Utah Moose Mule Deer

Unit East Canyon

Utah Hunting Guide — Moose, Mule Deer

Unit East Canyon lies in Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake and Summit counties and covers about 630 square miles. Ground runs from 4,471 to 8,766 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put Shiras moose success here as high as 70%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Utah Hunting Guide

🏔️

17%

Public Land

⛰️

4,471–8,766 ft

Sampled elevation

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

Moose guide Mule Deer guide

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Moose Hunting in Unit East Canyon

Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit East Canyon

UDWR draws an exact line around unit East Canyon and says nothing about where the Shiras moose 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 Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake and Summit counties. It runs to about 630 square miles.

What bounds unit East Canyon

UDWR has unit East Canyon Boundary begins at Echo Junction and I-80; southwest along I-80 to I-15; north on I-15 to its junction with I-84 near Ogden; east on I-84 to Echo Junction. This hunt is comprised of all or largely private property. Hunters should acquire written permission from the landowner before applying for this hunt. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Thurston Peak, Francis Peak and Snow Horse Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Thurston Peak at 9,695 feet, Francis Peak at 9,518 feet, Snow Horse Ridge at 9,469 feet, Grandview Peak at 9,392 feet and Lewis Peak at 9,286 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Moose need standing water and willow, so on dry country they are tied to the few drainages that hold both.

Holding ground: Frederick Hollow, Blue Bell Hollow and Box Spring Hollow

Below them sit Frederick Hollow at 7,078 feet, Blue Bell Hollow at 7,023 feet, Box Spring Hollow at 7,004 feet, Howard Hollow at 6,865 feet and Boiler Hollow at 6,851 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Water: Birch Springs, Dixie Hollow Springs and Tom Porter Springs

The water inside the unit line comes to 1,383 mapped stream reaches, 42 lakes, 456 stock tanks and 55 springs. Named sources include Birch Springs, Dixie Hollow Springs, Tom Porter Springs, Baskin Spring, Enoch Spring and Jack Beard Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

Before you apply: who owns this unit

A UDWR permit does not authorise hunting on Native American trust lands, on a CWMU without that CWMU's own permit, or on National Park land, and written permission is required to hunt private land. 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. The unit runs from 4,471 feet to 8,766 feet, averaging 6,527 — that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.

Unit East Canyon terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,471–8,766 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,527 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
630.1 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

456 tanks
55 springs
1,383 stream segments
42 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: Thurston Peak (9,695 ft), Francis Peak (9,518 ft), Bountiful Peak (9,238 ft), Sessions Mountains (9,165 ft)

Holding ground: Farmington Canyon (8,991 ft), Frederick Hollow (7,078 ft), Elk Hollow (6,544 ft), Birch Springs, Dixie Hollow Springs

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 Shiras Moose in Unit East Canyon

UDWR's own harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit East Canyon at rifle 70%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: walk the willow bottoms slowly at first and last light and look for fresh browse before you look for the animal.

Glassing from Big Mountain, Swallow Rocks and Gold Ridge

Take a position on one of Big Mountain (8,451 ft), Swallow Rocks (8,373 ft), Gold Ridge (8,361 ft) and Porcupine Peak (8,224 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. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, late September bulls answer a cow call near water.

Water against feed

There are 1,383 mapped stream reaches and 456 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. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 77/49°F, Oct 63/37°F and Nov 48/27°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 1.6 in. in Sep, 2 in. in Oct and 2.2 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: I 80 and I 84

I 80, I 84 and I 15 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.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Thurston Peak, Francis Peak, Bountiful Peak and Sessions Mountains as places to see from, and Farmington Canyon, Frederick Hollow, Elk Hollow and Birch Springs 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

630 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 Morgan, about 8 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 4,295 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

What we can't tell you

A UDWR permit does not authorise hunting on Native American trust lands, on a CWMU without that CWMU's own permit, or on National Park land, and written permission is required to hunt private land. Settle access before the season rather than during it. Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.

Getting in and staying out: unit East Canyon

Named routes and what they need

I 80 — 30 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 84 — 14.7 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 15 — 9.4 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 15;US 89 — 3.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Morgan — 8.2 mi · groceries, gear
Centerville — 8.9 mi · fuel, groceries, gear
Bountiful — 9.6 mi · fuel, groceries, gear
West Bountiful — 10.6 mi · fuel, groceries, gear
Farmington — 10.6 mi · fuel, groceries, gear

Developed camps

BOUNTIFUL PEAK CAMPGROUND · reservable
MUELLER PARK GROUP PICNIC · reservable

Season weather and signal

Jan37° / 19° · 2.5" precip
Aug87° / 58° · 0.8" precip
Sep77° / 49° · 1.6" precip
Oct63° / 37° · 2" precip
Nov48° / 27° · 2.2" precip
Dec37° / 20° · 2.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

Utah rules that decide your day

Summarised from UDWR regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before official sunrise to half an hour after official sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Utah requires travel on existing roads and trails; there is no general off-road retrieval allowance. Plan a pack-out from anything you can't reach from an open route.

