Colorado Elk Mule Deer Moose Bear Pronghorn

Unit 7 (Poudre Canyon / Cameron Pass)

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

Unit 7 lies in Larimer County and covers about 243 square miles. Ground runs from 7,711 to 12,634 feet. CPW bounds it by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 11%. Federal land covers about 85% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

85%

Public Land

⛰️

7,711–11,352 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 7

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Elk guide Mule Deer guide Moose guide Bear guide Pronghorn guide

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Elk Hunting in Unit 7

Where to Find Elk in Unit 7

CPW's material on unit 7 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its elk live. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such. The unit lies in Larimer County. It runs to about 243 square miles.

The lines of the unit: CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.), Colo. 14 and Larimer-Jackson Co. line

CPW has unit 7 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.); on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by Larimer-Jackson Co. line. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. Its value is practical — those are the features you will navigate by, and the ridges that separate one day's country from another's.

High ground inside the line: South Rawah Peak, Cameron Peak and Sheep Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include South Rawah Peak at 12,634 feet, Cameron Peak at 12,111 feet, Sheep Mountain at 11,781 feet, Pollock Knob at 9,811 feet and Mansfield Hill at 9,675 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: Pfister Draw, Grassy Pass and Montgomery Pass

Below them sit Pfister Draw at 7,803 feet, Grassy Pass at 11,204 feet, Montgomery Pass at 11,002 feet, Ute Pass at 9,879 feet and Shipman Park at 9,539 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: Hohnholz Lakes SWA, LaGarde Creek STL and Pass Creek STL

CPW lists Hohnholz Lakes SWA, LaGarde Creek STL and Pass 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 85% of the unit on top of those.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 133 mapped stream reaches, 19 lakes and 159 stock tanks. 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-4

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-4, and unit 7 is one piece of it. The rest of E-4 is unit 8, unit 9, unit 19 and unit 191. That matters twice over: the population objective and the licence numbers are set for the whole area, and the animals move across unit lines inside it without noticing them.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 32% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. A grid sample of the unit reads 7,711 to 11,352 feet, and named ground inside the line runs 7,803 to 12,634 feet — take 7,711 to 12,634 as the spread, because the sample is a grid and walks past summits. With 4,923 feet between the two ends, that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.

Unit 7 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,711–11,352 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,347 ft ; peaks can run higher.
242.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 32%

Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

159 tanks
133 stream segments
19 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: South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Pass (11,204 ft), Montgomery Pass (11,002 ft), Ute Pass (9,879 ft), LaGarde Creek STL, Pass Creek STL

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 7

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 7 at archery 4%, muzzleloader 10% and rifle 11%. 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 Sheep Mountain, Pollock Knob and Mansfield Hill

Take a position on one of Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft), Mansfield Hill (9,675 ft) and North Middle Mountain (8,864 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water against feed

There are 133 mapped stream reaches and 159 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

Season normals here run Sep 69/32°F, Oct 56/24°F and Nov 42/16°F. By Nov the lows are around 16°F, and the first hard storm after that moves animals off the high ground — a late tag is a bet on that storm arriving. Precipitation runs about 1.4 in. in Sep, 1.1 in. in Oct and 0.8 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and County Road 203

CO 14 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. CR 157 / FR 157.0, FR 516.0 and FR 965 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 7 sits inside E-4

Across E-4, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 31% in unit 9, 11% in unit 191, 10% in unit 8, 10% in unit 19 and 9% in unit 7. Unit 7 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 9 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 South Rawah Peak, Cameron Peak, Sheep Mountain and Pollock Knob as places to see from, and Grassy Pass, Montgomery Pass, Ute Pass and LaGarde Creek STL 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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 7

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 203 — 5.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 14 — 3.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 157;FR 157.0 — 3.5 mi · High-clearance
FR 516.0 — 1.8 mi · High-clearance
FR 965 — 1.2 mi · High-clearance

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

Walden — 16.3 mi · groceries
Red Feather Lakes — 20.9 mi · no services listed
Rustic — 22.9 mi · no services listed
Albany — 26.5 mi · no services listed
Centennial — 34.2 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Tunnel Campground
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free

