Hunt code E-M-231-O4-R: 2026 Colorado bull elk, 4th rifle

E-M-231-O4-R (printed on a license as EM231O4R) is a limited bull elk rifle license for the 4th rifle season, November 18, 2026 to November 22, 2026, valid in unit 231.

Read left to right: E is elk, M is bull, 231 is the hunt area number (it names the license, and is not always a unit number), O4 is the 4th rifle season and R is rifle. How to read any hunt code.

EM231O4R season dates and units

• Dates: November 18, 2026 to November 22, 2026
• Valid in: unit 231
• 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 EM231O4R take in the 2026 draw?

In Colorado's 2026 primary draw, all 5 resident and 2 nonresident first-choice applicants for EM231O4R drew a license, so no preference points were needed, and 46 of its 60 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.

"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 EM231O4R's hunter success in 2025?

CPW's 2025 harvest survey estimates that 22 hunters held EM231O4R and took 9 bulls: 40.9% success, over 85 days in the field.

CPW's estimates for this license alone (2025 Colorado Elk Harvest Estimates), the first year CPW reports by hunt code rather than by unit.

EM231O4R: elk hunters in unit 231, 2024 and 2023

Every 4th 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 EM231O4R

• Unit 231 had 50 elk hunters in the 4th rifle season in 2024, who took 12 elk: 24% success. In 2023 it was 9% from 55 hunters, so success is up 15 points on the year before and hunter numbers went from 55 to 50.
• Across all 127 Colorado units with an estimate, elk hunters in the 4th rifle season ran at 25% in 2024 (2,931 elk from 11,864 hunters). Unit 231 was 1 point below it, and held 0.4% of the state's hunters for that season.
• This is a bull license. Of the 12 elk taken, 2 were bulls (17% 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 4th rifle season drew 50 of the 701 rifle elk hunters in unit 231 in 2024 (7%). The busiest rifle season there was 2nd rifle, with 300.
• That is 28 hunters for every 100 square miles of the unit, public and private land together, and 4.0 days in the field per hunter.
• Unit 231 is 60.6% national forest and 1.7% BLM land, about 111 of its 178 square miles. Every unit by public land.

EM231O4R is valid in the same unit, in the same season, as EF231O4R.

The ground in unit 231, and legal light on November 18

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 231, with unit boundaries switched on. Land ownership, roads and State Wildlife Areas are layers on the same map.

See unit 231 on the map

• The unit boundaries for unit 231, 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.

Other licenses and State Wildlife Areas in unit 231

The other elk licenses valid in unit 231 and the State Wildlife Areas and State Trust Lands there are listed on the EF231O2R page, valid in the same unit in the 2nd rifle season, and on the unit 231 page.