Colorado Pronghorn Mule Deer

Unit 87 (Rawlins / Baggs)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Pronghorn, Mule Deer

Unit 87 lies in Larimer and Weld counties and covers about 1,115 square miles. Ground runs from 4,826 to 6,237 feet. CPW bounds it by Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 62%. Federal land covers about 16% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

16%

Public Land

⛰️

4,966–5,940 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 87

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 87 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.

Pronghorn guide Mule Deer 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.

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 87

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 87

CPW's material on unit 87 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its pronghorn 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 and Weld counties. It runs to about 1,115 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) and Colo. 14

CPW has unit 87 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) & 105 between Keota and Colo. 14; on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by I-25. 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: Simpson Mesa, Chalk Bluffs and Earthlodge Rock

Named high points inside the unit include Simpson Mesa at 6,237 feet, Chalk Bluffs at 5,885 feet, Earthlodge Rock at 5,761 feet, Wildhorse Tit at 5,433 feet and Crow Valley Hill at 5,365 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Pronghorn live in the open and trust their eyes, which is the whole problem.

Holding ground: Crow Valley Park, Bull Canyon and Eastman Basin

Below them sit Crow Valley Park at 4,826 feet, Bull Canyon at 5,414 feet, Eastman Basin at 5,118 feet, Black Hollow at 5,093 feet and Baker Draw at 5,007 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Briggsdale STL, Crow Valley STL and Eastman Basin STL

CPW lists Briggsdale STL, Crow Valley STL, Eastman Basin STL, Geary Creek STL and Howard 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 16% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Sorrell Water Well, Osborne Water Well and Missile West Water Well

The water inside the unit line comes to 70 mapped stream reaches, 33 lakes and 124 stock tanks. Named sources include Sorrell Water Well, Osborne Water Well, Missile West Water Well, Alkali Well, Jackpot Water Well and Headquarters Waterwell. 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: A-1

CPW does not manage pronghorn unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit A-1, and unit 87 is one piece of it. The rest of A-1 is unit 88, unit 89, unit 90, unit 94, unit 95 and unit 951. 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 87 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,966–5,940 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,264 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,115.4 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

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

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

Water on the ground

124 tanks
70 stream segments
33 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

Holding ground: Eastman Basin (5,118 ft), Baker Draw (5,007 ft), Crow Valley Park (4,826 ft), Briggsdale STL, Crow Valley STL, Eastman Basin STL, Geary Creek STL, Sorrell Water Well

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 87

CPW's own harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 87 at 62% across all manners of take. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. 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 Earthlodge Rock, Wildhorse Tit and Crow Valley Hill

Take a position on one of Earthlodge Rock (5,761 ft), Wildhorse Tit (5,433 ft), Crow Valley Hill (5,365 ft) and Seven Cross Hill (5,101 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

Water against feed

There are 70 mapped stream reaches and 124 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 77/44°F, Oct 63/32°F and Nov 50/21°F. Warm afternoons compress the hunting into the first and last hour, and make meat care the day's real problem rather than the shot. Precipitation runs about 1.2 in. in Sep, 1 in. in Oct and 0.5 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: I 25 and CO 14

I 25 and CO 14 are the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter.

Where unit 87 sits inside A-1

Across A-1, CPW's 2023 pronghorn success runs 62% in unit 87, 62% in unit 90, 60% in unit 88, 48% in unit 89 and 47% in unit 95. Nothing in the herd beat unit 87 on that measure and one unit matched it, which on a hunt this small says more about tag numbers than about 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 Eastman Basin, Baker Draw, Crow Valley Park and Briggsdale 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.