Tagging

Notch and attach the tag to the carcass before leaving the kill site.

Leaving meat

Wasting protected wildlife is a crime.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 600 feet of a house, dwelling or other building without permission, and no shooting from a vehicle or across a road.

Moose: where to put the shot

Broadside, behind the shoulder and a third up. Moose look slow to react — the first shot has to count.

Shots to refuse

Where it falls decides your next two days. Avoid shots that drop a moose in water or a bog.
A .30-06 class cartridge minimum, with a bullet built for heavy bone.

Plan the carry: roughly 350– 500 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — four or more large coolers, or a processor. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Moose Success Rates

Rifle70%

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no Shiras moose row for unit East Canyon 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. UDWR's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.

Moose Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	4	759	0.5%	20
Any Legal Weapon — Once-in-a-lifetime bull/buck only (resident)	5	712	0.7%	27
Any Legal Weapon — Once-in-a-lifetime bull/buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	27

Data from 2024 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

UDWR's 2025 draw recap for Shiras moose in unit East Canyon, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

Any Legal Weapon, Once-in-a-lifetime, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 712 applicants for 5 licences, 0.7% drawn, 27 bonus points needed

Utah draws on bonus points in a weighted random draw, not in point order, so the figure above is what it happened to take that year rather than a threshold you can plan to reach. More points buy more chances, never a turn. These are the figures as published in UDWR's own draw recap; we have not yet checked them back against the agency row by row, so confirm the hunt you mean to apply for before you count on a number.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit East Canyon

Unit East Canyon lies in Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake and Summit counties and covers about 630 square miles. Ground runs from 4,471 to 8,766 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 25%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit East Canyon

UDWR draws an exact line around unit East Canyon and says nothing about where the mule deer stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake and Summit counties. It runs to about 630 square miles.

What bounds unit East Canyon

UDWR has unit East Canyon Boundary begins at Echo Junction and I-80; southwest along I-80 to I-15; north on I-15 to its junction with I-84 near Ogden; east on I-84 to Echo Junction. This hunt is comprised of all or largely private property. Hunters should acquire written permission from the landowner before applying for this hunt. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Bountiful Peak, Sessions Mountains and Lookout Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Bountiful Peak at 9,238 feet, Sessions Mountains at 9,165 feet, Lookout Peak at 8,943 feet, Big Mountain at 8,451 feet and Swallow Rocks at 8,373 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.

Holding ground: Willey Hollow, Glory Hole and Basin Canyon

Below them sit Willey Hollow at 6,847 feet, Glory Hole at 6,841 feet, Basin Canyon at 6,834 feet, Cataract Canyon at 6,661 feet and The Narrows at 6,646 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Water: Birch Springs, Dixie Hollow Springs and Tom Porter Springs

Before you apply: who owns this unit

Unit East Canyon terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

4,471–8,766 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,527 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
630.1 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

456 tanks
55 springs
1,383 stream segments
42 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: Thurston Peak (9,695 ft), Francis Peak (9,518 ft), Bountiful Peak (9,238 ft), Sessions Mountains (9,165 ft)

Holding ground: Farmington Canyon (8,991 ft), Frederick Hollow (7,078 ft), Elk Hollow (6,544 ft), Birch Springs, Dixie Hollow Springs

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 Mule Deer in Unit East Canyon

UDWR's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit East Canyon at muzzleloader 20% and rifle 25%. 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.

Glassing from Redrock Peak, Black Mountain and The Hogsback

Take a position on one of Redrock Peak (8,158 ft), Black Mountain (8,151 ft), The Hogsback (7,924 ft) and Bald Mountain (7,862 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. Work the glass in strips and go back over ground you already covered — animals appear in country you looked at ten minutes ago. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Water against feed

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: I 80 and I 84

A first plan from the pins on this page

What a day here costs you

630 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 Morgan, about 8 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 4,295 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.

