Utah Moose Elk Mule Deer

Unit Sharp Mountain

Utah Hunting Guide — Moose, Elk, Mule Deer

Unit Sharp Mountain is a hunt unit. 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

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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 Sharp Mountain 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 Elk guide Mule Deer guide

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Moose Hunting in Unit Sharp Mountain

Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit Sharp Mountain

UDWR publishes no per-unit account of Shiras moose in unit Sharp Mountain, so what follows is a read of the ground inside the unit line. It runs to about 41 square miles.

Sharp Mountain is private land, not public ground

Sharp Mountain is a Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit — private land enrolled with UDWR under rule R657-37, not public country you can walk onto. UDWR requires a CWMU to hold at least 10,000 contiguous acres to manage elk or moose, so the unit is one block of ground under one operator rather than a patchwork. This one covers about 41 square miles by UDWR's own polygon. Your permit is valid on this CWMU and nowhere else — UDWR states you may hunt only on the CWMU printed on the permit. So the question is not which drainage to start in. It is whether you can get a permit at all, and then what the operator lets you hunt.

High ground inside the line: James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Cobabe Peak

Named high points inside the unit include James Peak at 9,386 feet, Sharp Mountain at 9,070 feet, Cobabe Peak at 9,007 feet and Porcupine Ridge at 8,508 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Moose want willow, water and shade, and they rarely leave the drainage that has all three.

Holding ground: Sawmill Canyon

Below them sit Sawmill Canyon at 7,124 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

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.

Unit Sharp Mountain terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: James Peak (9,386 ft), Sharp Mountain (9,070 ft), Porcupine Ridge (8,508 ft)

Holding ground: Sawmill Canyon (7,124 ft)

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 Sharp Mountain

UDWR's own harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit Sharp Mountain 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.

Getting on the ground here

There are two ways onto a CWMU and they are not the same door. A Utah resident can apply in UDWR's public drawing or take a voucher from the landowner or operator; a nonresident cannot enter the drawing at all and can only get a voucher directly from the operator. UDWR requires the unit to give public hunters opportunity comparable to private hunters, and to make the same acreage available to both — but the operator still sets the rules you hunt under, and UDWR notes a CWMU may limit how many companions you bring. That makes the first call of the season a phone call, not a scouting trip. Ask what the unit's rules are, where you may hunt inside it, what access is provided and what it costs, before you commit to a season. Harvest reporting is not optional and does not depend on success: UDWR requires a report within 30 days of the hunt ending, whether or not you took an animal. Everything below is the ground inside that line. On a CWMU it is background to the conversation with the operator rather than a plan you can execute on your own.

Glassing from James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Cobabe Peak

Take a position on one of James Peak (9,386 ft), Sharp Mountain (9,070 ft), Cobabe Peak (9,007 ft) and Porcupine Ridge (8,508 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, late September bulls answer a cow call near water.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Porcupine Ridge as places to see from, and Sawmill Canyon 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 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.

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 Sharp Mountain 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)	1	49	2.0%	3
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU bull/buck only (resident)	1	122	0.8%	1
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU bull/buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	1

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 Sharp Mountain, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

Any Legal Weapon, CWMU, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 122 applicants for 1 licences, 0.8% drawn, 1 bonus point 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.

Elk Hunting in Unit Sharp Mountain

Unit Sharp Mountain is a hunt unit. UDWR's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 28%. 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 Elk in Unit Sharp Mountain

UDWR publishes no per-unit account of elk in unit Sharp Mountain, so what follows is a read of the ground inside the unit line. It runs to about 41 square miles.

Sharp Mountain is private land, not public ground

High ground inside the line: James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Cobabe Peak

Named high points inside the unit include James Peak at 9,386 feet, Sharp Mountain at 9,070 feet, Cobabe Peak at 9,007 feet and Porcupine Ridge at 8,508 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.

Holding ground: Sawmill Canyon

Below them sit Sawmill Canyon at 7,124 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

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.

Unit Sharp Mountain terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: James Peak (9,386 ft), Sharp Mountain (9,070 ft), Porcupine Ridge (8,508 ft)

Holding ground: Sawmill Canyon (7,124 ft)

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

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How to Hunt Elk in Unit Sharp Mountain

UDWR's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit Sharp Mountain at rifle 28%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

Getting on the ground here

Glassing from James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Cobabe Peak

Take a position on one of James Peak (9,386 ft), Sharp Mountain (9,070 ft), Cobabe Peak (9,007 ft) and Porcupine Ridge (8,508 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. 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, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

A first plan from the pins on this page

What we can't tell you

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.

