Colorado Mule Deer Elk Pronghorn Black Bear

Unit 69 (Spanish Peaks / Cuchara)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk, Pronghorn, Black Bear

Unit 69 lies in Custer and Fremont counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and Colo. 67 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 51%. Federal land covers about 33% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

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33%

Public Land

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 69

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 69 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 Pronghorn guide Black Bear 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 69

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 69

CPW draws an exact line around unit 69 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 Custer and Fremont counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

CPW has unit 69 bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by Colo. 67; on the south by Colo. 96; on the west by Colo. 69, Grape Creek and Arkansas 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: Hardscrabble Mountain, Adobe Peak and Stull Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Hardscrabble Mountain at 10,380 feet, Adobe Peak at 10,174 feet, Stull Mountain at 9,974 feet, Holt Mountain at 9,879 feet and Mock Hill at 9,773 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: Bear Gulch, Boneyard Park and Querida Gulch

Below them sit Bear Gulch at 8,516 feet, Boneyard Park at 8,465 feet, Querida Gulch at 8,328 feet, Boneyard Gulch at 8,212 feet and Mains Gulch at 8,128 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Public ground to start from: Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA and Florence STL

CPW lists Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA, Florence STL, Johnson Gulch STL and Newlin Creek STL 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 33% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-34

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-34, and unit 69 is one piece of it. The rest of D-34 is unit 84, unit 86, unit 691 and unit 861. 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 69 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Hardscrabble Mountain (10,380 ft), Stull Mountain (9,974 ft), Holt Mountain (9,879 ft), Curley Peak (9,589 ft)

Holding ground: Locke Park (9,096 ft), Chute Park (8,978 ft), Sevenmile Gulch (7,398 ft), Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA

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 69

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 69 at archery 35% and rifle 51%. 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 Locke Mountain, Tanner Peak and Mount Herring

Take a position on one of Locke Mountain (9,348 ft), Tanner Peak (9,308 ft), Mount Herring (9,259 ft) and McKinley Mountain (8,996 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, 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. 3 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

Where unit 69 sits inside D-34

Across D-34, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 48% in unit 69, 47% in unit 86 and 44% in unit 84. Unit 69 is the best of them on that measure, which usually means fewer tags rather than more animals. Success inside one herd moves with tag numbers and season length as much as with animals, so read the licence count alongside it.

The way in: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: U.S. 50, Colo. 67, Colo. 96 and Colo. 69. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Park on the boundary and walk; a unit you can only enter from its rim rewards whoever is willing to leave the truck at the rim.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Hardscrabble Mountain, Stull Mountain, Holt Mountain and Curley Peak as places to see from, and Locke Park, Chute Park, Sevenmile Gulch and Bear Gulch STL 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

292 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. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

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 take48%

Archery35%

Rifle51%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 69 at 48% — 521 animals taken by 1,090 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 — 35% success, 50 taken by 145 hunters
Rifle — 51% success, 433 taken by 851 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
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	211	814	25.9%	1
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	24	123	19.5%	1
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	93	347	26.8%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	5	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	61	449	13.6%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	1	14	7.1%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	67	446	15.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	20	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	333	1,483	22.5%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	72	200	36.0%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	289	1,402	20.6%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	80	224	35.7%	1
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	44	343	12.8%	4
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	15	40	37.5%	4
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	347	726	47.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	45	79	57.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	220	826	26.6%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	46	97	47.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	33	201	16.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	2	6	33.3%	1
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	138	370	37.3%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	39	86	45.3%	—

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 mule deer in unit 69, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DM069O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 1,483 applicants for 333 licences, 22.5% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM069O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 1,402 applicants for 289 licences, 20.6% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM069P3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 826 applicants for 220 licences, 26.6% drawn, no preference points needed
DE069O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 814 applicants for 211 licences, 25.9% drawn, 1 preference point 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 69

Unit 69 lies in Custer and Fremont counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and Colo. 67 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 30%. Federal land covers about 33% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 69

CPW draws an exact line around unit 69 and says nothing about where the elk 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 Custer and Fremont counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