Getting in and staying out: unit East Canyon

Named routes and what they need

I 80 — 30 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 84 — 14.7 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 15 — 9.4 mi · Paved (all rigs)
I 15;US 89 — 3.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Morgan — 8.2 mi · groceries, gear
Centerville — 8.9 mi · fuel, groceries, gear
Bountiful — 9.6 mi · fuel, groceries, gear
West Bountiful — 10.6 mi · fuel, groceries, gear
Farmington — 10.6 mi · fuel, groceries, gear

Developed camps

BOUNTIFUL PEAK CAMPGROUND · reservable
MUELLER PARK GROUP PICNIC · reservable

Season weather and signal

Jan37° / 19° · 2.5" precip
Aug87° / 58° · 0.8" precip
Sep77° / 49° · 1.6" precip
Oct63° / 37° · 2" precip
Nov48° / 27° · 2.2" precip
Dec37° / 20° · 2.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

Utah rules that decide your day

Summarised from UDWR regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before official sunrise to half an hour after official sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Utah requires travel on existing roads and trails; there is no general off-road retrieval allowance. Plan a pack-out from anything you can't reach from an open route.

Tagging

Notch and attach the tag to the carcass before leaving the kill site.

Leaving meat

Wasting protected wildlife is a crime.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 600 feet of a house, dwelling or other building without permission, and no shooting from a vehicle or across a road.

Mule Deer: where to put the shot

Broadside or quartering away, on the back edge of the front leg about a third of the way up the body.

Shots to refuse

Nothing behind or overlapping the animal you picked.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have shot a three-shot group into a paper plate from the rest you are carrying.
Pass the shot you are talking yourself into.

Plan the carry: roughly 40– 120 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two large coolers. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Mule Deer Success Rates

Muzzleloader20%

Rifle25%

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no mule deer row for unit East Canyon 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. UDWR's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	123	124	99.2%	—
Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	4	32	12.5%	1
Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident)	1	7	14.3%	1
Any Legal Weapon — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	272	365	74.5%	1
Any Legal Weapon — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident)	9	9	100.0%	1
Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	286	441	64.9%	—
Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident)	8	9	88.9%	—

Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

UDWR's 2025 draw recap for mule deer in unit East Canyon, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

Any Legal Weapon, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 900 applicants for 536 licences, 59.6% drawn, 1 bonus point needed
Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 441 applicants for 286 licences, 64.9% drawn, no bonus points needed
Muzzleloader, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 26 applicants for 9 licences, 34.6% drawn, 10 bonus points needed
Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 9 applicants for 8 licences, 88.9% drawn, no bonus points needed

Utah draws on bonus points in a weighted random draw, not in point order, so the figure above is what it happened to take that year rather than a threshold you can plan to reach. More points buy more chances, never a turn. There are 2 further season-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. These are the figures as published in UDWR's own draw recap; we have not yet checked them back against the agency row by row, so confirm the hunt you mean to apply for before you count on a number.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

⛺

Camp Sites

2 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Bountiful Peak Campground and Mueller Park Group Picnic.

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Road Conditions

I 80, I 84 and I 15 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 62 mi paved, 1 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

4,471–8,766 ft, averaging 6,527. More than 4,000 feet of relief, so plan the pack-out before the shot.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Our land-status read for this unit is approximate, so treat any pressure estimate from it with suspicion and check a current ownership layer.

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Weather

Season normals: Sep 77/49°F, 1.6 in.; Oct 63/37°F, 2 in.; Nov 48/27°F, 2.2 in..

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Cell Service

Verizon 21%, AT&T 14%, T-Mobile 7% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Morgan (8 mi), Centerville (9 mi), Bountiful (10 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit East Canyon?

Unit East Canyon lies in Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake and Summit counties. UDWR has unit East Canyon Boundary begins at Echo Junction and I-80; southwest along I-80 to I-15; north on I-15 to its junction with I-84 near Ogden; east on I-84 to Echo Junction. This hunt is comprised of all or largely private property. Hunters should acquire written permission from the landowner before applying for this hunt. It covers about 630 square miles.

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit East Canyon?

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit East Canyon at rifle 70% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

Where do you stay and resupply for a unit East Canyon hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit East Canyon are at Morgan, about 8 miles from the unit's centre, with Centerville at about 9 miles. There are also 2 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

Can you hunt unit East Canyon on public land?

What is the mule deer success rate in unit East Canyon?

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit East Canyon at muzzleloader 20% and rifle 25% 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 2026-10-24.

UDWR Hunt Boundaries — boundary descriptions from the Hunt Planner boundary layer — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, UDWR's private-land note for the unit · accessed 2026-10-24
UDWR DWR_Hunt_Boundaries_combined feature service — all 687 published hunt boundaries, including the CWMUs — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-24