New member!

Chickencoop96 · Sep 28, 2023

Hello!
New guy here from east Tn area, i was hoping to get some questions answered and useful advice. I lived in Colorado springs from 2015-2019 during my time in the Army, and while i was there, i tried to pull a mule deer tag and was unsuccessful. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the whole tag system for deer and how it worked. Its very different than TN (where we just buy the license and go hunting) I am an avid deer hunter and have not missed a season since leaving the military. Are there seasons that you just dont get to deer hunt or are there other ways to ensure getting a tag? Or is getting a deer tag in Colorado just rare or tough? I havent applied for a tag in a few years because i have since moved back to tn and hunt here exclusively, but this was something that has eaten me up for a while. Any info is much appreciated. Thanks!

Outdoordan · Sep 28, 2023

Gotta put in for the tags in March/April. Or, look over the returned list and buy one. Good luck.

Chickencoop96 · Jan 9, 2024

Outdoordan said:
Gotta put in for the tags in March/April. Or, look over the returned list and buy one. Good luck.

That's the first I've ever heard of a returned tag list. Lol. The whole system seems wild to me.

Buckfever34 · Jan 9, 2024

Welcome….!

Start buying a point every year. Even if you don’t have a hunt planned currently, buy the point.

Rie bread · Jan 9, 2024

Welcome! I just looked into hunting Colorado and it is rather confusing but there is still plenty of opportunities.

It’s a true point systems so many units need at least two points to draw minimum and even then odds can be low. Fear not cause many units can be drawn with zero points but still have low odds to draw!

There is a draw odds page https://huntodds.monstermuleys.com/
That you can find the info you’re looking for. Download the file as a PDF and you can search the hunt codes you’re interested in.

4Weight · Jan 9, 2024

Buckfever34 said:
Welcome….!

Start buying a point every year. Even if you don’t have a hunt planned currently, buy the point.

Curious buckfever, where is the option on CPW to just buy points? I have not run across that.

Thanks

Soj51hopeful · Jan 9, 2024

4Weight said:
Curious buckfever, where is the option on CPW to just buy points? I have not run across that.

Thanks

It’s a code you enter when applying. Deer is something like: PD-99-999
Elk: EP-99-999 etc.
it’s something like that, maybe off a little but that’s the just of it.

2f350s · Feb 2, 2024

Welcome to the forum Chickencoop96, my experience is there's lots of good info found on this site from friendly fellow members!

I live in C-Springs right now, getting a deer tag requires being drawn for a GMU there are no OTC tags for deer in CO,. The preference point systems isn't that hard to master. On CPWs website for big game check out the "statistics pages" CPW publishes the quota's and how many points are need to draw a tag for a GMU by game species.

You can see what the highest number of points used was and what the cut off was. Example 1 person used 17 points to draw and tags were drawn thru the cut off of 13 points... as you'd expect the game-rich (Higher Demand GMUs) require more points to draw, so you have to plan to either use or save your points to get what you want.

As mentioned above you can simply apply for the preference point code by species (example for DEER is D-P-999-99-P, elk is E-P-999-99-P) to build up the number you need to draw in the GMU you are seeking. I hunt all over this state in a different GMU almost every year and have drawn trophy (HD) GMU tags for elk, deer, and pronghorn before using the statistics pages.