Colorado Mule Deer Elk Black Bear

Unit 62 (Mesa Verde)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk, Black Bear

Unit 62 lies in Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties and covers about 1,376 square miles. Ground runs from 4,639 to 10,329 feet. CPW bounds it by Colo. 141 and Colo. 50 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 52%. Federal land covers about 68% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

68%

Public Land

⛰️

4,923–8,611 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 62

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 62 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 Black Bear guide

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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 62

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 62

CPW draws an exact line around unit 62 and says nothing about where the mule deer stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties. It runs to about 1,376 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 141, Colo. 50 and Colo. 62

CPW has unit 62 bounded on the north by Colo. 141; on the east by Colo. 50 & 550; on the south by Colo. 62; on the west by Dave Wood Rd. and USFS 402 (Divide Rd.). That is a legal description, not a habitat map. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.

High ground inside the line: Horsefly Peak, Flat Top and Horsefly Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Horsefly Peak at 10,329 feet, Flat Top at 10,137 feet, Horsefly Ridge at 10,114 feet, Hull Ridge at 9,968 feet and Spruce Mountain at 9,865 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: Hunter Park, Bear Pen Gulch and Spring Basin

Below them sit Hunter Park at 8,373 feet, Bear Pen Gulch at 8,181 feet, Spring Basin at 7,978 feet, Pleasant Valley Canyon at 7,964 feet and Negro Park at 7,859 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract, Escalante SWA - East Walker Tract and Escalante SWA - Gunnison River Tract

CPW lists Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract, Escalante SWA - East Walker Tract, Escalante SWA - Gunnison River Tract, Escalante SWA - Hamilton Tract and Escalante SWA - Harrison Tract 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 68% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Branson Spring, Brown Spring and Dewdrop Springs

The water inside the unit line comes to 7,127 mapped stream reaches, 20 lakes, 1,344 stock tanks and 11 springs. Named sources include Branson Spring, Brown Spring, Dewdrop Springs, Government Springs, Schmidt Spring and Gutshall Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-19

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-19, and unit 62 is one piece of it. The rest of D-19 is unit 61. 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 62 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,923–8,611 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,888 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,375.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
BLM — 15%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

1,344 tanks
11 springs
7,127 stream segments
20 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: Uncompahgre Butte (9,682 ft), Windy Point (9,537 ft), Monument Hill (9,520 ft), Love Mesa (9,468 ft)

Holding ground: Bear Pen Gulch (8,181 ft), Spring Basin (7,978 ft), Davis Basin (7,847 ft), Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract, Escalante SWA - East Walker Tract

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 62

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 62 at archery 21% and rifle 52%. 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 Monument Hill, Love Mesa and Long Point Mountain

Take a position on one of Monument Hill (9,520 ft), Love Mesa (9,468 ft), Long Point Mountain (9,394 ft) and Long Point (9,394 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. 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.

Water against feed

There are 7,127 mapped stream reaches and 1,344 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. A tank with no tracks is a tank with no reason to sit on it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 78/48°F, Oct 65/36°F and Nov 51/26°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 1.3 in. in Sep, 1.1 in. in Oct and 0.7 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: FR 402 and CR 26 1/10 / FR 402

US 50 and CO 62 are the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. FR 402 and CR 26 1/10 / FR 402 need clearance, and that is usually where the boot tracks thin out. 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 62 sits inside D-19

Across D-19, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 59% in unit 61 and 46% in unit 62. Unit 62 is the lowest of them, so whatever drives success in this herd is happening somewhere else in it. If the draw lets you choose, unit 61 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 Uncompahgre Butte, Windy Point, Monument Hill and Love Mesa as places to see from, and Bear Pen Gulch, Spring Basin, Davis Basin and Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract 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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 62

Named routes and what they need

FR 402 — 26.1 mi · High-clearance
CR 26 1/10;FR 402 — 13.5 mi · High-clearance
US 50 — 13.4 mi · Paved (all rigs)
BLM 1002 — 13.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FSR 421 Long Point — 8.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 62 — 6.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Olathe — 13.6 mi · no services listed
Delta — 16.5 mi · fuel
Montrose — 18.9 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging, gear
Orchard City — 24.2 mi · fuel
Nucla — 25.7 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

The Campers Hub
Big Dominguez Campground
The Potholes Recreation Site
Unaweep Rim Camp 1
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan39° / 16° · 0.5" precip
Aug86° / 56° · 1.2" precip
Sep78° / 48° · 1.3" precip
Oct65° / 36° · 1.1" precip
Nov51° / 26° · 0.7" precip
Dec40° / 16° · 0.6" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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.