Season weather and signal

Jan33° / 8° · 0.6" precip
Aug77° / 40° · 1.4" precip
Sep69° / 32° · 1.4" precip
Oct56° / 24° · 1.1" precip
Nov42° / 16° · 0.8" precip
Dec33° / 8° · 0.7" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

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 take9%

Archery4%

Muzzleloader10%

Rifle11%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 7 at 9% — 166 animals taken by 1,823 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 — 4% success, 19 taken by 432 hunters
Muzzleloader — 10% success, 31 taken by 305 hunters
Rifle — 11% success, 116 taken by 1,087 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.

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	740	1,772	41.8%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	256	683	37.5%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	105	307	34.2%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	1	8	12.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	116	791	14.7%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	16	80	20.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (resident)	202	295	68.5%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (nonresident)	9	16	56.3%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	196	789	24.8%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	69	202	34.2%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season bull only (resident)	417	967	43.1%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season bull only (nonresident)	77	175	44.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	127	661	19.2%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	16	65	24.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	57	306	18.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	4	21	19.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season bull only (resident)	384	794	48.4%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season bull only (nonresident)	72	135	53.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	151	366	41.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	28	64	43.8%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	277	665	41.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	56	91	61.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	232	781	29.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	78	256	30.5%	1

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

EE007O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 1,772 applicants for 740 licences, 41.8% drawn, no preference points needed
EM007O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Bull Only, resident: 967 applicants for 417 licences, 43.1% drawn, no preference points needed
EF007O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 791 applicants for 116 licences, 14.7% drawn, no preference points needed
EM007O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 789 applicants for 196 licences, 24.8% 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 18 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 7

Unit 7 lies in Larimer County and covers about 243 square miles. Ground runs from 7,711 to 12,634 feet. CPW bounds it by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 17%. Federal land covers about 85% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 7

CPW draws an exact line around unit 7 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 Larimer County. It runs to about 243 square miles.

The lines of the unit: CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.), Colo. 14 and Larimer-Jackson Co. line

CPW has unit 7 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.); on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by Larimer-Jackson Co. line. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: North Middle Mountain, South Rawah Peak and Cameron Peak

Named high points inside the unit include North Middle Mountain at 8,864 feet, South Rawah Peak at 12,634 feet, Cameron Peak at 12,111 feet, Sheep Mountain at 11,781 feet and Pollock Knob at 9,811 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: North Draw, Pfister Draw and Grassy Pass

Below them sit North Draw at 8,524 feet, Pfister Draw at 7,803 feet, Grassy Pass at 11,204 feet, Montgomery Pass at 11,002 feet and Ute Pass at 9,879 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.

Public ground to start from: Hohnholz Lakes SWA, LaGarde Creek STL and Pass Creek STL

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: D-4

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-4, and unit 7 is one piece of it. The rest of D-4 is unit 8, unit 9, unit 19 and unit 191. 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 7 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,711–11,352 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,347 ft ; peaks can run higher.
242.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 32%

Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

159 tanks
133 stream segments
19 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: South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Pass (11,204 ft), Montgomery Pass (11,002 ft), Ute Pass (9,879 ft), LaGarde Creek STL, Pass Creek STL

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 7

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 7 at archery 9% and rifle 17%. A number that low means most hunters here go home empty, and the ones who don't put the days in first. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from South Rawah Peak, Cameron Peak and Sheep Mountain

Take a position on one of South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft) and Pollock Knob (9,811 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.