CPW has unit 69 bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by Colo. 67; on the south by Colo. 96; on the west by Colo. 69, Grape Creek and Arkansas River. 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: Lead Mountain, Curley Peak and Bear Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Lead Mountain at 9,704 feet, Curley Peak at 9,589 feet, Bear Peak at 9,578 feet, Locke Mountain at 9,348 feet and Tanner Peak at 9,308 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: Ralph Gulch, Carolina Gulch and Tenmile Gulch

Below them sit Ralph Gulch at 8,000 feet, Carolina Gulch at 7,930 feet, Tenmile Gulch at 7,888 feet, Lion Canyon at 7,651 feet and Fourmile Gulch at 7,561 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Public ground to start from: West Bear Gulch STL, Bear Gulch STL and DeWeese Reservoir SWA

CPW lists West Bear Gulch STL, Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA, Florence STL and Johnson Gulch STL 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 33% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-28

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-28, and unit 69 is one piece of it. The rest of E-28 is unit 84. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 69 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Hardscrabble Mountain (10,380 ft), Stull Mountain (9,974 ft), Holt Mountain (9,879 ft), Curley Peak (9,589 ft)

Holding ground: Locke Park (9,096 ft), Chute Park (8,978 ft), Sevenmile Gulch (7,398 ft), Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA

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 69

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 69 at archery 30% and rifle 27%. 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 Round Mountain, Bull Domingo Hills and White Hills

Take a position on one of Round Mountain (8,699 ft), Bull Domingo Hills (8,652 ft), White Hills (8,318 ft) and Ben West Hill (8,165 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, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Getting past the roads

Where unit 69 sits inside E-28

Across E-28, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 44% in unit 84 and 27% in unit 69. Unit 69 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 84 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: U.S. 50, Colo. 67, Colo. 96 and Colo. 69. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Check each of them on a current motor-vehicle-use map before you count on it, because a line on a boundary description is not a promise of public access.

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.

Pro Members Only

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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take27%

Archery30%

Rifle27%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 69 at 27% — 89 animals taken by 335 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 — 30% success, 10 taken by 33 hunters
Rifle — 27% success, 75 taken by 278 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	69	580	11.9%	5
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	23	226	10.2%	8
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	16	113	14.2%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	5	16	31.3%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	32	267	12.0%	5
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	11	71	15.5%	10
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	41	383	10.7%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	7	27	25.9%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	49	330	14.8%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	5	15	33.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	33	209	15.8%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	1	5	20.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (resident)	414	695	59.6%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (nonresident)	42	57	73.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	46	644	7.1%	6
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	15	174	8.6%	11
Rifle — 2nd Season bull only (resident)	45	559	8.1%	3
Rifle — 2nd Season bull only (nonresident)	15	113	13.3%	4
Rifle — 3rd Season bull only (resident)	30	399	7.5%	4
Rifle — 3rd Season bull only (nonresident)	10	66	15.2%	5
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	25	272	9.2%	3
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	5	40	12.5%	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 69, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EF069P5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Cow Only, resident: 695 applicants for 414 licences, 59.6% drawn, no preference points needed
EM069O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 644 applicants for 46 licences, 7.1% drawn, 6 preference points needed
EE069O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 580 applicants for 69 licences, 11.9% drawn, 5 preference points needed
EM069O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Bull Only, resident: 559 applicants for 45 licences, 8.1% drawn, 3 preference points needed

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 69

Unit 69 lies in Custer and Fremont counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and Colo. 67 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 46%. Federal land covers about 33% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 69

What CPW publishes for unit 69 is a boundary, not a pronghorn map. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Custer and Fremont counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

High ground inside the line: Mount Herring, McKinley Mountain and Round Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Mount Herring at 9,259 feet, McKinley Mountain at 8,996 feet, Round Mountain at 8,699 feet, Bull Domingo Hills at 8,652 feet and White Hills at 8,318 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Pronghorn stay on the open rolling ground and leave the timber alone.