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Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Mule Deer Success Rates

All manners of take46%

Archery21%

Rifle52%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 62 at 46% — 644 animals taken by 1,403 hunters. That is a lot of hunters in one unit, and the percentage is what it looks like after all of them have been through it.

Archery — 21% success, 34 taken by 163 hunters
Rifle — 52% success, 572 taken by 1,095 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 — 6th Season either sex (resident)	32	62	51.6%	—
Rifle — 6th Season either sex (nonresident)	1	1	100.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	27	66	40.9%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	36	96	37.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	188	791	23.8%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	68	339	20.1%	2
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	172	954	18.0%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	65	586	11.1%	5
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	41	102	40.2%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	30	41	73.2%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	110	171	64.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	32	51	62.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	146	439	33.3%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	51	168	30.4%	1
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	24	40	60.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	14	20	70.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	43	699	6.2%	2
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	15	292	5.1%	10
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	114	389	29.3%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	41	253	16.2%	1
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	95	243	39.1%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	35	85	41.2%	—

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 62, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DM062O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 954 applicants for 172 licences, 18% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM062O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 791 applicants for 188 licences, 23.8% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM062O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Buck Only, resident: 699 applicants for 43 licences, 6.2% drawn, 2 preference points needed
DM062O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 586 applicants for 65 licences, 11.1% drawn, 5 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. There are 18 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Elk Hunting in Unit 62

Unit 62 lies in Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties and covers about 1,376 square miles. Ground runs from 4,639 to 10,329 feet. CPW bounds it by Colo. 141 and Colo. 50 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 24%. Federal land covers about 68% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 62

CPW draws an exact line around unit 62 and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties. It runs to about 1,376 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 141, Colo. 50 and Colo. 62

CPW has unit 62 bounded on the north by Colo. 141; on the east by Colo. 50 & 550; on the south by Colo. 62; on the west by Dave Wood Rd. and USFS 402 (Divide Rd.). Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.

High ground inside the line: West Baldy, Uncompahgre Butte and Windy Point

Named high points inside the unit include West Baldy at 9,760 feet, Uncompahgre Butte at 9,682 feet, Windy Point at 9,537 feet, Monument Hill at 9,520 feet and Love Mesa at 9,468 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.

Holding ground: Davis Basin, Bennetts Basin and East Basin

Below them sit Davis Basin at 7,847 feet, Bennetts Basin at 7,801 feet, East Basin at 7,796 feet, Busted Boiler Draw at 7,776 feet and Murray Park at 7,729 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Escalante SWA - Lower Roubideau Tract, Escalante SWA - Peach Orchard Point Tract and Escalante SWA - Picket Corral Tract

CPW lists Escalante SWA - Lower Roubideau Tract, Escalante SWA - Peach Orchard Point Tract, Escalante SWA - Picket Corral Tract, Escalante SWA - Upper Roubideau Tract and Escalante SWA - Waterwheel Tract 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 68% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Box Spring, Alum Spring and Cottonwood Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 7,127 mapped stream reaches, 20 lakes, 1,344 stock tanks and 11 springs. Named sources include Box Spring, Alum Spring, Cottonwood Spring, Negro Spring Number 2, T-Bone Spring and Powerline Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-20

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-20, and unit 62 is one piece of it. The rest of E-20 is unit 61. 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 62 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,923–8,611 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,888 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,375.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
BLM — 15%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

1,344 tanks
11 springs
7,127 stream segments
20 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: Uncompahgre Butte (9,682 ft), Windy Point (9,537 ft), Monument Hill (9,520 ft), Love Mesa (9,468 ft)

Holding ground: Bear Pen Gulch (8,181 ft), Spring Basin (7,978 ft), Davis Basin (7,847 ft), Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract, Escalante SWA - East Walker Tract

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 62

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 62 at archery 14%, muzzleloader 24% and rifle 20%. 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 Snipe Mountain, Sagehen Ridge and Moore Mesa

Take a position on one of Snipe Mountain (9,329 ft), Sagehen Ridge (9,225 ft), Moore Mesa (9,221 ft) and Beef Pasture Point (9,202 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water against feed

There are 7,127 mapped stream reaches and 1,344 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: FR 402 and CR 26 1/10 / FR 402

Where unit 62 sits inside E-20

Across E-20, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 53% in unit 61 and 17% in unit 62. Unit 62 is the lowest of them, so whatever drives success in this herd is happening somewhere else in it. If the draw lets you choose, unit 61 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 Uncompahgre Butte, Windy Point, Monument Hill and Love Mesa as places to see from, and Bear Pen Gulch, Spring Basin, Davis Basin and Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract 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 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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 62

