Unit S79 (Pueblo West)
Colorado Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep
Unit S79 lies in Pueblo and Fremont counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and Colo. 45 among others. CPW publishes no per-unit bighorn sheep success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 62% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
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Bighorn Sheep Hunting in Unit S79
Unit S79 lies in Pueblo and Fremont counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and Colo. 45 among others. CPW publishes no per-unit bighorn sheep success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 62% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Bighorn Sheep in Unit S79
CPW's material on unit S79 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its bighorn sheep live. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Pueblo and Fremont counties.
The lines of the unit: U.S. 50, Colo. 45 and Colo. 96
CPW has unit S79 bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by Colo. 45; on the south by Colo. 96; on the west by Colo. 67. 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.
High ground inside the line: Liberty Point
Named high points inside the unit include Liberty Point at 5,124 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Sheep on lower country still need rock, and on a desert unit the rock is the whole hunt.
Holding ground: Tennant Gulch, Richie Gulch and Fred Rohr Gulch
Below them sit Tennant Gulch at 5,581 feet, Richie Gulch at 4,944 feet, Fred Rohr Gulch at 4,924 feet and Rock Canyon at 4,727 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: Lake Pueblo SWA
CPW lists Lake Pueblo 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 62% 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 S79 is one piece of it. The rest of RBS-09 is unit S7, unit S47 and unit S49. 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 S79 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 4,826–5,859 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,201 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 198.3 sq mi inside the boundary.
Who owns the ground
- BLM — 15%
- Private / Other — 85%
Roughly 15% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
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: Liberty Point (5,124 ft)
Holding ground: Tennant Gulch (5,581 ft), Richie Gulch (4,944 ft), Lake Pueblo SWA
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 S79
Bighorn Sheep Success Rates
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no bighorn sheep row for unit S79 that we can read back to this unit on its own. Where the agency reports a unit inside a grouping, or prints a table our parser cannot resolve to a single column, we leave the number out rather than publish a statewide average as though it had been measured here. CPW's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.
Bighorn Sheep Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (resident) | 1 | 202 | 0.5% | 3 |
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (resident) | 1 | 201 | 0.5% | 3 |
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineCPW's 2025 draw recap for bighorn sheep in unit S79, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- SMS79O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 202 applicants for 1 licences, 0.5% 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 S79?
What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit S79?
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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
- 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