Unit San Juan, North
Utah Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep
Unit San Juan, North lies in San Juan County and covers about 615 square miles. Ground runs from 4,938 to 6,748 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success here as high as 72%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
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Bighorn Sheep Hunting in Unit San Juan, North
Unit San Juan, North lies in San Juan County and covers about 615 square miles. Ground runs from 4,938 to 6,748 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success here as high as 72%. 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 Bighorn Sheep in Unit San Juan, North
UDWR draws an exact line around unit San Juan, North and says nothing about where the bighorn sheep stand inside it. 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 San Juan County. It runs to about 615 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Colorado River, Indian Creek and Calf Canyon
UDWR draws unit San Juan, North in San Juan County with a boundary that runs on Colorado River, Indian Creek, Calf Canyon and Fortknocker Canyon, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. 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: The Heel, Woodenshoe Buttes and Sweet Alice Hills
Named high points inside the unit include The Heel at 8,888 feet, Woodenshoe Buttes at 8,888 feet, Sweet Alice Hills at 8,485 feet, The Pushout at 8,265 feet and Cathedral Butte at 7,916 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Sheep on lower country still need rock, and on a desert unit the rock is the whole hunt.
Holding ground: Beef Basin, Bull Canyon and Ruin Park
Below them sit Beef Basin at 6,513 feet, Bull Canyon at 6,492 feet, Ruin Park at 6,412 feet, Pappys Pasture at 6,273 feet and Bobbys Hole at 6,258 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.
Water: Soda Spring, Cave Spring and Sweet Alice Spring
The water inside the unit line comes to 215 mapped stream reaches, 3 lakes, 23 stock tanks and 42 springs. Named sources include Soda Spring, Cave Spring, Sweet Alice Spring, Beef Basin Spring, Fable Spring and Homewater 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 National Forest 60%, Private / Other 17%, BLM 15% 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 4,938 feet to 6,748 feet, averaging 5,973 — not much relief, so the animals move laterally rather than up and down.
Unit San Juan, North terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 4,938–6,748 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,973 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 615.4 sq mi inside the boundary.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- BLM — 15%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 17%
Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 23 tanks
- 42 springs
- 215 stream segments
- 3 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: The Heel (8,888 ft), Sweet Alice Hills (8,485 ft), The Pushout (8,265 ft), Cathedral Butte (7,916 ft)
Holding ground: Dark Canyon Plateau (7,006 ft), House Park (6,686 ft), Beef Basin (6,513 ft), Soda Spring, Cave 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 Bighorn Sheep in Unit San Juan, North
Bighorn Sheep Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no bighorn sheep row for unit San Juan, North 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.
Bighorn Sheep Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — Limited Entry ram only (resident) | 3 | 166 | 1.8% | 12 |
| Any Legal Weapon — Once-in-a-lifetime bull/buck only (resident) | 3 | 120 | 2.5% | 26 |
| Any Legal Weapon — Once-in-a-lifetime bull/buck only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | 26 |
Data from 2024 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineUDWR's 2025 draw recap for bighorn sheep in unit San Juan, North, 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: 120 applicants for 3 licences, 2.5% drawn, 26 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.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit San Juan, North?
What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit San Juan, North?
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Can you hunt unit San Juan, North on public land?
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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