Colorado Mule Deer Elk

Unit 72

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk

Unit 72 lies in Dolores and Montezuma counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 491 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 62%. Federal land covers about 29% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

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29%

Public Land

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Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 72 guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.

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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 72

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 72

What CPW publishes for unit 72 is a boundary, not a mule deer 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 Dolores and Montezuma counties.

What bounds unit 72

CPW has unit 72 bounded on the north and east by U.S. 491; on the south by NM; on the west by UT. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Sleeping Ute Mountain, Ute Peak and Black Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Sleeping Ute Mountain at 9,951 feet, Ute Peak at 9,951 feet, Black Mountain at 9,389 feet, Horse Mountain at 9,064 feet and The Knees at 8,946 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Mule deer bed on broken ground with a view and feed on the brush below it.

Holding ground: Alkali Canyon, Tucker Canyon and Ward Canyon

Below them sit Alkali Canyon at 6,300 feet, Tucker Canyon at 6,259 feet, Ward Canyon at 6,208 feet, Narraguinnep Canyon at 6,172 feet and Brewer Canyon at 6,132 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Public ground to start from: Coalbed Canyon SWA and Cross Canyon SWA

CPW lists Coalbed Canyon SWA and Cross Canyon 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 29% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Littlewater Spring, Navajo Spring and Burnt Cabin Spring

Named sources include Littlewater Spring, Navajo Spring, Burnt Cabin Spring, Mud Spring, Brewer Well and Bug Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-29

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-29, and unit 72 is one piece of it. The rest of D-29 is unit 73. 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 72 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Big Point (6,820 ft), Mockingbird Mesa (6,465 ft), The Island (6,319 ft), Spook Point (6,226 ft)

Holding ground: Banes Draw (6,438 ft), Little Cahone Canyon (6,372 ft), Tucker Canyon (6,259 ft), Coalbed Canyon SWA, Cross Canyon 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 72

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 72 at archery 32% and rifle 62%. 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 Goodman Point, Big Point and Sego Point

Take a position on one of Goodman Point (7,144 ft), Big Point (6,820 ft), Sego Point (6,716 ft) and McCloud Point (6,693 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, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Where unit 72 sits inside D-29

Across D-29, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 60% in unit 72 and 48% in unit 73. Unit 72 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.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Big Point, Mockingbird Mesa, The Island and Spook Point as places to see from, and Banes Draw, Little Cahone Canyon, Tucker Canyon and Coalbed Canyon SWA 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

979 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 take60%

Archery32%

Rifle62%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 72 at 60% — 531 animals taken by 884 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 — 32% success, 16 taken by 51 hunters
Rifle — 62% success, 482 taken by 784 hunters

These are the agency's own printed figures for this unit, not a modelled estimate and not a state average. They describe one season, so check CPW's current harvest estimates before you read a trend into them.

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident)	95	233	40.8%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	1	4	25.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	215	620	34.7%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	90	239	37.7%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	225	682	33.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	174	283	61.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	56	414	13.5%	1
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	19	158	12.0%	4
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	60	174	34.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	34	64	53.1%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	78	230	33.9%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	27	60	45.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	10	66	15.2%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	4	8	50.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	15	97	15.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	7	0.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season doe only (resident)	25	76	32.9%	—
Rifle — 4th Season doe only (nonresident)	2	2	100.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	97	201	48.3%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	37	99	37.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	87	170	51.2%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	28	76	36.8%	—

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

DM072O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 682 applicants for 225 licences, 33% drawn, no preference points needed
DM072O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 620 applicants for 215 licences, 34.7% drawn, no preference points needed
DM072O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Buck Only, resident: 414 applicants for 56 licences, 13.5% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM072O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 283 applicants for 174 licences, 61.5% 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.

Elk Hunting in Unit 72

Unit 72 lies in Dolores and Montezuma counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 491 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 15%. Federal land covers about 29% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 72

CPW's material on unit 72 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 Dolores and Montezuma counties.

What bounds unit 72

CPW has unit 72 bounded on the north and east by U.S. 491; on the south by NM; on the west by UT. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Its value is practical — those are the features you will navigate by, and the ridges that separate one day's country from another's.

