Unit 141, Colorado

Flat to gently rolling terrain at low elevation for Colorado, ranging from approximately 4,856 to 5,778 feet above sea level. Topographic relief is provided by the Purgatoire River canyon, Mooney Hills, Jack Canyon, Blackwell Arroyo, Luning, and Tyrone Flats. No mountains or significant elevation changes; the landscape is characteristic of the Colorado high plains transitioning to the Raton Mesa country near the New Mexico border.

Access is extremely limited — approximately 92% of the unit is private land and approximately 8% is state land, both effectively closed to the public without landowner permission. CPW requires that hunters obtain landowner permission before applying for limited deer and pronghorn licenses in this unit. No BLM or National Forest acreage falls within GMU 141. The Comanche National Grassland (443,784 acres total across Las Animas, Baca, and Otero counties) does not include tracts within GMU 141; its units lie in adjacent GMUs to the north and east. Primary road access is via U.S. Highway 350 (running northwest–southeast through the unit) and U.S. Highway 160 (southern boundary). County roads connect to ranch networks but secondary roads become slick and rutted in wet weather; low-water crossings are subject to flash flooding during thunderstorms. Nearest services — motels, restaurants, fuel, hospitals — are in Trinidad, Colorado. No wilderness designations, National Forest, or BLM field-office administered land falls within this GMU.

Dominant cover is shortgrass prairie mixed with sagebrush, sandsage, yucca, prickly pear cactus, and bitterbrush. Riparian corridors along the Purgatoire River and its tributaries support cottonwood stands and Russian thistle. Irrigated crop fields occur on private ranches. The unit has no spruce-fir, aspen, or alpine tundra — it is purely a semi-arid plains/grassland and canyon-riparian environment.

Mule deer and white-tailed deer are both present; whitetails concentrate along Purgatoire River cottonwood corridors while mule deer use the upland shortgrass and canyon-edge habitat. Pronghorn occupy open shortgrass and sandsage flats. Elk occur in the unit but are present in smaller numbers than in units to the north and west; deer and pronghorn body and antler size are noted as below units farther north. Black bear and mountain lion are present but infrequently encountered in this plains environment. Turkey may also be hunted. Wildlife does not undertake dramatic altitudinal migrations given the uniformly low elevation; pronghorn and mule deer shift across ranch pastures seasonally, with deer concentrating in riparian drainages in winter.

1. PUBLIC LAND: HuntScore and GoHunt both confirm ~8% public (state land only); no BLM or National Forest within GMU 141. 2. HARVEST DATA: No unit-specific per-species quota or harvest statistics publicly accessible from CPW without parsing compressed PDFs. HuntScore shows a 2022 all-species composite of 220 hunters / 121 harvested / 41% success rate — treat as low-confidence cross-species aggregate. 3. PLAINS ELK OTC EXCLUSION: CPW 2025-2029 BGSS explicitly lists GMU 141 among units excluded from the Sep 1–Jan 31 plains OTC rifle elk season; all elk require draw. GMU 141 elk muzzleloader aligns with west-of-I-25 dates (Sep 12-20, 2026). 4. SEASON DATE CORRECTION: Plains deer muzzleloader 2026 is Oct 10–18 (second Saturday of October), corrected from draft which stated Oct 11-19. Plains deer archery runs in splits around rifle seasons (Oct 1-23, Nov 4-30, Dec 15-31 for units with both regular and late rifle seasons). 5. COMANCHE NATIONAL GRASSLAND: CNG spans Las Animas County but its tracts fall within adjacent GMUs, not GMU 141. 6. BEAR/LION: Unit-specific season codes and success data not sourced; statewide structure applied as placeholder. Mountain lion season_general reflects statewide late-season window.