Unit S08 (Huerfano)
Colorado Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep
Unit S08 lies in Huerfano and Alamosa counties. CPW bounds it by Sixmile Lane and USFS Trail 883 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success here as high as 100%. Federal land covers about 78% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit S08
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit S08 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.
Bighorn Sheep Hunting in Unit S08
Unit S08 lies in Huerfano and Alamosa counties. CPW bounds it by Sixmile Lane and USFS Trail 883 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success here as high as 100%. Federal land covers about 78% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Bighorn Sheep in Unit S08
What CPW publishes for unit S08 is a boundary, not a bighorn sheep 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 Huerfano and Alamosa counties.
The lines of the unit: Sixmile Lane, USFS Trail 883 and USFS Trail 583 (Mosca Pass)
CPW has unit S08 bounded on the north by Sixmile Lane, USFS Trail 883 and USFS Trail 583 (Mosca Pass) and Huerfano CRs 583, 581, 580 and 550; on the east by Huerfano CRs 570 and 572 (Pass Creek Rd.); on the south by Huerfano-Costilla and Costilla-Alamosa Co. lines and U.S. 160; on W. by Colo. 17. 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: Blanca Peak, Ellingwood Point and Little Bear Peak
Named high points inside the unit include Blanca Peak at 14,324 feet, Ellingwood Point at 14,041 feet, Little Bear Peak at 13,990 feet, California Peak at 13,827 feet and Twin Peaks at 13,556 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Sheep need rock to escape into and will not stand far from it.
Holding ground: Raspberry Canyon, Axtel Canyon and Chimney Gulch
Below them sit Raspberry Canyon at 8,620 feet, Axtel Canyon at 8,601 feet, Chimney Gulch at 8,587 feet, Tellurium Gulch at 8,197 feet and Box Canyon at 8,166 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: Huerfano SWA, Manzanares Creek STL and Zapata Falls STL
CPW lists Huerfano SWA, Manzanares Creek STL and Zapata Falls 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 78% of the unit on top of those.
Water: Denton Spring, Mount Blanca Well and Zapata Falls
Named sources include Denton Spring, Mount Blanca Well, Zapata Falls, Mosca Spring and Tobin Creek Well. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.
The herd this unit belongs to: RBS-10
CPW does not manage bighorn sheep unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit RBS-10, and unit S08 is one piece of it. The rest of RBS-10 is unit S9, unit S65 and unit S68. 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 S08 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Blanca Peak (14,324 ft), California Peak (13,827 ft), Twin Peaks (13,556 ft), Carbonate Mountain (12,264 ft)
Holding ground: California Gulch (10,205 ft), Chokecherry Canyon (8,869 ft), Huerfano SWA, Manzanares Creek STL, Zapata Falls 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 Bighorn Sheep in Unit S08
Bighorn Sheep Success Rates
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S08 at 100% — 3 animals taken by 3 hunters. On a sample that small the percentage moves several points with one animal, so read the hunter count beside 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.
Bighorn Sheep Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (resident) | 3 | 140 | 2.1% | 3 |
| Rifle — 1st Season ram 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 EngineCPW's 2026 draw recap for bighorn sheep in unit S08, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- SMS08O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 140 applicants for 3 licences, 2.1% 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. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit S08?
What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit S08?
Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro
Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.
Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-23.
- Colorado Sheep & Goat Hunting Brochure — Game Management Unit (GMU) Descriptions (pp. 16-17) — 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 Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for bighorn sheep in unit S08, 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