A Roosevelt elk walks through an Olympic Peninsula forest. Biologists in both Washington and Oregon predict that hunters will enjoy excellent seasons this fall. Photo by Chuck and Grace Bartlett.

During this fall's general seasons, Pacific Northwest elk hunters who didn't apply for a controlled-hunt tag or were not drawn will still have one of the best opportunities in recent years to bag a bull. That's because many animals escaped harvest in 2006 and enjoyed favorable conditions during the winter.

Oregon hunters are looking forward to some of the best general- season forecasts in years. Elk numbers are also stable in parts of Washington, which has one of the largest elk populations in the country.

"A decent number of bulls survived from last season," says Mark Vargas, a biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "We are seeing good bull ratios after our flights."

The mild winter allowed plenty of bulls that escaped harvest to grow even bigger for this fall's seasons. With plenty of bulls left over and a new crop of elk reaching harvest size, this fall is set to be a season to remember for hunters who don't have one of Washington's or Oregon's coveted controlled-hunt tags. In fact, some of the best opportunities are shaping up on lands that many hunters often overlook.

OREGON'S GENERAL SEASON FORECAST
Many Oregon elk hunters set their sights on popular units in the northeastern part of the state or on the Tioga or Saddle Mountain units, which have some of the biggest herds. Often disappointed when they don't draw a tag, they save up preference points to eventually hunt the Ukiah, Starkey, Snake River or other controlled-hunt units.

This fall, if you didn't draw a controlled-hunt tag, think twice before passing on elk season. The Trask and Wilson units and 11 units that make up the Cascade Bull Elk Season have the best outlooks this decade for giving you a shot at bulls, including some trophy-class animals.

In the Cascades units, as well as the Wilson and Trask units on the northern Oregon Coast, unfavorable dry weather in fall 2006 allowed many of the Beaver State's bulls to escape harvest. Those animals, along with a new class of bulls, will be available this fall, making the hills east of Tillamook and the mountains between Medford and Roseburg some of the best locations to get a general-season bull in 2007.

"On our post-season surveys this year, the Trask had a number of really nice bulls left over," says Dave Nezum, an ODFW biologist in Tillamook. "Both the Trask and Wilson have a pretty fair segment of bigger bulls. Both units are around management objective. The bull ratios are over 10 bulls, even a little higher in the Wilson."

The Wilson and Trask units produced a harvest of 630 bulls last fall. That may seem impressive, but represents only an 8 percent harvest rate during the first and second seasons in the Wilson Unit, and 12 percent during the first Trask Unit season, followed by 8 percent in the second.

While checking out the herd size earlier this year, Nezum and other biologists noticed that plenty of big bulls had made it through the 2006 hunting seasons and this past winter.

Aside from good numbers of bulls, the Wilson and Trask units, located less than two hours from Portland, also have an impressive amount of public land and access.

"The Wilson is something like 80 percent public land," Nezum says. Much of it is the Tillamook State Forest. And big chunks of private land are timber company property, and access is available during elk season. "The timber companies open their gates and have pretty good access," Nezum says.

With active logging operations in the Tillamook area, there are plenty of 2- to 10-year-old clearcuts where you can look for elk. There also are good numbers of logging roads to drive and look for elk sign.

The Wilson and Trask units are favorites for Don Banderbergh, a state wildlife biologist based in the Portland area.

"If I was looking at any unit out there, I'd probably spend most of my opportunities in the Wilson and Trask area," he says. "The Wilson could be kind of a sleeper because it has really good public access. Both units have the potential to produce a trophy-size animal. We see that class of animals come in every year."

In the Wilson, Trask, Scappoose, Willamette, Stott Mountain, Alsea and Siuslaw units, the general Coast Bull Elk Season runs Nov. 10 through 13 and Nov. 17 through 23. Hunters have their choice of which season for which they want to buy an over-the-counter tag.