Water against feed

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and County Road 203

Where unit 7 sits inside D-4

Across D-4, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 42% in unit 9, 41% in unit 191, 28% in unit 19, 17% in unit 8 and 15% in unit 7. Unit 7 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 9 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

Getting in and staying out: unit 7

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 203 — 5.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 14 — 3.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 157;FR 157.0 — 3.5 mi · High-clearance
FR 516.0 — 1.8 mi · High-clearance
FR 965 — 1.2 mi · High-clearance

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

Walden — 16.3 mi · groceries
Red Feather Lakes — 20.9 mi · no services listed
Rustic — 22.9 mi · no services listed
Albany — 26.5 mi · no services listed
Centennial — 34.2 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Tunnel Campground
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free

Season weather and signal

Jan33° / 8° · 0.6" precip
Aug77° / 40° · 1.4" precip
Sep69° / 32° · 1.4" precip
Oct56° / 24° · 1.1" precip
Nov42° / 16° · 0.8" precip
Dec33° / 8° · 0.7" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

Mule Deer: where to put the shot

Broadside or quartering away, on the back edge of the front leg about a third of the way up the body.

Shots to refuse

Nothing behind or overlapping the animal you picked.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have shot a three-shot group into a paper plate from the rest you are carrying.
Pass the shot you are talking yourself into.

Plan the carry: roughly 40– 120 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two large coolers. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

Pro Members Only

Unlock detailed mule deer tactics for Unit 7

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Mule Deer Success Rates

All manners of take15%

Archery9%

Rifle17%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 7 at 15% — 160 animals taken by 1,070 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 — 9% success, 26 taken by 304 hunters
Rifle — 17% success, 86 taken by 500 hunters

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	743	1,361	54.6%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	68	144	47.2%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	149	581	25.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	4	25	16.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	434	808	53.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	74	106	69.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	72	677	10.6%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	1	17	5.9%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	60	516	11.6%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	2	13	15.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	286	977	29.3%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	19	62	30.6%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	209	807	25.9%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	32	86	37.2%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	104	430	24.2%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	17	58	29.3%	—

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

DE007O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 1,361 applicants for 743 licences, 54.6% drawn, no preference points needed
DM007O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 977 applicants for 286 licences, 29.3% drawn, no preference points needed
DM007O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 808 applicants for 434 licences, 53.7% drawn, no preference points needed
DM007O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 807 applicants for 209 licences, 25.9% 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 12 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Moose Hunting in Unit 7

Unit 7 lies in Larimer County and covers about 243 square miles. Ground runs from 7,711 to 12,634 feet. CPW bounds it by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put Shiras moose success here as high as 73%. Federal land covers about 85% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit 7

What CPW publishes for unit 7 is a boundary, not a Shiras moose 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 Larimer County. It runs to about 243 square miles.

The lines of the unit: CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.), Colo. 14 and Larimer-Jackson Co. line

CPW has unit 7 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.); on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by Larimer-Jackson Co. line. 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: Mansfield Hill, North Middle Mountain and South Rawah Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Mansfield Hill at 9,675 feet, North Middle Mountain at 8,864 feet, South Rawah Peak at 12,634 feet, Cameron Peak at 12,111 feet and Sheep Mountain at 11,781 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Moose want willow, water and shade, and they rarely leave the drainage that has all three.

Holding ground: Shipman Park, North Draw and Pfister Draw

Below them sit Shipman Park at 9,539 feet, North Draw at 8,524 feet, Pfister Draw at 7,803 feet, Grassy Pass at 11,204 feet and Montgomery Pass at 11,002 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Hohnholz Lakes SWA, LaGarde Creek STL and Pass Creek STL

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: M-2

CPW does not manage Shiras moose unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit M-2, and unit 7 is one piece of it. The rest of M-2 is unit 8, unit 19 and unit 191. 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 7 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,711–11,352 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,347 ft ; peaks can run higher.
242.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 32%

Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

159 tanks
133 stream segments
19 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: South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Pass (11,204 ft), Montgomery Pass (11,002 ft), Ute Pass (9,879 ft), LaGarde Creek STL, Pass Creek STL

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 Shiras Moose in Unit 7

CPW's own harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit 7 at 73% across all manners of take. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: walk the willow bottoms slowly at first and last light and look for fresh browse before you look for the animal.

Glassing from Mansfield Hill, North Middle Mountain and South Rawah Peak

Take a position on one of Mansfield Hill (9,675 ft), North Middle Mountain (8,864 ft), South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft) and Cameron Peak (12,111 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. 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 September bulls answer a cow call near water.