Named routes and what they need

FR 402 — 26.1 mi · High-clearance
CR 26 1/10;FR 402 — 13.5 mi · High-clearance
US 50 — 13.4 mi · Paved (all rigs)
BLM 1002 — 13.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FSR 421 Long Point — 8.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 62 — 6.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Olathe — 13.6 mi · no services listed
Delta — 16.5 mi · fuel
Montrose — 18.9 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging, gear
Orchard City — 24.2 mi · fuel
Nucla — 25.7 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

The Campers Hub
Big Dominguez Campground
The Potholes Recreation Site
Unaweep Rim Camp 1
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan39° / 16° · 0.5" precip
Aug86° / 56° · 1.2" precip
Sep78° / 48° · 1.3" precip
Oct65° / 36° · 1.1" precip
Nov51° / 26° · 0.7" precip
Dec40° / 16° · 0.6" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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 elk tactics for Unit 62

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Elk Success Rates

All manners of take17%

Archery14%

Muzzleloader24%

Rifle20%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 62 at 17% — 879 animals taken by 5,072 hunters. That is a lot of hunters in one unit, and the percentage is what it looks like after all of them have been through it.

Archery — 14% success, 321 taken by 2,270 hunters
Muzzleloader — 24% success, 42 taken by 171 hunters
Rifle — 20% success, 516 taken by 2,631 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 4th Season either sex (resident)	73	379	19.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season either sex (nonresident)	16	102	15.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	35	53	66.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	46	57	80.7%	—
Rifle — 4th Season either sex (resident)	48	74	64.9%	—
Rifle — 4th Season either sex (nonresident)	11	15	73.3%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	117	392	29.8%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	25	84	29.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	170	534	31.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	52	167	31.1%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	184	406	45.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	46	99	46.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	27	44	61.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	22	29	75.9%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	184	553	33.3%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	70	419	16.7%	2
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	43	172	25.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	3	13	23.1%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	26	61	42.6%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	15	37	40.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	25	57	43.9%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	1	4	25.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	61	137	44.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	33	71	46.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	81	202	40.1%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	27	143	18.9%	3
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	890	1,294	68.8%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	7	9	77.8%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	62	121	51.2%	—

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 elk in unit 62, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EE062V1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 1,294 applicants for 890 licences, 68.8% drawn, no preference points needed
EM062O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 553 applicants for 184 licences, 33.3% drawn, no preference points needed
EF062O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 534 applicants for 170 licences, 31.8% drawn, no preference points needed
EM062O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, nonresident: 419 applicants for 70 licences, 16.7% drawn, 2 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. There are 25 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Black Bear Hunting in Unit 62

Unit 62 lies in Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties and covers about 1,376 square miles. Ground runs from 4,639 to 10,329 feet. CPW bounds it by Colo. 141 and Colo. 50 among others. CPW publishes no per-unit black bear success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 68% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 62

CPW's material on unit 62 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its black bear 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 Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties. It runs to about 1,376 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 141, Colo. 50 and Colo. 62

CPW has unit 62 bounded on the north by Colo. 141; on the east by Colo. 50 & 550; on the south by Colo. 62; on the west by Dave Wood Rd. and USFS 402 (Divide Rd.). 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: Long Point Mountain, Long Point and Snipe Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Long Point Mountain at 9,394 feet, Long Point at 9,394 feet, Snipe Mountain at 9,329 feet, Sagehen Ridge at 9,225 feet and Moore Mesa at 9,221 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Bears on dry country work the drainages with fruit in them and little else.

Holding ground: Wagon Park, Moore Basin and Horseshoe Basin

Below them sit Wagon Park at 7,717 feet, Moore Basin at 7,700 feet, Horseshoe Basin at 7,689 feet, Cottonwood Basin at 7,652 feet and Potter Basin at 7,531 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Escalante SWA - West Walker Tract, Escalante SWA - White Hawk Tract and Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract

CPW lists Escalante SWA - West Walker Tract, Escalante SWA - White Hawk Tract, Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract, Escalante SWA - East Walker Tract and Escalante SWA - Gunnison River Tract 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 68% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Danforth Spring, Moston Spring and Caps Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 7,127 mapped stream reaches, 20 lakes, 1,344 stock tanks and 11 springs. Named sources include Danforth Spring, Moston Spring, Caps Spring, Porter Spring, Steamboat Spring and Smith Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

The herd this unit belongs to: B-5

CPW does not manage black bear unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit B-5, and unit 62 is one piece of it. The rest of B-5 is unit 40, unit 60, unit 61, unit 64, unit 65 and unit 70. 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.