What we can't tell you

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

Getting in and staying out: unit 87

Named routes and what they need

I 25 — 21.7 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CO 14 — 17.9 mi · Paved (all rigs)
County Road 390 — 15.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 100 — 13.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 49 — 13 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 83 — 11.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)

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

Nunn — 11.7 mi · no services listed
Pierce — 13.8 mi · no services listed
Ault — 16.2 mi · fuel
Eaton — 19.3 mi · fuel, groceries
Grover — 19.7 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Crow Valley Family Campground — 10 sites · Fee · reservable
VIP RV
Unnamed camp site · Free
KOA Journey Campgrounds

Season weather and signal

Jan41° / 13° · 0.2" precip
Aug86° / 53° · 1.5" precip
Sep77° / 44° · 1.2" precip
Oct63° / 32° · 1" precip
Nov50° / 21° · 0.5" precip
Dec41° / 13° · 0.3" precip

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

Colorado rules that decide your day

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

Legal shooting hours

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

Motorized retrieval

Colorado has no general off-road retrieval allowance. Travel stays on designated routes, so plan to pack every animal out on your back or with stock. Check the forest or BLM travel map for the roads that are actually open in hunting season.

Tagging

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

Leaving meat

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

Where you may not shoot

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

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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Pronghorn Success Rates

All manners of take62%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 87 at 62% — 479 animals taken by 773 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.

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.

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season doe only (resident)	11	60	18.3%	—
Archery — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	1	1	100.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	93	215	43.3%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	9	23	39.1%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	27	173	15.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	1	6	16.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	32	274	11.7%	3
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	10	76	13.2%	4
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	33	1,173	2.8%	4
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	16	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	18	149	12.1%	1
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident)	53	374	14.2%	1
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	1	4	25.0%	1
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	128	1,791	7.1%	6
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	42	188	22.3%	6
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	92	1,062	8.7%	4
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	17	61	27.9%	4

Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for pronghorn in unit 87, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

AM087O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 1,791 applicants for 128 licences, 7.1% drawn, 6 preference points needed
AF087O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 1,173 applicants for 33 licences, 2.8% drawn, 4 preference points needed
AM087O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 1,062 applicants for 92 licences, 8.7% drawn, 4 preference points needed
AF087P5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Doe Only, resident: 374 applicants for 53 licences, 14.2% 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 14 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 87

Unit 87 lies in Larimer and Weld counties and covers about 1,115 square miles. Ground runs from 4,826 to 6,237 feet. CPW bounds it by Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 18%. Federal land covers about 16% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 87

What CPW publishes for unit 87 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 Larimer and Weld counties. It runs to about 1,115 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) and Colo. 14

CPW has unit 87 bounded on the north by WY; on the east by Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) & 105 between Keota and Colo. 14; on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by I-25. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. 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: Seven Cross Hill, Simpson Mesa and Chalk Bluffs

Named high points inside the unit include Seven Cross Hill at 5,101 feet, Simpson Mesa at 6,237 feet, Chalk Bluffs at 5,885 feet, Earthlodge Rock at 5,761 feet and Wildhorse Tit at 5,433 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.

Holding ground: Jackson Draw, Crow Valley Park and Bull Canyon

Below them sit Jackson Draw at 4,933 feet, Crow Valley Park at 4,826 feet, Bull Canyon at 5,414 feet, Eastman Basin at 5,118 feet and Black Hollow at 5,093 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Public ground to start from: Keota STL, Pawnee Coal Creek STL and Robinson Creek STL

CPW lists Keota STL, Pawnee Coal Creek STL, Robinson Creek STL, Stone Corral STL and Wellington 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 16% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Slab Water Well, Monument Water Well and Porter Water Well

The water inside the unit line comes to 70 mapped stream reaches, 33 lakes and 124 stock tanks. Named sources include Slab Water Well, Monument Water Well, Porter Water Well, Range Rider Water Well, Keota Water Well and Oasis Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-5

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-5, and unit 87 is one piece of it. The rest of D-5 is unit 88, unit 89, unit 90 and unit 95. 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 87 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,966–5,940 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,264 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,115.4 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

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

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

Water on the ground

124 tanks
70 stream segments
33 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

Holding ground: Eastman Basin (5,118 ft), Baker Draw (5,007 ft), Crow Valley Park (4,826 ft), Briggsdale STL, Crow Valley STL, Eastman Basin STL, Geary Creek STL, Sorrell Water Well

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 87

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 87 at rifle 18%. 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 Simpson Mesa, Chalk Bluffs and Earthlodge Rock

Take a position on one of Simpson Mesa (6,237 ft), Chalk Bluffs (5,885 ft), Earthlodge Rock (5,761 ft) and Wildhorse Tit (5,433 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.

