dispersed camping and check the land status first.

🛣️

Road Conditions

Roughly 0 mi paved, 0 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

5,343–6,641 ft, averaging 5,838. Gentle ground — distance rather than climbing is the day's cost.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Our land-status read for this unit is approximate, so treat any pressure estimate from it with suspicion and check a current ownership layer.

🌦️

Weather

Season normals: Sep 75/46°F, 1.4 in.; Oct 63/35°F, 0.9 in.; Nov 52/24°F, 0.6 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 21%, AT&T 14%, T-Mobile 7% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

Pro Members Only

Unlock logistics for Unit 591

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 591?

Unit 591 lies in Pueblo, Fremont and El Paso counties, and CPW has it on Fort Carson Military Reservation land. See Fort Carson on page 60. It covers about 216 square miles.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 591?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 591 at 48% across all manners of take, and rifle 49% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the elk success rate in unit 591?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 591 at 18% across all manners of take, and archery 10%, muzzleloader 0% and rifle 25% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

Free Hunt Planning Tools

🎰 Colorado Draw Odds Unit-level tag success rates 📅 Application Timeline Deadlines for all 9 states 🦌 Rut Forecast Peak rut timing by species 💰 Hunt Cost Calculator Budget your entire hunt

Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro

Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Sources & 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 591, 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
2023 Colorado Elk Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for elk in unit 591, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22