Hunt code E-F-045-O3-R: 2026 Colorado cow elk, 3rd rifle
E-F-045-O3-R (printed on a license as EF045O3R) is a limited cow elk rifle license for the 3rd rifle season, November 7, 2026 to November 15, 2026, valid in unit 45.
Read left to right: E is elk, F is cow, 045 is the hunt area number (it names the license, and is not always a unit number), O3 is the 3rd rifle season and R is rifle. How to read any hunt code.
EF045O3R season dates and units
- Dates: November 7, 2026 to November 15, 2026
- Valid in: unit 45
- How it is issued: limited: issued through the draw, with any left over sold afterwards
Read from the 2026 Colorado Big Game brochure. Your license and the current brochure are the authority: check both with Colorado Parks and Wildlife before you hunt.
How many preference points did EF045O3R take in the 2026 draw?
In Colorado's 2026 primary draw, all 32 resident and 1 nonresident first-choice applicants for EF045O3R drew a license, so no preference points were needed, and 26 of its 100 licenses were left over after the draw.
Licenses left after the draws are sold first come, first served on CPW's leftover and reissued license list, and they do not use or earn preference points.
| Draw year | Licenses | Issued in the draw | Residents drew out at (points) | Resident first choice: drew | Nonresidents drew out at (points) | Nonresident first choice: drew |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 100 | 74 | leftover | 32 of 32 | leftover | 1 of 1 |
| 2025 | 90 | 37 | leftover | 16 of 16 | leftover | 1 of 1 |
| 2024 | 90 | 22 | leftover | 15 of 15 | leftover | 1 of 1 |
"Drew out at" is CPW's own figure: the preference point level of the last license the draw gave that group. "2nd+ choice" means every first-choice applicant drew and the rest went to applicants who listed it lower; "leftover" means licenses were still left after the draw. Source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 2026 Primary ELK Post Draw Report; 2025 Primary ELK Post Draw Report; 2024 Primary ELK Post Draw Report.
What was EF045O3R's hunter success in 2025?
CPW's 2025 harvest survey estimates that 80 hunters held EF045O3R and took 9 cows: 11.3% success, over 393 days in the field.
| 2025 | Bulls | Cows | Calves | Harvest | Hunters | Success | Days hunted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EF045O3R | 0 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 80 | 11.3% | 393 |
CPW's estimates for this license alone (2025 Colorado Elk Harvest Estimates), the first year CPW reports by hunt code rather than by unit.
EF045O3R: elk hunters in unit 45, 2024 and 2023
| Unit | Hunters, 2024 | Hunters, 2023 | Elk taken, 2024 | Bulls / cows / calves | Success, 2024 | Success, 2023 | Change, points | National forest and BLM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 45 | 144 | 88 | 23 | 8 / 15 / 0 | 16% | 8% | +8 | 87.5% |
Every 3rd rifle elk hunter in each unit, whatever license they held: CPW's survey does not report hunters by hunt code or by sex of license. Estimates from Colorado Parks and Wildlife's 2024 and 2023 harvest surveys, not counts: CPW rounds each figure, so the parts can differ from a total by one or two, and success here (animals taken divided by hunters, as on the unit pages) can sit a point from the percentage CPW prints. How to read these tables.
What the numbers say about EF045O3R
- Unit 45 had 144 elk hunters in the 3rd rifle season in 2024, who took 23 elk: 16% success. In 2023 it was 8% from 88 hunters, so success is up 8 points on the year before and hunter numbers went from 88 to 144.
- Across all 129 Colorado units with an estimate, elk hunters in the 3rd rifle season ran at 20% in 2024 (6,048 elk from 29,935 hunters). Unit 45 was 4 points below it, and held 0.5% of the state's hunters for that season.
- This is a cow license. Of the 23 elk taken, 15 were cows and 0 were calves (65% of the elk taken). The 2023 and 2024 unit surveys count animals by sex but not hunters by license; CPW's 2025 report gives this license's own success, above.
- The 3rd rifle season drew 144 of the 583 rifle elk hunters in unit 45 in 2024 (25%). The busiest rifle season there was 2nd rifle, with 339.
- That is 43 hunters for every 100 square miles of the unit, public and private land together, and 3.8 days in the field per hunter.
- Unit 45 is 87.5% national forest and 0% BLM land, about 294 of its 336 square miles. Every unit by public land.
The ground in unit 45, and legal light on November 7
| Unit | Counties | Square miles | National forest | BLM | Elevation, feet | Hunters per 100 square miles, 2024 | Legal shooting light, opening day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 45 | Eagle, Pitkin | 336 | 87.5% | 0% | 7,600 to 12,800 | 43 | 6:11 AM to 5:27 PM |
Land shares are measured inside the unit boundary and count ownership, not access. Legal light is half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset, worked out for the middle of each unit on the Colorado clock: the state's printed sunrise and sunset table is the rule.
Open the map on unit 45, with unit boundaries switched on. Land ownership, roads and State Wildlife Areas are layers on the same map.
See unit 45 on the map
- The unit boundaries for unit 45, over a topo map or an aerial photo.
- Who owns the ground: public and private land, parcel lines and the owner on record.
- Where elk live: the published summer and winter range maps.
- How much of each unit is public.
Holding EF045O3R?
FilledTag builds one exact plan for this tag: where to park, camp and sit in unit 45, with every pin checked against public land and road rules.
Check my huntOther licenses and State Wildlife Areas in unit 45
The other elk licenses valid in unit 45 and the State Wildlife Areas and State Trust Lands there are listed on the EF045O2R page, valid in the same unit in the 2nd rifle season, and on the unit 45 page.