Water against feed

There are 70 mapped stream reaches and 124 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: I 25 and CO 14

Where unit 87 sits inside D-5

Across D-5, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 37% in unit 90, 30% in unit 88, 28% in unit 95, 23% in unit 89 and 17% in unit 87. Unit 87 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 90 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 Eastman Basin, Baker Draw, Crow Valley Park and Briggsdale 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

1,115 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 Nunn, about 12 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. 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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 87

Named routes and what they need

I 25 — 21.7 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CO 14 — 17.9 mi · Paved (all rigs)
County Road 390 — 15.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 100 — 13.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 49 — 13 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 83 — 11.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)

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

Nunn — 11.7 mi · no services listed
Pierce — 13.8 mi · no services listed
Ault — 16.2 mi · fuel
Eaton — 19.3 mi · fuel, groceries
Grover — 19.7 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Crow Valley Family Campground — 10 sites · Fee · reservable
VIP RV
Unnamed camp site · Free
KOA Journey Campgrounds

Season weather and signal

Jan41° / 13° · 0.2" precip
Aug86° / 53° · 1.5" precip
Sep77° / 44° · 1.2" precip
Oct63° / 32° · 1" precip
Nov50° / 21° · 0.5" precip
Dec41° / 13° · 0.3" precip

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

Colorado rules that decide your day

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

Legal shooting hours

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

Motorized retrieval

Tagging

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

Leaving meat

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

Where you may not shoot

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

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 take17%

Rifle18%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 87 at 17% — 100 animals taken by 581 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.

Rifle — 18% success, 97 taken by 545 hunters

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	39	103	37.9%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	1	7	14.3%	—
Any Legal Method — 2nd Season either sex (resident)	171	421	40.6%	—
Any Legal Method — 2nd Season either sex (nonresident)	4	9	44.4%	—
Any Legal Method — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	30	128	23.4%	—
Any Legal Method — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	6	64	9.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	5	58	8.6%	1
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	20	95	21.1%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	5	7	71.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	19	103	18.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	1	4	25.0%	1
Muzzleloader — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	8	16	50.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	18	35	51.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	2	5	40.0%	—

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 mule deer in unit 87, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DE087O2X — Any Legal Method, 2nd Season, Either Sex, resident: 421 applicants for 171 licences, 40.6% drawn, no preference points needed
DF087O2X — Any Legal Method, 2nd Season, Doe Only, resident: 128 applicants for 30 licences, 23.4% drawn, no preference points needed
DE087O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 103 applicants for 39 licences, 37.9% drawn, no preference points needed
DM087O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 103 applicants for 19 licences, 18.4% 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.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

⛺

Camp Sites

4 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Crow Valley Family Campground, Vip Rv and KOA Journey Campgrounds.

🛣️

Road Conditions

I 25, CO 14 and County Road 390 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 88 mi paved, 86 mi gravel and 2 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

4,966–5,940 ft, averaging 5,264. Gentle ground — distance rather than climbing is the day's cost.

👥

Hunting Pressure

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

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Weather

Season normals: Sep 77/44°F, 1.2 in.; Oct 63/32°F, 1 in.; Nov 50/21°F, 0.5 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 21%, AT&T 14%, T-Mobile 7% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Nunn (12 mi), Pierce (14 mi), Ault (16 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 87?

Unit 87 lies in Larimer and Weld counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by WY; on the east by Weld CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) & 105 between Keota and Colo. 14; on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by I-25. It covers about 1,115 square miles.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 87?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 87 at 62% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 87 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 87 are at Nunn, about 12 miles from the unit's centre, with Pierce at about 14 miles. There are also 4 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 87?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 87 at 17% across all manners of take, and rifle 18% 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 Pronghorn Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for pronghorn in unit 87, 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 87, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22