What To Hunt (& Where To Hunt) In Costilla County, CO

Costilla County sits in the San Luis Valley in south-central Colorado, stretching over almost 1,227 square miles between the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Rio Grande. San Luis, its county seat, is the oldest continuously occupied town in Colorado — and the country around it holds one of the largest elk herds in the state.

If you hunt, this county deserves a spot on your map. Here is the current picture — including a licensing change in 2025 that caught a lot of out-of-state archery hunters by surprise.

The unit: GMU 83 and the Trinchera herd

Colorado divides its hunting country into game management units, and Costilla County anchors GMU 83. The Trinchera elk herd that ranges through this corner of the state is estimated at roughly 14,000 animals — one of the largest herds in Colorado — with several thousand of them resident in the immediate area. Mule deer and pronghorn share the valley floor and foothills, and there are dusky grouse up in the timber.

September belongs to the archery and muzzleloader hunters, when the bulls are bugling; the rifle seasons run through October and into November. Exact season dates shift a little each year, so check the current Colorado Parks & Wildlife elk page when you plan.

The rule that changed in 2025

For years, Colorado sold over-the-counter archery elk tags almost everywhere, and plenty of hunters built annual trips on that. That era is over: starting with the 2025 season, archery elk went draw-only for the units west of I-25 — which includes GMU 83. If the last time you looked at Colorado elk rules was before 2025, this is the update that changes your planning.

The draw is not scary, it just requires a calendar: applications run roughly March 1 to early April, results post in late May, and leftover licenses go on sale in the summer. And here is the part that keeps GMU 83 interesting for the spontaneous among us: bull elk tags for the 2nd and 3rd rifle seasons are still sold over the counter — no points, no draw, walk in and buy one. Cow tags, 1st and 4th rifle, and all deer licenses go through the draw.

Licenses and residency, the short version

Resident licenses cost a fraction of nonresident ones, so the residency rules matter if you are moving here or splitting time. The short version: you qualify as a Colorado resident after living in the state for six consecutive months with your primary home here, and you cannot have bought a resident license anywhere else in that window. Full-time students in Colorado and active-duty military stationed here (or keeping Colorado as home of record) qualify on their own tracks, and kids under 18 follow their parent’s status. If you own homes in two states, call CPW before you buy the cheap license — getting it wrong is an expensive ticket.

Every hunter also needs a hunter education card, and note that accessing any State Wildlife Area now requires a hunting or fishing license — even just to walk in.

The land-access reality nobody tells you

Here is the honest part, and it is the thing to understand before you buy anything: Costilla County is roughly 99% private land. There is no big block of national forest inside the county to wander. That cuts two ways.

The elk are here because of that — big private ranches mean low pressure and old bulls. But it means a hunt in GMU 83 itself usually runs through private access: landowner permission, a trespass-fee arrangement, or an outfitted hunt on one of the large ranches. The workable public options sit on the county’s edges and the surrounding valley — the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness climbs the range to the northeast, the Rio Grande National Forest flanks the far side of the valley, and a handful of State Wildlife Areas dot the area.

And to be straight with you about our own product: a 5-acre parcel is a basecamp, not a private hunting ranch. Elk cross the valley subdivisions, but you cannot build a hunt on five acres — and discharge rules and subdivision covenants restrict shooting in the platted areas anyway. What your own lot gets you is what hotels cannot: a camp 20 minutes from the trailhead, gear stored on site, season after season, with no reservation and no checkout time.

Fishing while you are here

Bring the rod. The Rio Grande runs right through the west side of the county — some of our own parcels sit within blocks of it — and it fishes well for browns and rainbows. Smith Reservoir just south of Blanca is stocked trout water that grows fish fast, and Sanchez Reservoir south of San Luis is the warm-water option: pike, walleye, perch and catfish. (Mountain Home Reservoir near Fort Garland has historically been a solid stocked-trout lake, but it was drawn down for irrigation and dam work in 2026 — check current conditions with CPW before towing a boat out.) We wrote a full beginner’s guide to fishing in Costilla County if the fishing matters as much as the hunting.

A basecamp of your own

This is why hunters keep buying from us here: with almost everything private, owning your patch is how you get a permanent foothold in elk country — a place to park the camper in September, store the gear, and come back to every season. With owner financing, most of these lots run between $69 and $399 a month, and there is no penalty for paying them off early.

A few current parcels that fit the job: 2.30 scenic acres in Fort Garland where you can watch the wildlife, 2+ acres of tall pines and cool mountain air in Fort Garland, forested acreage in Forbes Park where RV use is allowed, and 4+ high-desert acres in Blanca ready for a tent or a homestead. Or start from the top: everything we have in Colorado, and our full plain-English guide to buying land in Costilla County — real sold prices, taxes, and the parts that never make the listing photos.