Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns
Utah Hunting Guide — Mule Deer
Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns lies in Grand and San Juan counties and covers about 1,994 square miles. Ground runs from 4,241 to 9,602 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 20%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Utah Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns 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.
Mule Deer Hunting in Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns
Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns lies in Grand and San Juan counties and covers about 1,994 square miles. Ground runs from 4,241 to 9,602 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 20%. 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 San Juan, Abajo Mtns
UDWR's material on unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns 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 Grand and San Juan counties. It runs to about 1,994 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Allen Canyon, Chippean Canyon and Deep Canyon
UDWR draws unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns in Grand and San Juan counties with a boundary that runs on Allen Canyon, Chippean Canyon, Deep Canyon and Mule Canyon, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. 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: Abajo Peak, Horsehead Peak and Jackson Ridge
Named high points inside the unit include Abajo Peak at 11,339 feet, Horsehead Peak at 11,182 feet, Jackson Ridge at 11,085 feet, South Peak at 11,047 feet and West Mountain at 11,009 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer bed on broken ground with a view and feed on the brush below it.
Holding ground: Buckboard Flat, Aspen Flat and North Canyon
Below them sit Buckboard Flat at 9,041 feet, Aspen Flat at 8,777 feet, North Canyon at 8,706 feet, Gold Queen Gulch at 8,494 feet and Dickson Gulch at 8,493 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.
Water: Rustler Spring, Jackson Spring and Sop Spring
Named sources include Rustler Spring, Jackson Spring, Sop Spring, Trout Water Canyon Spring, Peters Spring and Taylor Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.
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 Private / Other 100%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. The unit runs from 4,241 feet to 9,602 feet, averaging 6,217 — that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.
Unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Abajo Peak (11,339 ft), Horsehead Peak (11,182 ft), South Peak (11,047 ft), West Mountain (11,009 ft)
Holding ground: Cooley Pass (10,708 ft), Robertson Pasture (9,527 ft), Buckboard Flat (9,041 ft), Rustler Spring, Jackson Spring
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 San Juan, Abajo Mtns
Mule Deer Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no mule deer row for unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns 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) | 388 | 415 | 93.5% | — |
| Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 43 | 108 | 39.8% | — |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 397 | 514 | 77.2% | — |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 44 | 122 | 36.1% | — |
| Any Legal Weapon — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 999 | 1,311 | 76.2% | — |
| Any Legal Weapon — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 112 | 286 | 39.2% | — |
Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineUDWR's 2025 draw recap for mule deer in unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- Any Legal Weapon, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 1,311 applicants for 999 licences, 76.2% drawn, no bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 514 applicants for 397 licences, 77.2% drawn, no bonus points needed
- Any Legal Weapon, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 286 applicants for 112 licences, 39.2% drawn, no bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 122 applicants for 44 licences, 36.1% 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
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns?
What is the mule deer success rate in unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns?
Can you hunt unit San Juan, Abajo Mtns on public land?
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 2026-10-24.
- 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