Information on the 2022 Colorado Secondary Draw

If you didn't draw a tag for the 2022 season in Colorado, there is still hope!

The application period for the Second Draw is June 21 through July 5 at 8 p.m. MT. Apply online here. Draw results should be available in the middle of July.

Hunters who didn't draw a license in the primary draw should be aware they still have the opportunity to draw a license in the secondary big game draw. Most elk, deer, pronghorn, and bear licenses not issued through the primary draw will now be made available in a secondary draw that is open to anyone, whether they applied for the primary draw or not. So if your draw results weren't on your side earlier this month, and you still want to hunt Colorado, there is some opportunity worth checking into.

A list of licenses can be found by clicking the buttons below:

Elk Deer Bear Antelope

Once again for 2022, Brady went through the effort to upload the original PDF documents of all the tags available for the secondary draw. This means you'll always have access to this original document. The great thing; this is a great tool to use for even the 2023 season, to sort of gauge which tags might be available as leftovers which can help when deciding how to use your first and second choice on your Colorado application and to track trends on what tags were available.

Important Information

• Application fee: You’ll still be charged a fee for applying, whether or not you draw a license. The $7.13 resident and $9.17 nonresident application fees apply per species for the secondary draw as well as the primary draw.
• You do not have to have applied in the primary big game draw to apply in the secondary draw.
• A qualifying license is required. Click here to find out more.
• You cannot use or apply for a preference point in the secondary draw. This also means that you will not lose any preference points if you draw a tag in the secondary draw. 
• You cannot apply as a group in the secondary draw.
• Any licenses remaining after the secondary draw (except for Ranching for Wildlife licenses) will be placed on the leftover list and available for purchase on leftover day, starting Aug. 2 at 9 a.m. MT.

Youth preference

In the Colorado Secondary draw, all youth applicants receive 100% preference over adult applicants. What this means is that youth applicants will draw all available tags before adult applicants are considered for a given hunt code. As an example, if 25 tags are available for a hunt code and 23 youth applicants apply, there will be only 2 tags available for adult hunters. This can be an important factor to take into consideration when applying for the various hunts. If applying for youth in your household, there are some great opportunities to be had here!

2022 qualifying licenses

Resident and Nonresident:

• Annual Spring Turkey License
• Annual Youth Spring Turkey License
• Annual Fall Turkey License (valid for the secondary draw ONLY)
• Annual Youth Fall Turkey License (valid for the secondary draw ONLY)
• Annual Small Game License
• Annual Youth Small Game License

Resident only:

• Annual Resident Combination Small Game/Fishing License
• Annual Resident Senior Combination Small Game/Fishing License
• Resident Disabled Veteran Lifetime Combination Small Game/Fishing License
• Resident Disabled First Responder Lifetime Combination Small Game/Fishing License
• Annual Small-Game License for Resident Senior Lifetime Fishing License Holders

The list of tags

Once again, click each link to access that species leftover list.

Elk Deer Bear Antelope

Researching these second draw hunts

You can easily research these second draw hunt options on Insider. Below are links to each species on Filtering 2.0. From there you can jump into each Unit Profile and further break down the hunts.

• Elk research on Filtering 2.0
• Mule deer research on Filtering 2.0
• Whitetail deer research on Filtering 2.0
• Bear research on Filtering 2.0
• Antelope on Filtering 2.0

I really like to look at overall tag numbers from the tag allocation graphs located in the Unit Profiles. These give me a great glimpse into hunter numbers and this gives me a number to bounce off of any prospective OTC units I may have been looking at as well.