Unit 91

CPW's material on unit 91 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its mule deer 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 Logan County. It runs to about 77 square miles.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 138, Red Lion Rd. (CR 93) and U.S. 6

CPW has unit 91 bounded on the north by U.S. 138; on the east by Red Lion Rd. (CR 93); on the south by I-76 and U.S. 6; on the west by U.S. 138. 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.

Public ground to start from: Bravo STL, Bravo SWA and Ford Bridge STL

CPW lists Bravo STL, Bravo SWA, Ford Bridge STL and Tamarack Ranch 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 0% of the unit on top of those.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 12 mapped stream reaches, 11 lakes and 36 stock tanks. 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-44

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-44, and unit 91 is one piece of it. The rest of D-44 is unit 92, unit 94, unit 96 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 Private / Other 100%, 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 3,657 to 3,873 feet, averaging 3,766 — 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.

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 91 at archery 32% and rifle 33%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Finding a view in unit 91

No named high ground falls inside this unit, which changes the method rather than ruling it out. Use the edges instead of the elevation — a field margin, a shelterbelt, the lip of a draw. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat. Cover ground slowly and stop more often than feels sensible.

Water against feed

There are 12 mapped stream reaches and 36 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

Season normals here run Sep 81/48°F, Oct 67/35°F and Nov 53/24°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 1.4 in. in Sep, 1.2 in. in Oct and 0.5 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: I 76 and US 138

I 76 and US 138 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 91 sits inside D-44

Across D-44, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 43% in unit 94, 32% in unit 91, 23% in unit 92 and 22% in unit 96. That puts unit 91 behind 1 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 94 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 Bravo STL, Bravo SWA, Tamarack Ranch SWA and I 76 @ unit boundary 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

77 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 Iliff, about 5 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.