Colorado West Slope Rifle Buck Hunts Needing Resident Points Saw 66% Success, Zero-Point 48%

IPoints and harvest

Hunts needing resident points saw 66% buck success versus zero-point 48%

We pulled the figures from the Colorado Parks and Wildlife deer statistics page, which lists harvest estimates by hunt code and draw recaps. We kept O-coded rifle buck hunts with 100 or more hunters in CPW's Northwest and Southwest regions, leaving 68 hunts and 24,028 hunters. Both success and points are from the 2025 season. The points needed are the fewest that drew a first-choice adult license. CPW gives no success breakdown by residency, so every rate includes all hunters on that hunt.

Success followed the same pattern when we grouped hunts by the points nonresidents needed. Hunts nonresidents drew at 0 points ran 41.7% and those that took them 1 to 4 points ran 57.2%. The 14 hunts needing 5 or more nonresident points led group success in this set at 74.9%, counting every hunter on those hunts. None of these 68 hunts needed more than 4 resident points in 2025.

IIWithin rifle seasons

Second and third rifle showed the gap, as did every check

Rifle season was another way we split the hunts. Second rifle had 22 zero-point hunts at 46.5% and 14 point hunts at 65.0%. Third rifle had 20 zero-point hunts at 50.4% versus 70.8% for 7 point hunts. The gap also stayed at 16.6 to 19.7 percentage points under each of four other groupings. Two regroup the hunts using the 2026 draw, and two expand the set to every West Slope hunt with an estimate and to the whole state including the plains.

IIIHunts to consider

Twenty-three 60% hunts offered residents even odds at 2 points or fewer

Twenty-three West Slope hunts ran 60% or better buck success in 2025 and offered residents at least even odds at 2 points or fewer in the 2026 draw. In Unit 70 the second rifle hunt DM070O2R had 379 hunters afield, who killed 311 bucks for 82.1%. In the 2026 draw 73.1% of residents applying with 0 points drew the hunt, while nonresidents needed 4 points for even odds.

DM003O3R in Unit 3 had 74.3% success and drew 72.5% of zero-point residents in 2026. DM011O2R in Unit 11 had 67.6% success and DM072O2R in Unit 72 had 60.7%. Every zero-point resident who applied for either hunt drew in the 2026 draw. DM022O2R in Unit 22 led the list at 92.9% and drew every resident applying with 2 points in 2026.

Among the 23 hunts, nonresidents had even odds or better in the 2026 draw with 0 points on DM011O2R and DM072O2R and with 1 point on DM003O2R and both Unit 82 hunts.

IVHerd buck ratios

Point hunts came from herds with more bucks per 100 does

CPW's Andy Holland explains how quotas are set in the Colorado section of the 2025 WAFWA mule deer status report. "Annual population and sex ratio estimates are compared to long-term Herd Management Plan population and sex ratio objectives for each herd to establish harvest quota recommendations for the next hunting season." With hunts weighted by hunters, the 1 to 4 point hunts came from herds at 33.8 bucks per 100 does and zero-point hunts from herds at 29.3. Those figures are CPW's modeled 2025 post-hunt buck ratios in its 2026 summary of big game license recommendations. On point hunts 68.1% of hunters were in herds that CPW lists above their sex ratio objective range, compared with 52.2% of zero-point hunters. That fits the success gap but cannot tell us that the herd ratio causes it.

Zero points alone tells you little about a hunt. Among the 44 zero-point hunts, 14 had 60% or better success and 8 had less than 40%. DM025O2R had 837 hunters in Unit 25 at 24.5% success, while the two Unit 34 hunts ran 23.6% and 20.4%. Each of them is in DAU D-43, which CPW models at 21 bucks per 100 does. The rest at the bottom are units 18 and 27 in D-9 and units 15 and 35 in D-8.

VSurvey and draw

CPW's single-season survey estimates are grouped by the unchecked 2025 draw

These success figures are survey estimates for a single season. CPW's 2025 report lists 27,451 completed deer surveys and a 55% response rate. CPW provides confidence intervals for herd units but none for single hunt codes, so a few percentage points between two hunts may just be noise. A hunt's success rate is a group average and cannot predict an individual hunter's result.

CPW calls these deer tables, so they count any whitetail killed on these licenses. Using only the Northwest and Southwest regions leaves out 90 East Slope and plains buck hunts, where whitetails are more common. An earlier parse of CPW's recap supplies the 2025 points and cannot be re-checked, and that parse is known to drop low point levels from some tables that continue onto a second page. Checked 2026 grouping showed 48.0% buck success for zero-point hunts versus 67.7% for 1 to 4 points. Three of the 68 hunts still failed the 2026 check against CPW's printed totals (DM012O2R, DM068O2R and DM077O2R) and the named list leaves out DM068O2R.

VIUse your points

Spend points on listed hunts and skip the lowest-success zero-point hunts

Our read is that residents with 1 to 4 points should use them on a West Slope hunt on the named list. A resident with no points should start by looking at zero-point hunts such as DM070O2R, DM003O3R, DM011O2R and DM072O2R that ran 60% or better in 2025 and drew most or all zero-point residents in 2026. We would skip D-43's zero-point hunts unless the ground itself is why you go. Look up your hunt code in the newest draw recap before applying, because 3 of these 68 hunts moved to a different points group between the 2025 and 2026 draws.