Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Need help planning an unguided Mule Deer hunt for 2020

Greetings all. I have been a longtime lurker of this forum and know there are many of you who will probably be able to chime in and help me with direction on planning an unguided mule deer hunt for 2020. Let me preface this by saying this will be a trip to take with my 2 best friends and our main concern is spending time together in the mountains and harvesting deer. Not necessarily looking for the biggest stud in N America. Just a fun trip with buddies, out in the woods. This will be a public land hunt.
We all reside in TN and would like to drive to whatever destination we decide. Based on this we have narrowed down our search to probably Colorado seeing as how we can make that trip in around 18 hours or so. I know that you can buy leftover tags in CO over the counter starting in around April. Is there a certain geographical area we should be looking at the typically has a large amount of tags that can be bought OTC?
What we would like to do is either hike in somewhere 3-4 miles in, set up camp, and hunt from there - OR - rent some type of hunting cabin that we can hunt from as a base camp - OR - take a buddies camper and stay in it. We are open to suggestions.
If I have left out any pertinent information let me know. Like I said we are looking for any assistance we can get as this will be all of our first trip west hunting muleys.

April 1st or 2nd is usually the deadline to apply for a Colorado deer tag. The drawing is in June. Left over tags go on sale to the general public in the August. There are no OTC deer tags that I know of. Good Luck on your quest.

It was my understanding that any leftover tags can be purchased online without drawing? Is that correct?

That’s correct but those are mostly garbage tags or you have to be scanning for a good one that will go in four seconds. Apply for a license if you want to hunt. All deer tags are limited. Also consider Montana and Wyoming. As far as applying goes, you’ll have to get familiar with units and draw odds if you want to go next year. This can be done but will take some homework before next spring

I won't call them garbage. They are mostly units with very little public land or public access. I think that they ae mostly doe tags.

What are the odds of getting drawn for next year? Or is there an area that has a higher draw percentage?

Here's a useful place to start:

https://www.toprut.com/hunt/colorado-mule-deer/

I’ve been trying to buy a leftover buck tag for the unit I hunt every year since they were released for sale. A couple weeks ago they posted 2 just as the page refreshed and I happened to have it open. I was literally in and entered in under 3 minutes and still didn’t get one, same story yesterday. I think the leftover system for CO is a rigged BS setup personally. I wouldn’t count on being able to get 3 decent buck tags off the leftover list.

Get to doing some online digging looking at draw odds, success rates, and public access now, so you’re ready when the application period opens. Might take you a couple years to build points to draw a decent unit but if you all do it together you’ll all draw the same year and get to hunt together.

Would it be easier to get an elk tag? Even if only one of us draws we will all go and help.

Yes. Stop at Walmart and plop down your $661 for a nonresident bull tag for the 2nd or 3rd season and head to the hills. I’m going to do just that tomorrow evening.

Thank you! Change of plans then!

Or apply for limited elk licenses in a quality unit or better season, or apply for both.

You’ll want to get very familiar with this page:
https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/Statistics.aspx

It’s not rigged, that implies that there’s some insider way to “cheat” the reissue process. 3 minutes is an eternity. I pay for a scanner like everyone else, but I suspect there are also people with autopay systems set up. Can’t confirm because it doesn’t seem available commercially

3 minutes is the fastest I’ve ever been able to have the pages load even with my info saved. The day leftovers came out it was more like 30 minutes. The part that burns me up is how there could be leftovers available over the counter when I and I’m certain others had paid the fees and then applied in the regular and then leftover draw and didn’t receive a tag. I was supposed to be guaranteed to draw this year as I had enough points. According to the CPW I had one point under 2 different accounts since “something must have happened to my account when I changed my password”, their words not mine.

If there is some secret way to setup autopay that’s not readily available, then yes I’d call that rigged.

I’m still going to go, leaving in a few hours actually. And they’re still going to get my money, more of it in fact since I have to buy a bull tag to hunt. But I don’t have to like it.

Montana of Idaho, SE Montana, or central Idaho, good glass, get off your cuunt and walk a ways... you’ll have a great experience

Montana odds are around 75% on general deer these days but I think big game combo was 100% (deer elk bird fishing). Wyoming has some good region wide tags but I'd go online and buy a point ,today is the last day to do it. And I believe Idaho has otc tags in some units. Watch some randy newburg application videos on YouTube. A lot of good tips if you haven't done it before.

Buy a Wyoming PP today and apply for a Region that can be drawn with 0-1 PP. You could possibly combine with say doe antelope for a nice little combo hunt, or perhaps a cow elk tag, they are a random draw license for doe and cow/calf.