Unit 62 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,923–8,611 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,888 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,375.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
BLM — 15%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

1,344 tanks
11 springs
7,127 stream segments
20 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: Uncompahgre Butte (9,682 ft), Windy Point (9,537 ft), Monument Hill (9,520 ft), Love Mesa (9,468 ft)

Holding ground: Bear Pen Gulch (8,181 ft), Spring Basin (7,978 ft), Davis Basin (7,847 ft), Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract, Escalante SWA - East Walker Tract

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 Black Bear in Unit 62

CPW publishes no black bear success figure for unit 62 that we can tie to this unit alone, so we won't quote one. The plan: find the berry crop first, then glass it morning and evening until something is in it.

Glassing from Kelso Mesa, Middle Point and Monitor Mesa

Take a position on one of Kelso Mesa (9,172 ft), Middle Point (9,168 ft), Monitor Mesa (9,108 ft) and Dominguez Ridge (9,102 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. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, September hunts coincide with the feeding push before denning.

Water against feed

There are 7,127 mapped stream reaches and 1,344 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: FR 402 and CR 26 1/10 / FR 402

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Uncompahgre Butte, Windy Point, Monument Hill and Love Mesa as places to see from, and Bear Pen Gulch, Spring Basin, Davis Basin and Billy Creek SWA - Colona Tract 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

1,376 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The nearest services are at Olathe, about 14 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 3,688 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.

Getting in and staying out: unit 62

Named routes and what they need

FR 402 — 26.1 mi · High-clearance
CR 26 1/10;FR 402 — 13.5 mi · High-clearance
US 50 — 13.4 mi · Paved (all rigs)
BLM 1002 — 13.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FSR 421 Long Point — 8.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 62 — 6.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Olathe — 13.6 mi · no services listed
Delta — 16.5 mi · fuel
Montrose — 18.9 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging, gear
Orchard City — 24.2 mi · fuel
Nucla — 25.7 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

The Campers Hub
Big Dominguez Campground
The Potholes Recreation Site
Unaweep Rim Camp 1
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan39° / 16° · 0.5" precip
Aug86° / 56° · 1.2" precip
Sep78° / 48° · 1.3" precip
Oct65° / 36° · 1.1" precip
Nov51° / 26° · 0.7" precip
Dec40° / 16° · 0.6" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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.

Black Bear: 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.

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Black Bear Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no black bear row for unit 62 that we can read back to this unit on its own. Where the agency reports a unit inside a grouping, or prints a table our parser cannot resolve to a single column, we leave the number out rather than publish a statewide average as though it had been measured here. CPW's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.

Black Bear Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	35	49	71.4%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	26	29	89.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	20	23	87.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	7	9	77.8%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	531	652	81.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	66	91	72.5%	—

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 black bear in unit 62, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

BE062O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 652 applicants for 531 licences, 81.4% drawn, no preference points needed
BE062O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 91 applicants for 66 licences, 72.5% drawn, no preference points needed
BE062O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 49 applicants for 35 licences, 71.4% drawn, no preference points needed
BE062O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 29 applicants for 26 licences, 89.7% 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. There are 2 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

⛺

Camp Sites

14 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including The Campers Hub, Big Dominguez Campground and The Potholes Recreation Site.

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Road Conditions

FR 402, CR 26 1/10 / FR 402 and US 50 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 31 mi paved, 84 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

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Terrain Difficulty

4,923–8,611 ft, averaging 6,888. Enough relief to separate summer from winter range.

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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.

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Weather

Season normals: Sep 78/48°F, 1.3 in.; Oct 65/36°F, 1.1 in.; Nov 51/26°F, 0.7 in..

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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.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Olathe (14 mi), Delta (17 mi), Montrose (19 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 62?

Unit 62 lies in Delta, Mesa, Montrose and Ouray counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by Colo. 141; on the east by Colo. 50 & 550; on the south by Colo. 62; on the west by Dave Wood Rd. and USFS 402 (Divide Rd.). It covers about 1,376 square miles.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 62?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 62 at 46% across all manners of take, and archery 21% and rifle 52% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 62 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 62 are at Olathe, about 14 miles from the unit's centre, with Delta at about 17 miles. There are also 14 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the elk success rate in unit 62?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 62 at 17% across all manners of take, and archery 14%, muzzleloader 24% and rifle 20% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the black bear success rate in unit 62?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 62 on its own — the 2023 harvest tables either omit the unit or report it in a grouping we could not read back to it reliably. Rather than quote a statewide average as though it were measured here, we say so. Check CPW's current harvest estimates before you apply.

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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 62, 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 62, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22