Water against feed

There are 133 mapped stream reaches and 159 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

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and County Road 203

Where unit 7 sits inside M-2

Across M-2, CPW's 2023 Shiras moose success runs 100% in unit 191, 88% in unit 8, 73% in unit 7 and 60% in unit 19. That puts unit 7 behind 2 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 191 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

Getting in and staying out: unit 7

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 203 — 5.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 14 — 3.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 157;FR 157.0 — 3.5 mi · High-clearance
FR 516.0 — 1.8 mi · High-clearance
FR 965 — 1.2 mi · High-clearance

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

Walden — 16.3 mi · groceries
Red Feather Lakes — 20.9 mi · no services listed
Rustic — 22.9 mi · no services listed
Albany — 26.5 mi · no services listed
Centennial — 34.2 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Tunnel Campground
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free

Season weather and signal

Jan33° / 8° · 0.6" precip
Aug77° / 40° · 1.4" precip
Sep69° / 32° · 1.4" precip
Oct56° / 24° · 1.1" precip
Nov42° / 16° · 0.8" precip
Dec33° / 8° · 0.7" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

Moose: where to put the shot

Broadside, behind the shoulder and a third up. Moose look slow to react — the first shot has to count.

Shots to refuse

Where it falls decides your next two days. Avoid shots that drop a moose in water or a bog.
A .30-06 class cartridge minimum, with a bullet built for heavy bone.

Plan the carry: roughly 350– 500 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — four or more large coolers, or a processor. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

Pro Members Only

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Moose Success Rates

All manners of take73%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit 7 at 73% — 11 animals taken by 15 hunters. On a sample that small the percentage moves several points with one animal, so read the hunter count beside it.

Moose Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season cow only (resident)	23	867	2.7%	3
Archery — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	4	71	5.6%	3
Archery — 1st Season cow only (resident)	17	17	100.0%	3
Archery — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	3	3	100.0%	2
Archery — 1st Season cow only (resident)	3	69	4.3%	3
Archery — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Any Legal Method — 1st Season bull only (resident)	11	1,927	0.6%	3
Any Legal Method — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	1	507	0.2%	3
Any Legal Method — 1st Season bull only (resident)	10	10	100.0%	3
Any Legal Method — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	2	3	66.7%	3
Any Legal Method — 1st Season bull only (resident)	2	278	0.7%	3
Any Legal Method — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—

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 Shiras moose in unit 7, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

MM007O1X — Any Legal Method, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 1,927 applicants for 11 licences, 0.6% drawn, 3 preference points needed
MF007O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Cow Only, resident: 867 applicants for 23 licences, 2.7% drawn, 3 preference points needed
MM007O1X — Any Legal Method, 1st Season, Bull Only, nonresident: 507 applicants for 1 licences, 0.2% drawn, 3 preference points needed
MM007S1X — Any Legal Method, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 278 applicants for 2 licences, 0.7% drawn, 3 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 2 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Bear Hunting in Unit 7

Unit 7 lies in Larimer County and covers about 243 square miles. Ground runs from 7,711 to 12,634 feet. CPW bounds it by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW publishes no per-unit black bear success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 85% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 7

CPW's material on unit 7 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its black bear live. 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 Larimer County. It runs to about 243 square miles.

The lines of the unit: CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.), Colo. 14 and Larimer-Jackson Co. line

CPW has unit 7 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.); on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by Larimer-Jackson Co. line. 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: Pollock Knob, Mansfield Hill and North Middle Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Pollock Knob at 9,811 feet, Mansfield Hill at 9,675 feet, North Middle Mountain at 8,864 feet, South Rawah Peak at 12,634 feet and Cameron Peak at 12,111 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: Ute Pass, Shipman Park and North Draw

Below them sit Ute Pass at 9,879 feet, Shipman Park at 9,539 feet, North Draw at 8,524 feet, Pfister Draw at 7,803 feet and Grassy Pass at 11,204 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: Hohnholz Lakes SWA, LaGarde Creek STL and Pass Creek STL

