Colorado Mule Deer Hunting Guides and Outfitters

Colorado Mule Deer Hunting: A Western Adventure
 
The Colorado Division of Wildlife has just announced a new High Country Trophy Deer Season in the Flat Tops Wilderness. This is a deer season that Colorado mule deer hunters have been waiting for. It will give hunters the opportunity to mule deer hunt in the period after the Colorado archery seasons, but before the October rifle seasons. This will be a deer only season, so mule deer hunters, rejoice!

This new season will be a great opportunity to take a trophy Colorado mule deer.  The bucks will be rubbed off and hard horned, not in velvet. Hunters will be hunting for bucks 26" and larger, with a minimum score of 170. Much of the mule deer hunting in Colorado is carried out from spike camps at or near the Colorado timberline (9,500 feet to 12,000 feet). Remember the Deer Licenses for a Colorado mule deer hunt is on a drawing, and the deadline for applications is April 5. For non-residents of Colorado, it will take approximately 6 or 7 preference points to draw deer licenses. For Colorado residents, it will take approximately 3 or 4 preference points to draw deer licenses.

Much of the rest of Colorado mule deer hunting takes place in on private land, comprising innumerable acres of Colorado’s vast wilderness. The primary means of mule deer hunting in Colorado includes glassing from high elevations, scanning country where the mule deer are known to travel. Additionally, there is a great deal of spot and stalk-style hunting in the Colorado archery season, as well as in the rifle seasons. 

The Colorado terrain ranges from sage brush flats around 6,000 feet elevation to larger hills and mountains covered in timbers and shin oaks up around 8,000 ft elevation. The mule deer hunter can expect to see several quality mule deer bucks during the course of a Colorado hunt, and can expect to shoot a deer scoring between 150'' to 180''. Hunting free-ranging animals, you never can tell when one of those big 200-inchers might show itself.


Many Colorado outfitters also offer a number of hunts on alfalfa patches that draw in lots of mule deer. This kind of hunt is less demanding physically than on mountain mule deer hunts, and the hunter can expect to see between ten and twenty mule deer bucks a day. Typically, the bucks harvested from alfalfa fields have scored between 170'' and 190'', with the chance of 200'' being very possible. We manage this field very carefully, and only harvest three mature bucks annually. For the hunter looking for that mule deer buck of a lifetime, the alfalfa fields of Colorado is the place to be.