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Colorado Pronghorn Mule Deer

Unit 88

Colorado Hunting Guide — Pronghorn, Mule Deer

Unit 88 lies in Weld County and covers about 686 square miles. Ground runs from 4,571 to 5,406 feet. CPW bounds it by Colo. 71 and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 60%. Federal land covers about 15% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

🏔️
15%
Public Land
⛰️
4,571–5,406 ft
Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 88

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 88 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.

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 88

Unit 88 lies in Weld County and covers about 686 square miles. Ground runs from 4,571 to 5,406 feet. CPW bounds it by Colo. 71 and Colo. 14 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 60%. Federal land covers about 15% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 88

CPW draws an exact line around unit 88 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 Weld County. It runs to about 686 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Colo. 71, Colo. 14 and CR 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.)

CPW has unit 88 bounded on the north by WY and NEB; on the east by Colo. 71; on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) & 105 (between Keota and Colo. 14). 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: Pawnee Buttes

Named high points inside the unit include Pawnee Buttes at 5,351 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.

Public ground to start from: Lazy D STL, North Pawnee Creek STL and South Pawnee Creek STL

CPW lists Lazy D STL, North Pawnee Creek STL, South Pawnee Creek STL, Twomile Creek STL and Wild Horse 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 15% of the unit on top of those.

Water: The Wolf Spring, Railroad Water Well and Corner Well

The water inside the unit line comes to 8 mapped stream reaches, 1 lakes and 46 stock tanks. Named sources include The Wolf Spring, Railroad Water Well, Corner Well, Ida Well, Gap Water Well and Hightower 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: A-1

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

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 4,571 to 5,406 feet, averaging 5,060 — a sample rather than a survey, so read the ends as approximate. There is not much relief, so the animals move laterally rather than up and down.

Unit 88 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

  • 4,571–5,406 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,060 ft ; peaks can run higher.
  • 686 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

  • 46 tanks
  • 8 stream segments
  • 1 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: Pawnee Buttes (5,351 ft)

Holding ground: Lazy D STL, North Pawnee Creek STL, South Pawnee Creek STL, Twomile Creek STL, The Wolf Spring, Railroad Water Well, Corner 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 88

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Pronghorn Success Rates

All manners of take60%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 88 at 60% — 187 animals taken by 313 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

SeasonTagsApplicantsDraw %Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season doe only (resident) 173745.9% —
Archery — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) 000.0% —
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident) 5614937.6% —
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) 72330.4% —
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident) 165962.7% 4
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) 0110.0% —
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident) 158517.6% —
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident) 010.0% —
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident) 2413617.6% 1
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident) 000.0% —
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident) 386156.2% 7
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident) 126917.4% 7
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident) 305055.9% 4
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident) 2345.9% 5

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

  • AM088O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 615 applicants for 38 licences, 6.2% drawn, 7 preference points needed
  • AF088O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Doe Only, resident: 596 applicants for 16 licences, 2.7% drawn, 4 preference points needed
  • AM088O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 505 applicants for 30 licences, 5.9% drawn, 4 preference points needed
  • AM088O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 149 applicants for 56 licences, 37.6% drawn, no preference points needed

Colorado runs a pure preference-point draw, so the point figure above is the requirement the agency published for that code in that year, not a forecast for the next one. There are 8 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 88?
Unit 88 lies in Weld County, and CPW has it bounded on the north by WY and NEB; on the east by Colo. 71; on the south by Colo. 14; on the west by CRs 390 (Keota-Grover Rd.) & 105 (between Keota and Colo. 14). It covers about 686 square miles.
What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 88?
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 88 at 60% 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 88 hunt?
The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 88 are at Grover, about 16 miles from the unit's centre, with Pine Bluffs at about 25 miles. There are also 1 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 88?
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 88 at 30% across all manners of take, and archery 0% and rifle 32% 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.

  1. 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
  2. 2023 Colorado Pronghorn Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for pronghorn in unit 88, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22
  3. 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
  4. 2023 Colorado Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 88, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22