Unit San Juan, South
Utah Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep
Unit San Juan, South lies in San Juan County and covers about 812 square miles. Ground runs from 3,951 to 6,951 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, South
Unit San Juan, South lies in San Juan County and covers about 812 square miles. Ground runs from 3,951 to 6,951 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, South
UDWR's material on unit San Juan, South stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its bighorn sheep live. 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 812 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Fortknocker Canyon and Birch Canyon
UDWR draws unit San Juan, South in San Juan County with a boundary that runs on Fortknocker Canyon and Birch 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: The Toe, Piñon Point and Moss Back Butte
Named high points inside the unit include The Toe at 8,860 feet, Piñon Point at 8,289 feet, Moss Back Butte at 7,739 feet, Moss Back at 7,739 feet and The Windgate at 7,394 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: Piute Pass, Indian Head Pass and The Squeeze
Below them sit Piute Pass at 5,898 feet, Indian Head Pass at 5,628 feet, The Squeeze at 5,606 feet, Clay Hills Pass at 5,600 feet and K and L Canyon at 5,419 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: Potato Spring, Harrison Spring and Cold Water Spring
The water inside the unit line comes to 179 mapped stream reaches, 1 lakes, 53 stock tanks and 37 springs. Named sources include Potato Spring, Harrison Spring, Cold Water Spring, Fry Spring, Secret Spring and Pocket 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 3,951 feet to 6,951 feet, averaging 5,251 — enough relief to separate summer range from winter range.
Unit San Juan, South terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 3,951–6,951 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,251 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 811.9 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.
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
- 53 tanks
- 37 springs
- 179 stream segments
- 1 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 Toe (8,860 ft), Piñon Point (8,289 ft), Moss Back Butte (7,739 ft), The Windgate (7,394 ft)
Holding ground: Upper Lost Parks (7,982 ft), Deer Flat (7,484 ft), Upper Horse Flats (7,154 ft), Potato Spring, Harrison 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, South
Bighorn Sheep Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no bighorn sheep row for unit San Juan, South 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) | 2 | 192 | 1.0% | 12 |
| Any Legal Weapon — Once-in-a-lifetime bull/buck only (resident) | 2 | 177 | 1.1% | 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, South, 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: 177 applicants for 2 licences, 1.1% 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
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What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit San Juan, South?
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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