Holding ground: Johnson Gulch, Sevenmile Gulch and Dead Mule Gulch

Below them sit Johnson Gulch at 7,544 feet, Sevenmile Gulch at 7,398 feet, Dead Mule Gulch at 7,373 feet, East Bear Gulch at 7,348 feet and Poison Gulch at 7,225 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Newlin Creek STL, West Bear Gulch STL and Bear Gulch STL

CPW lists Newlin Creek STL, West Bear Gulch STL, Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA and Florence STL 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 33% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: A-20

CPW does not manage pronghorn unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit A-20, and unit 69 is one piece of it. The rest of A-20 is unit 84, unit 85, unit 86, unit 691, unit 851 and unit 861. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 69 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Hardscrabble Mountain (10,380 ft), Stull Mountain (9,974 ft), Holt Mountain (9,879 ft), Curley Peak (9,589 ft)

Holding ground: Locke Park (9,096 ft), Chute Park (8,978 ft), Sevenmile Gulch (7,398 ft), Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA

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 Pronghorn in Unit 69

CPW's own harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 69 at 46% across all manners of take. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: spot from a vehicle or a rise at distance, then plan a stalk that uses the only cover there is — the curve of the ground.

Glassing from Silver Cliff Plateau, Dawson Mountain and Stony Point

Take a position on one of Silver Cliff Plateau (8,155 ft), Dawson Mountain (7,986 ft), Stony Point (6,827 ft) and Castle Rock (5,487 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, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

Getting past the roads

Where unit 69 sits inside A-20

Across A-20, CPW's 2023 pronghorn success runs 58% in unit 85, 46% in unit 69, 43% in unit 84 and 41% in unit 86. That puts unit 69 behind 1 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 85 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: U.S. 50, Colo. 67, Colo. 96 and Colo. 69. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Pick the edge nearest the country you mean to hunt and work in from it on foot, rather than driving the perimeter looking for a way through.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Hardscrabble Mountain, Stull Mountain, Holt Mountain and Curley Peak as places to see from, and Locke Park, Chute Park, Sevenmile Gulch and Bear Gulch STL 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

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.

Pronghorn: where to put the shot

Broadside, straight up the front leg, a third of the way into the body. Pronghorn are shallow-chested and the lungs sit forward.

Shots to refuse

Range it, then range it again. Open country makes 400 yards look like 250.
Wait for the buck to stop. Nobody kills a running pronghorn cleanly on purpose.
Mind the backdrop. A miss carries a long way across a flat.

Plan the carry: roughly 30– 45 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — one large cooler with ice already in it. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Unlock pronghorn tactics for Unit 69

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Pronghorn Success Rates

All manners of take46%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 69 at 46% — 93 animals taken by 203 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.

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	41	86	47.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	1	4	25.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	38	139	27.3%	1
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	6	25	24.0%	1
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	127	577	22.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	2	13	15.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	118	996	11.8%	4
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	17	114	14.9%	4
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	138	270	51.1%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	2	6	33.3%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident)	57	196	29.1%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	0	2	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	53	493	10.8%	2
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	3	18	16.7%	3
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	100	203	49.3%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	3	4	75.0%	—

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 pronghorn in unit 69, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

AM069O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 996 applicants for 118 licences, 11.8% drawn, 4 preference points needed
AF069O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 577 applicants for 127 licences, 22% drawn, no preference points needed
AM069P1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 493 applicants for 53 licences, 10.8% drawn, 2 preference points needed
AF069P1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 270 applicants for 138 licences, 51.1% 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. There are 10 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 69

Unit 69 lies in Custer and Fremont counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and Colo. 67 among others. CPW publishes no per-unit black bear success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 33% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 69

What CPW publishes for unit 69 is a boundary, not a black bear map. 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 Custer and Fremont counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

CPW has unit 69 bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by Colo. 67; on the south by Colo. 96; on the west by Colo. 69, Grape Creek and Arkansas River. 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: Ben West Hill, Silver Cliff Plateau and Dawson Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Ben West Hill at 8,165 feet, Silver Cliff Plateau at 8,155 feet, Dawson Mountain at 7,986 feet, Stony Point at 6,827 feet and Castle Rock at 5,487 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Bears follow food, which in early autumn means oakbrush, chokecherry and serviceberry on south slopes.

