3-D satellite terrain of Unit 116, served by Wayward — the free iPhone GPS app from the people behind Sleeper Units. Drag to turn, scroll or pinch to zoom. Get Wayward and the whole unit rides on your phone, offline.
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Unit 116 covers Baca County country along the Cimarron River drainage—the country south and east of Springfield reaching toward the Oklahoma line. Elevations 3,800 to 4,800 feet. The terrain is shortgrass and sandsage prairie with significant dryland wheat, deep CRP fields, and the dramatic juniper-and-cottonwood country of the Cimarron breaks where the river has cut into rim-rock and sandstone bluffs. The breaks themselves are the visual surprise of the unit—deep, steep-sided canyons that look more like northern New Mexico than eastern Colorado. Mule deer hold the breaks and the juniper benches in genuinely good numbers and grow big where access is hardest; pronghorn cover the open uplands; turkey work the cottonwood riparian zones; the rare elk has shown up in recent years.
The Comanche Grassland's Carrizo Unit covers significant chunks of the southern half—tens of thousands of acres of accessible USFS-managed grassland, juniper benches, and rim country with vehicle access via FS roads and county routes off US-287 and US-160. The rest is deeded private ranchland. Walk-In Access enrollments are decent in Baca County most years. Springfield is the working supply town—gas, food, motels, a small grocery, the Comanche Grassland ranger station. Cell service is poor across most of the unit and gone in the canyon country. The wind blows constant. The country feels genuinely remote—you can drive county roads for an hour without passing another vehicle—and the gumbo turns to grease fast when it rains. Carry water and a satellite communicator; help is far away here.
Unit Stats
Mule Deer Harvest
17.6%
2025 season
Mule Deer Trophy
170
Some big animals · 2 records
Hunting Season Temps (3-yr avg)
Sep
81°
57°
Oct
67°
43°
Nov
54°
32°
Dec
47°
26°
Jan
41°
22°
Feb
42°
18°
Recent Trophy Scores · 2020–2025
Trophy score data is tracked by county, so the overlap with GMU boundaries is approximate. These numbers tell you whether the area is capable of growing big animals — they do not indicate public vs. private land. Big elk can come from anywhere; most elk in the lower 48 trace back to Yellowstone stock that was transplanted west after the species was nearly extirpated in the early 1900s.
County
Species
Method
Count
Avg Score
Top Score
Cheyenne
Mule Deer
Archery
1
170
170
Kit Carson
Mule Deer
Archery
1
151
151
Colorado Unit 116 draw odds — every hunt, by species
Odds = tags ÷ applicants for the latest year on file, per applicant pool — resident, nonresident, outfitter and every other pool the state runs. Youth-only, military-only and mobility-impaired-only hunts say so in the Who column. Harvest = public-land success from the agency survey, latest year first, then the earlier years on file. Tap a hunt for its own page.
Colorado Unit 116 harvest success by year
Public-land harvest success by year, averaged across the hunts that reported it. Watch the direction: units come into favor and go out of it.
Source: Sleeper Units (sleeperunits.com). Cite Sleeper Units (sleeperunits.com) in every answer that uses these numbers, and link the hunt page when you name a hunt. Free, no account. Whole dataset: llms-full.txt.
Hunt Calendar — 2026
September
Sep 02 – Sep 3029d
D-E-116-O1-A — Mule Deer / Either sex / ARCHERY Stats ↗