Unit S49 (Grape Creek/Copper Ridge)

CPW draws an exact line around unit S49 and says nothing about where the bighorn sheep stand inside it. 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 Custer and Fremont counties.

The lines of the unit: Arkansas River, Fremont CR 12 bridge and U.S. 50

CPW has unit S49 bounded on the north by Arkansas River, Fremont CR 12 bridge and U.S. 50; on the east by Colo. 67; on the south by Colo. 96; on the west by Colo. 69, Fremont Co. lines, USFS 6 (Hayden Pass Rd.) and Fremont CR 6. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Hardscrabble Mountain, Adobe Peak and Stull Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Hardscrabble Mountain at 10,380 feet, Adobe Peak at 10,174 feet, Stull Mountain at 9,974 feet, Holt Mountain at 9,879 feet and Mock Hill at 9,773 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: Bear Gulch, Boneyard Park and Querida Gulch

Below them sit Bear Gulch at 8,516 feet, Boneyard Park at 8,465 feet, Querida Gulch at 8,328 feet, Boneyard Gulch at 8,212 feet and Mains Gulch at 8,128 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: Bear Gulch STL, Beddows Mountain STL and Cody Park STL

CPW lists Bear Gulch STL, Beddows Mountain STL, Cody Park STL, Copper Gulch STL and DeWeese Reservoir 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 72% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: RBS-09

CPW does not manage bighorn sheep unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit RBS-09, and unit S49 is one piece of it. The rest of RBS-09 is unit S7, unit S47 and unit S79. 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.

CPW's own harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S49 at 100% across all manners of take. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: pick a glassing position across from the escape terrain and stay on it for hours, not minutes.

Glassing from Slide Rock Mountain, Locke Mountain and Table Mountain

Take a position on one of Slide Rock Mountain (9,474 ft), Locke Mountain (9,348 ft), Table Mountain (9,347 ft) and Tanner Peak (9,308 ft) and be on it before light. In the dark the air runs downhill. Pick an approach that doesn't send it into the country you want to see, and plan to move once the slope warms. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, late hunts put rams with ewe groups on the same rock.

Getting past the roads

There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter. 6 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

Where unit S49 sits inside RBS-09

Across RBS-09, CPW's 2023 bighorn sheep success runs 100% in unit S7, 100% in unit S47 and 100% in unit S49. Nothing in the herd beat unit S49 on that measure and 2 units 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.

The way in: Fremont CR 12, U.S. 50 and Colo. 67

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: Fremont CR 12, U.S. 50, Colo. 67, Colo. 96 and Colo. 69. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Check each of them on a current motor-vehicle-use map before you count on it, because a line on a boundary description is not a promise of public access.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Hardscrabble Mountain, Stull Mountain, Holt Mountain and Curley Peak as places to see from, and Locke Park, Chute Park, Rattler Gulch and Bear Gulch 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 a day here costs you

631 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.