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: B-3

CPW does not manage black bear unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit B-3, and unit 7 is one piece of it. The rest of B-3 is unit 8, unit 9, unit 19, unit 20, unit 29, unit 38 and unit 191. 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 7 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,711–11,352 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,347 ft ; peaks can run higher.
242.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 32%

Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

159 tanks
133 stream segments
19 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: South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Pass (11,204 ft), Montgomery Pass (11,002 ft), Ute Pass (9,879 ft), LaGarde Creek STL, Pass Creek STL

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 7

CPW publishes no black bear success figure for unit 7 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 Sheep Mountain, Pollock Knob and Mansfield Hill

Take a position on one of Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft), Mansfield Hill (9,675 ft) and North Middle Mountain (8,864 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, September hunts coincide with the feeding push before denning.

Water against feed

There are 133 mapped stream reaches and 159 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

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and County Road 203

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks South Rawah Peak, Cameron Peak, Sheep Mountain and Pollock Knob as places to see from, and Grassy Pass, Montgomery Pass, Ute Pass and LaGarde Creek 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

243 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 Walden, about 16 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 3,641 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

Getting in and staying out: unit 7

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 203 — 5.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 14 — 3.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 157;FR 157.0 — 3.5 mi · High-clearance
FR 516.0 — 1.8 mi · High-clearance
FR 965 — 1.2 mi · High-clearance

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

Walden — 16.3 mi · groceries
Red Feather Lakes — 20.9 mi · no services listed
Rustic — 22.9 mi · no services listed
Albany — 26.5 mi · no services listed
Centennial — 34.2 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Tunnel Campground
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free

Season weather and signal

Jan33° / 8° · 0.6" precip
Aug77° / 40° · 1.4" precip
Sep69° / 32° · 1.4" precip
Oct56° / 24° · 1.1" precip
Nov42° / 16° · 0.8" precip
Dec33° / 8° · 0.7" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

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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Unlock tactics for Unit 7

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Bear Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no black bear row for unit 7 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.

Bear Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	45	225	20.0%	1
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	0	11	0.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	15	104	14.4%	1
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	3	16	18.8%	2
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	103	443	23.3%	1
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	5	20	25.0%	1
Rifle — 5th Season either sex (resident)	119	400	29.8%	—
Rifle — 5th Season either sex (nonresident)	8	16	50.0%	—

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

BE007O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 443 applicants for 103 licences, 23.3% drawn, 1 preference point needed
BE007O5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Either Sex, resident: 400 applicants for 119 licences, 29.8% drawn, no preference points needed
BE007O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 225 applicants for 45 licences, 20% drawn, 1 preference point needed
BE007O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 104 applicants for 15 licences, 14.4% 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 4 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 7

Unit 7 lies in Larimer County and covers about 243 square miles. Ground runs from 7,711 to 12,634 feet. CPW bounds it by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 23%. Federal land covers about 85% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 7

CPW draws an exact line around unit 7 and says nothing about where the pronghorn stand inside it. 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 Larimer County. It runs to about 243 square miles.

The lines of the unit: CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.), Colo. 14 and Larimer-Jackson Co. line

CPW has unit 7 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.); on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by Larimer-Jackson Co. line. 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: Sheep Mountain, Pollock Knob and Mansfield Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Sheep Mountain at 11,781 feet, Pollock Knob at 9,811 feet, Mansfield Hill at 9,675 feet, North Middle Mountain at 8,864 feet and South Rawah Peak at 12,634 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: Montgomery Pass, Ute Pass and Shipman Park

Below them sit Montgomery Pass at 11,002 feet, Ute Pass at 9,879 feet, Shipman Park at 9,539 feet, North Draw at 8,524 feet and Pfister Draw at 7,803 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Hohnholz Lakes SWA, LaGarde Creek STL and Pass Creek STL

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: A-36

CPW does not manage pronghorn unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit A-36, and unit 7 is one piece of it. The rest of A-36 is unit 8. 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 7 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,711–11,352 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,347 ft ; peaks can run higher.
242.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 32%

Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

159 tanks
133 stream segments
19 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: South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft), Pollock Knob (9,811 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Pass (11,204 ft), Montgomery Pass (11,002 ft), Ute Pass (9,879 ft), LaGarde Creek STL, Pass Creek STL

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 7

CPW's own harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 7 at 23% 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 South Rawah Peak, Cameron Peak and Sheep Mountain

Take a position on one of South Rawah Peak (12,634 ft), Cameron Peak (12,111 ft), Sheep Mountain (11,781 ft) and Pollock Knob (9,811 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. 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, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

Water against feed

There are 133 mapped stream reaches and 159 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

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and County Road 203

Where unit 7 sits inside A-36

Across A-36, CPW's 2023 pronghorn success runs 30% in unit 8 and 23% in unit 7. Unit 7 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 8 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 South Rawah Peak, Cameron Peak, Sheep Mountain and Pollock Knob as places to see from, and Grassy Pass, Montgomery Pass, Ute Pass and LaGarde Creek 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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 7

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 203 — 5.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 14 — 3.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 157;FR 157.0 — 3.5 mi · High-clearance
FR 516.0 — 1.8 mi · High-clearance
FR 965 — 1.2 mi · High-clearance

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

Walden — 16.3 mi · groceries
Red Feather Lakes — 20.9 mi · no services listed
Rustic — 22.9 mi · no services listed
Albany — 26.5 mi · no services listed
Centennial — 34.2 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Tunnel Campground
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free
Unnamed camp site · Free

Season weather and signal

Jan33° / 8° · 0.6" precip
Aug77° / 40° · 1.4" precip
Sep69° / 32° · 1.4" precip
Oct56° / 24° · 1.1" precip
Nov42° / 16° · 0.8" precip
Dec33° / 8° · 0.7" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

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.

Pro Members Only

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Pronghorn Success Rates

All manners of take23%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 7 at 23% — 34 animals taken by 146 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)	9	45	20.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	8	62	12.9%	4
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	2	15	13.3%	6
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	7	88	8.0%	1
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	9	11	81.8%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	7	221	3.2%	10
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	1	36	2.8%	15
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	12	19	63.2%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	1	2	50.0%	—

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

AM007O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 221 applicants for 7 licences, 3.2% drawn, 10 preference points needed
AF007O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 88 applicants for 7 licences, 8% drawn, 1 preference point needed
AM007O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 62 applicants for 8 licences, 12.9% drawn, 4 preference points needed
AF007O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 45 applicants for 9 licences, 20% 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 7 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

18 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Tunnel Campground, Browns Park Campground and Stub Creek Cabin.

🛣️

Road Conditions

CR 103, County Road 203 and CO 14 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 4 mi paved, 20 mi gravel and 3 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

7,711–11,352 ft, averaging 9,347. Enough relief to separate summer from winter range.

👥

Hunting Pressure

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

🌦️

Weather

Season normals: Sep 69/32°F, 1.4 in.; Oct 56/24°F, 1.1 in.; Nov 42/16°F, 0.8 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 9%, AT&T 6%, T-Mobile 3% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Walden (16 mi), Red Feather Lakes (21 mi), Rustic (23 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 7?

Unit 7 lies in Larimer County, and CPW has it bounded on the north by WY; on the east by CR 103 (Laramie River Rd.); on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by Larimer-Jackson Co. line. It covers about 243 square miles.

What is the elk success rate in unit 7?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 7 at 9% across all manners of take, and archery 4%, muzzleloader 10% and rifle 11% 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 7 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 7 are at Walden, about 16 miles from the unit's centre, with Red Feather Lakes at about 21 miles. There are also 18 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 7?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 7 at 15% across all manners of take, and archery 9% and rifle 17% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit 7?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit 7 at 73% 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 7?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 7 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.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 7?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 7 at 23% across all manners of take. 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 Elk Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for elk in unit 7, 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 Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 7, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Moose Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for Shiras moose in unit 7, 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 7, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22