Colorado Mule Deer Elk

Unit 63

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk

Unit 63 lies in Delta, Gunnison and Montrose counties. CPW bounds it by Colo. 92 and Delta-Montrose Co. line among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 78%. Federal land covers about 57% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

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Public Land

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Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 63 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.

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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 63

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 63

What CPW publishes for unit 63 is a boundary, not a mule deer map. 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 Delta, Gunnison and Montrose counties.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 92, Delta-Montrose Co. line and Smith Fork-Dyer Creek divide

CPW has unit 63 bounded on the north by Colo. 92; on the east by Colo. 92, Delta-Montrose Co. line, Smith Fork-Dyer Creek divide, Smith Fork-Curecanti Creek divide, Curecanti Pass and Curecanti Creek; on the south and west by Gunnison River. 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: Bald Mountain, Mendicant Ridge and Bellmire Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Bald Mountain at 11,780 feet, Mendicant Ridge at 11,599 feet, Bellmire Ridge at 11,429 feet, Castle Rock at 11,033 feet and Powell Ridge at 10,657 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer bed on broken ground with a view and feed on the brush below it.

Holding ground: Poison Spring Gulch, Onion Valley and Myers Gulch

Below them sit Poison Spring Gulch at 7,395 feet, Onion Valley at 7,294 feet, Myers Gulch at 7,228 feet, Son-of-a-Gun Gulch at 6,988 feet and Coal Bank Gulch at 6,947 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Water: Poison Spring and Tommy Dowell Spring

Named sources include Poison Spring and Tommy Dowell Spring. 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-20

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-20, and unit 63 is one piece of it. The rest of D-20 is unit 53. 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 63 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Bald Mountain (11,780 ft), Mendicant Ridge (11,599 ft), Castle Rock (11,033 ft), Powell Ridge (10,657 ft)

Holding ground: Commissary Gulch (8,711 ft), Corral Gulch (8,303 ft), Buckhorn Gulch (7,751 ft), Poison Spring

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 63

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 63 at archery 44% and rifle 78%. 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 Morrow Point, Pine Ridge and Dead Horse Mesa

Take a position on one of Morrow Point (8,989 ft), Pine Ridge (8,927 ft), Dead Horse Mesa (8,761 ft) and Flatiron (8,654 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.

Getting past the roads

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 63 sits inside D-20

Across D-20, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 73% in unit 53 and 72% in unit 63. Unit 63 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 53 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 Bald Mountain, Mendicant Ridge, Castle Rock and Powell Ridge as places to see from, and Commissary Gulch, Corral Gulch, Buckhorn Gulch and Delta SWA 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

369 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

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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Mule Deer Success Rates

All manners of take72%

Archery44%

Rifle78%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 63 at 72% — 286 animals taken by 396 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 — 44% success, 20 taken by 46 hunters
Rifle — 78% success, 254 taken by 327 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 — 5th Season doe only (resident)	49	137	35.8%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	1	8	12.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	58	259	22.4%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	18	140	12.9%	4
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	50	310	16.1%	2
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	18	156	11.5%	8
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	11	88	12.5%	7
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	2	49	4.1%	25
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	28	83	33.7%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	19	32	59.4%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	18	97	18.6%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	21	50	42.0%	1
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	33	81	40.7%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	11	91	12.1%	4
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	16	62	25.8%	1
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	6	43	14.0%	4

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

DM063O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 310 applicants for 50 licences, 16.1% drawn, 2 preference points needed
DM063O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 259 applicants for 58 licences, 22.4% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM063O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 156 applicants for 18 licences, 11.5% drawn, 8 preference points needed
DM063O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 140 applicants for 18 licences, 12.9% drawn, 4 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 12 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 63

Unit 63 lies in Delta, Gunnison and Montrose counties. CPW bounds it by Colo. 92 and Delta-Montrose Co. line among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 19%. Federal land covers about 57% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 63

