Hunters taking part in the general-season Cascade Hunt may find more elk than normal in the Rogue and Dixon units, though the more northern units -- in particular, the McKenzie and Santiam -- have historically accounted for the bulk of the harvest.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN ELK
Washington And Oregon
The Mount St. Helens herd is the state's biggest herd of Roosevelt elk, but the Yakima herd is by far the Evergreen State's largest and most productive herd of Rocky Mountain elk.

This year, the Yakima herd will attract more hunters and yield more elk than any other population. When the WDFW released its Yakima Herd Elk Management Plan in 2003, the herd was actually 10 percent above its management objectives. Since then, increased cow permits (the accepted method of reducing an elk population quickly) have brought the herd to within its post-season goal of slightly fewer than 10,000 animals.

However, fewer cows translate into fewer calves. Lower calf numbers soon mean fewer spikes. And since all of the Yakima herd units are spike-only units, hunters have had fewer animals to pursue the last few years. This year, the Manastash, Nile, Umtanum, Bethel, Little Naches and Taneum units will probably produce slightly fewer general-season elk.

However, hunters with an adult bull tag may see some nice animals. Over the last two years, post-season surveys have counted good numbers of branch-antlered bulls.

On the north side of Interstate 5, hunting prospects for the Colockum herd will be similar to last year's. But that's nothing to get excited about.

The herd, which ranges across the Quilomene, Naneum, Mission and Teanaway units, declined steeply in the 1990s and hasn't met its target size for a number of years. Harvest fell from more than 800 bulls in 1992 to only 381 in 2006.

"Our main problem seems to be getting spikes through the season," said the WDFW's Jeff Bernatowicz, district biologist for the Yakima herd. "We counted only 43 spikes total at the end of the season last year."

The Colockum herd presents a genuine dilemma for management. Landowners complain, forcing the state to issue cow permits to control the populations. But the herd is still well below its capacity. To make things worse, an abundance of roads leave the elk vulnerable during the hunting season.

As in recent years, the ODFW will offer a mixture of hunts and regulations in the units bordering the eastern flank of the Cascades. Units closest to the Columbia River -- like the White River, Maupin and western Biggs -- have traditional late-October general rifle season. The Metolius, Upper Deschutes and western Fort Rock units are managed under the Cascade bull elk general, the same as the "Roosevelt" elk on the western side of the crest.

For the last few years, all of the central and southern units have held controlled hunts during the modern firearms season.

Though the north central units turn out quite a few elk, access is difficult to obtain on the ranchlands of the Maupin and Biggs units. There's more public land in the White River Unit, where the herd is near management objectives. But these animals are widely dispersed. The cover is dense and is very heavily hunted.

In the south, mule deer are more abundant than elk in the central and southern areas. Hunters must be willing to put in time to find widely scattered herds.

THE BLUES, WALLOWAS AND SELKIRKS
Straddling northeast Oregon and southeast Washington, the Blue Mountains have long been the Pacific Northwest's iconic elk-hunting destination -- for longer than any contemporary hunter has been alive.

For more than a decade, unfortunately, hunting hasn't been good on either side of the border.