Elk: 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. That is lungs, and on a quartering-away angle it picks up the far shoulder.

Shots to refuse

No straight-on and no straight-away shots. An elk's chest is deep and the margin is small.
Nothing standing behind or overlapping the animal you picked. A pass-through kills the elk behind it too.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have put three shots in a paper plate off the sticks you are actually carrying. Not the farthest you have ever hit anything.
Scope on 3–4x. A herd fills a 12x field of view and you lose the animal you picked.

Identification:On an antlerless tag, legal means no antler of any kind through the skin. A spike looks exactly like a cow until it turns its head. If you can't see the head, don't shoot.

Plan the carry: roughly 150– 220 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two to four large coolers, plus bagged ice from town. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Elk Success Rates

Rifle28%

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit Sharp Mountain 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.

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	2	36	5.6%	1
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU bull/buck only (resident)	2	62	3.2%	12
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU bull/buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	12
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU antlerless (resident)	8	53	15.1%	—
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU antlerless (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—

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 elk in unit Sharp Mountain, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

Any Legal Weapon, CWMU, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 62 applicants for 2 licences, 3.2% drawn, 12 bonus points needed
Any Legal Weapon, CWMU, Antlerless, resident: 53 applicants for 8 licences, 15.1% drawn, no bonus points needed

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit Sharp Mountain

Unit Sharp Mountain is a hunt unit. 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 Sharp Mountain

UDWR publishes no per-unit account of mule deer in unit Sharp Mountain, so what follows is a read of the ground inside the unit line. It runs to about 41 square miles.

Sharp Mountain is private land, not public ground

High ground inside the line: James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Cobabe Peak

Named high points inside the unit include James Peak at 9,386 feet, Sharp Mountain at 9,070 feet, Cobabe Peak at 9,007 feet and Porcupine Ridge at 8,508 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Mule deer bed on broken ground with a view and feed on the brush below it.

Holding ground: Sawmill Canyon

Below them sit Sawmill Canyon at 7,124 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

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.

Unit Sharp Mountain terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: James Peak (9,386 ft), Sharp Mountain (9,070 ft), Porcupine Ridge (8,508 ft)

Holding ground: Sawmill Canyon (7,124 ft)

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

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How to Hunt Mule Deer in Unit Sharp Mountain

UDWR's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit Sharp Mountain at 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.

Getting on the ground here

Glassing from James Peak, Sharp Mountain and Cobabe Peak

Take a position on one of James Peak (9,386 ft), Sharp Mountain (9,070 ft), Cobabe Peak (9,007 ft) and Porcupine Ridge (8,508 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.

A first plan from the pins on this page

What we can't tell you

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.

Pro Members Only

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Mule Deer Success Rates

Rifle25%

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no mule deer row for unit Sharp Mountain 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
Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident)	2	16	12.5%	—
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU bull/buck only (resident)	2	44	4.5%	18
Any Legal Weapon — CWMU bull/buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	18

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 mule deer in unit Sharp Mountain, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

Any Legal Weapon, CWMU, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 44 applicants for 2 licences, 4.5% drawn, 18 bonus points needed

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

⛺

Camp Sites

Dispersed USFS plus trailhead campgrounds.

💧

Water

Abundant.

🛣️

Road Conditions

Improved USFS roads to trailheads; interior is mostly foot access.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

Moderate — wet willow bottoms and steep climbs out.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Virtually none.

🌦️

Weather

Cool September weather; early snow possible in October.

📱

Cell Service

Limited; sat device recommended.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Varies with unit geography — we confirm at draw time.

Note: We treat the hunt as a scouting project first, then execute fast once the bull is on a pattern.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit Sharp Mountain?

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

Can you hunt unit Sharp Mountain on public land?

What is the elk success rate in unit Sharp Mountain?

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit Sharp Mountain at rifle 28% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit Sharp Mountain?

UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit Sharp Mountain at 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.

Cooperative Wildlife Management Units — programme rules (administrative rule R657-37) — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: CWMUs are private land enrolled with UDWR under rule R657-37, Minimum 5,000 contiguous acres for deer, pronghorn or turkey; 10,000 for elk or moose, Residents may apply in the public drawing or take an operator voucher; nonresidents may only take a voucher, A CWMU permit is valid only on the CWMU printed on it, Public hunters must get opportunity and acreage comparable to private hunters, Harvest must be reported within 30 days of the hunt, whether or not an animal was taken · accessed 2026-10-24
UDWR Hunt Boundaries — boundary descriptions from the Hunt Planner boundary layer — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: Mapped extent of the CWMU, UDWR's private-land and trust-land note, 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