High ground inside the line: Marble Mountain, East Toe and West Toe

Named high points inside the unit include Marble Mountain at 8,578 feet, East Toe at 7,687 feet, West Toe at 7,243 feet, Goodman Point at 7,144 feet and Big Point at 6,820 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: Morrison Canyon, Cahone Canyon and Hartman Draw

Below them sit Morrison Canyon at 6,085 feet, Cahone Canyon at 6,084 feet, Hartman Draw at 6,017 feet, Aztec Divide at 5,980 feet and Dawson Draw at 5,969 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Public ground to start from: Coalbed Canyon SWA and Cross Canyon SWA

Water: Hanna Spring, Ute Spring and Champagne Spring

Named sources include Hanna Spring, Ute Spring, Champagne Spring, McElmo Falls, Littlewater Spring and Navajo Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-24

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-24, and unit 72 is one piece of it. The rest of E-24 is unit 70, unit 71, unit 73 and unit 711. Read a neighbour in the same herd before you read the state average — the herd, not the unit line, is what the agency is steering.

Unit 72 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Big Point (6,820 ft), Mockingbird Mesa (6,465 ft), The Island (6,319 ft), Spook Point (6,226 ft)

Holding ground: Banes Draw (6,438 ft), Little Cahone Canyon (6,372 ft), Tucker Canyon (6,259 ft), Coalbed Canyon SWA, Cross Canyon 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 72

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 72 at archery 15%, muzzleloader 0% and rifle 15%. 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 Bug Point, Mockingbird Mesa and The Island

Take a position on one of Bug Point (6,665 ft), Mockingbird Mesa (6,465 ft), The Island (6,319 ft) and Gifford Knoll (6,301 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 bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Where unit 72 sits inside E-24

Across E-24, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 25% in unit 70, 17% in unit 71, 14% in unit 72, 14% in unit 711 and 10% in unit 73. That puts unit 72 behind 2 of the 4 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 70 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

A first plan from the pins on this page

What a day here costs you

979 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The ground is gentle enough that the pack-out is a distance problem rather than a climbing one. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

What we can't tell you

Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.

Colorado rules that decide your day

Summarised from CPW regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Tagging

Validate and attach your carcass tag before the animal is moved, and keep evidence of sex attached until the carcass reaches your home or a processor.

Leaving meat

Abandoning edible meat is illegal. CPW counts the four quarters and the loins.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 50 yards of a developed campsite, and never toward an occupied building.
Roads — No shooting from or across a public road, and no shooting from a motor vehicle.

Elk: where to put the shot

Broadside or quartering away, on the back edge of the front leg about a third of the way up the body. That is lungs, and on a quartering-away angle it picks up the far shoulder.

Shots to refuse

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

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

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

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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take14%

Archery15%

Muzzleloader0%

Rifle15%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 72 at 14% — 48 animals taken by 344 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 — 15% success, 10 taken by 64 hunters
Muzzleloader — 0% success, 0 taken by 17 hunters
Rifle — 15% success, 38 taken by 262 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	14	35	40.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	11	13	84.6%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (resident)	32	100	32.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (nonresident)	1	5	20.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	13	35	37.1%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	13	23	56.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	11	30	36.7%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	3	5	60.0%	—

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 elk in unit 72, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EF072P5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Cow Only, resident: 100 applicants for 32 licences, 32% drawn, no preference points needed
EF072O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 35 applicants for 14 licences, 40% drawn, no preference points needed
EF072O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Cow Only, resident: 35 applicants for 13 licences, 37.1% drawn, no preference points needed
EF072O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Cow Only, resident: 30 applicants for 11 licences, 36.7% drawn, no preference points needed

No preference points were needed for the codes above in that year, which can change the moment applicant numbers do. There are 4 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 72?

Unit 72 lies in Dolores and Montezuma counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north and east by U.S. 491; on the south by NM; on the west by UT.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 72?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 72 at 60% across all manners of take, and archery 32% and rifle 62% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the elk success rate in unit 72?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 72 at 14% across all manners of take, and archery 15%, muzzleloader 0% and rifle 15% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

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Sources & Verification

Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-23.

Colorado Big Game Hunting Brochure — Game Management Unit (GMU) Descriptions (pp. 79-80-81-82) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, Data analysis unit (DAU) the unit belongs to · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 72, 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 72, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22