Bordering Utah and south of the Colorado River, this unit is managed to produce trophy-class elk and also provides great deer hunting opportunities. Tag numbers are limited throughout here and any hunting holding a tag for any season will be in for a good hunt. Hunters will find a good percentage of public lands here but much of the late season habitat is found on private lands.

Most mature elk and bucks are taken on private property or on public land that is difficult to reach without access to deeded ground. Hunters crowd onto a virtual island of Mesa National Forest that occupies about 12 square miles and is almost totally surrounded by private land. There are few antelope found on this unit.

Southwest of Grand Junction and tucked into a corner with the Colorado River on the north and Utah on the west, this unit has two chief types of terrain. High country with many plateaus and meadows andflattened ridges, and a low winter range with steep cliffs. A land ownership map and aerial photographs compared side by side show that most of the green forests and meadows strikingly match with private land except for about 12 square miles of Grand Mesa National Forest, which is centrally situated in the bulk of private land. Creeks and pockets of water are in many canyons. Access to or through private land greatly increases a hunter’s odds of taking a mature deer or elk. Hunters who can find little pockets of public land that is hard to reach can experience good hunting.

Though the ratio of public vs. private land is roughly equal, private property controls the bulk of prime deer and elk habitat. Some roads and trails dead end at private property. There is good access to the 12 square miles of Grand Mesa National Forest in the southcentral part of the unit. Though that parcel comprises about 2% of the total land area in the unit, it attracts a large percentage of hunters who draw tags. Hunters need a GPS unit with map detail in this unit so that they can hike around private parcels to reach public land that is otherwise hard to access.

High elevations are timbered with mostly firs and spruces and some aspens, while middle elevations are primarily canyon lands with pockets of aspen, grass meadows, sagebrush and scrub oak. Lower terrain is primarily composed of pinyon and juniper woodlands, sagebrush slopes and expanses of oakbrush.

Gateway in the south provides motel rooms and places to buy gas, groceries and other supplies. Grand Junction and Fruita in the north have similar services. Camping is allowed on all BLM or Forest Service.