Holding ground: Tanner Gulch, Middle Fork Coal Creek Canyon and Hellgate Gulch

Below them sit Tanner Gulch at 7,192 feet, Middle Fork Coal Creek Canyon at 7,109 feet, Hellgate Gulch at 7,011 feet, Bear Gulch at 6,817 feet and West Fork Coal Creek Canyon at 6,780 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Public ground to start from: Johnson Gulch STL, Newlin Creek STL and West Bear Gulch STL

CPW lists Johnson Gulch STL, Newlin Creek STL, West Bear Gulch STL, Bear Gulch STL and DeWeese Reservoir SWA 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 33% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: B-7

CPW does not manage black bear unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit B-7, and unit 69 is one piece of it. The rest of B-7 is unit 82, unit 83, unit 84, unit 85, unit 86, unit 140, unit 691 and unit 851 and 1 more. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 69 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Hardscrabble Mountain (10,380 ft), Stull Mountain (9,974 ft), Holt Mountain (9,879 ft), Curley Peak (9,589 ft)

Holding ground: Locke Park (9,096 ft), Chute Park (8,978 ft), Sevenmile Gulch (7,398 ft), Bear Gulch STL, DeWeese Reservoir SWA

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 69

CPW publishes no black bear success figure for unit 69 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 Hardscrabble Mountain, Adobe Peak and Stull Mountain

Take a position on one of Hardscrabble Mountain (10,380 ft), Adobe Peak (10,174 ft), Stull Mountain (9,974 ft) and Holt Mountain (9,879 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, September hunts coincide with the feeding push before denning.

Getting past the roads

The way in: U.S. 50, Colo. 67 and Colo. 96

A first plan from the pins on this page

What a day here costs you

292 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. We have no black bear success figure for this unit that survives checking against CPW's own harvest and hunter counts, and we would rather say so than print a statewide average as though it were measured here.

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 69 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)	42	101	41.6%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	7	10	70.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	16	41	39.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	4	5	80.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	100	451	22.2%	1
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	7	18	38.9%	1
Rifle — 5th Season either sex (resident)	47	206	22.8%	—
Rifle — 5th Season either sex (nonresident)	8	13	61.5%	1
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	79	124	63.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	4	5	80.0%	—

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

BE069O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 451 applicants for 100 licences, 22.2% drawn, 1 preference point needed
BE069O5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Either Sex, resident: 206 applicants for 47 licences, 22.8% drawn, no preference points needed
BE069P1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 124 applicants for 79 licences, 63.7% drawn, no preference points needed
BE069O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 101 applicants for 42 licences, 41.6% 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. There are 6 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

🚐

RV Sites

Availability varies across the unit; check USFS and BLM district sites for developed campgrounds and dispersed camping rules in advance.

⛺

Camp Sites

Dispersed camping is allowed on most public BLM and USFS land subject to local rules. Developed campgrounds may require reservations.

🛻

Trailer Access

Trailer suitability depends on specific access routes inside the GMU. Verify road condition and width before hauling.

💧

Water

Water availability varies by elevation and season. Filter or treat surface water.

🛣️

Road Conditions

Colorado mountain and plains roads range from paved to rough two-track. 4WD and high clearance are recommended for back-country routes.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

Terrain inside the GMU spans a mix of Colorado Rocky Mountain and/or high-plains habitat. Match fitness and gear to chosen zones.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Hunting pressure scales with access; roadless parcels see less pressure than areas near major trailheads.

🌦️

Weather

Expect Colorado's full seasonal range: warm fall days, cold nights, and the possibility of early snow at elevation. Pack layered systems.

📱

Cell Service

Cell service is inconsistent across Colorado public land. Carry a satellite communicator for back-country hunts.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Use CPW Hunting Atlas and mapping tools to identify nearest services for your planned access point.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 69?

Unit 69 lies in Custer and Fremont counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by Colo. 67; on the south by Colo. 96; on the west by Colo. 69, Grape Creek and Arkansas River.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 69?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 69 at 48% across all manners of take, and archery 35% and rifle 51% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the elk success rate in unit 69?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 69 at 27% across all manners of take, and archery 30% and rifle 27% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 69?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 69 at 46% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the black bear success rate in unit 69?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 69 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.

Free Hunt Planning Tools

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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 69, 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 69, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Pronghorn Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for pronghorn in unit 69, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22