What CPW publishes for unit 63 is a boundary, not a elk map. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Delta, Gunnison and Montrose counties.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 92, Delta-Montrose Co. line and Smith Fork-Dyer Creek divide

CPW has unit 63 bounded on the north by Colo. 92; on the east by Colo. 92, Delta-Montrose Co. line, Smith Fork-Dyer Creek divide, Smith Fork-Curecanti Creek divide, Curecanti Pass and Curecanti Creek; on the south and west by Gunnison River. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Ferrier Ridge, Black Mesa and Cathedral Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Ferrier Ridge at 10,641 feet, Black Mesa at 10,603 feet, Cathedral Peak at 9,583 feet, Morrow Point at 8,989 feet and Pine Ridge at 8,927 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.

Holding ground: Bear Trap Gulch, Trail Gulch and Long Gulch

Below them sit Bear Trap Gulch at 6,945 feet, Trail Gulch at 6,871 feet, Long Gulch at 6,758 feet, Spring Gulch at 6,752 feet and Iron Canyon at 6,743 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Water: Poison Spring and Tommy Dowell Spring

Named sources include Poison Spring and Tommy Dowell Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-5

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-5, and unit 63 is one piece of it. The rest of E-5 is unit 53 and unit 54. 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 63 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Bald Mountain (11,780 ft), Mendicant Ridge (11,599 ft), Castle Rock (11,033 ft), Powell Ridge (10,657 ft)

Holding ground: Commissary Gulch (8,711 ft), Corral Gulch (8,303 ft), Buckhorn Gulch (7,751 ft), Poison Spring

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 63

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 63 at archery 13%, muzzleloader 12% and rifle 19%. A number that low means most hunters here go home empty, and the ones who don't put the days in first. 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 Cimarron Point, Green Mountain and Big Hill

Take a position on one of Cimarron Point (8,610 ft), Green Mountain (8,437 ft), Big Hill (8,174 ft) and Buttermilk Ridge (7,849 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. 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.

Getting past the roads

Where unit 63 sits inside E-5

Across E-5, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 18% in unit 54, 17% in unit 63 and 13% in unit 53. That puts unit 63 behind 1 of the 2 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 54 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

What a day here costs you

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.

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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take17%

Archery13%

Muzzleloader12%

Rifle19%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 63 at 17% — 248 animals taken by 1,502 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 — 13% success, 69 taken by 533 hunters
Muzzleloader — 12% success, 7 taken by 55 hunters
Rifle — 19% success, 172 taken by 914 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	16	31	51.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	7	21	33.3%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	19	31	61.3%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	15	52	28.8%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	46	73	63.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	22	44	50.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	40	100	40.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	29	45	64.4%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	31	94	33.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	9	26	34.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	20	44	45.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	2	13	15.4%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (resident)	24	42	57.1%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (nonresident)	2	4	50.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	26	82	31.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	64	132	48.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	8	26	30.8%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	7	11	63.6%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	215	355	60.6%	—

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

EE063V1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 355 applicants for 215 licences, 60.6% drawn, no preference points needed
EM063O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, nonresident: 132 applicants for 64 licences, 48.5% drawn, no preference points needed
EF063O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 100 applicants for 40 licences, 40% drawn, no preference points needed
EF063O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Cow Only, resident: 94 applicants for 31 licences, 33% 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 15 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

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 63?

Unit 63 lies in Delta, Gunnison and Montrose counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by Colo. 92; on the east by Colo. 92, Delta-Montrose Co. line, Smith Fork-Dyer Creek divide, Smith Fork-Curecanti Creek divide, Curecanti Pass and Curecanti Creek; on the south and west by Gunnison River.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 63?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 63 at 72% across all manners of take, and archery 44% and rifle 78% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the elk success rate in unit 63?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 63 at 17% across all manners of take, and archery 13%, muzzleloader 12% and rifle 19% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

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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 63, 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 63, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22