"We did increase the number of branch-antlered tags in the Dayton and Wenaha units," Fowler said.

The Wenaha Unit lies largely within the Wenaha/Tucannon Wilderness, which straddles the Washington-Oregon border. According to Fowler, approximately 2,000 elk once wintered in the unit, but those numbers have declined to 500 or 600.

Once again, low calf survival is the culprit. A study by the WDFW showed that predation, primarily by cougars, was a major factor in the mortality of young elk.

Spikes are the elk that show up most frequently in the modern-firearms general-season harvest numbers, and they have varied considerably in recent years. During 2004, the GMUs flanking the Oregon border -- Blue Creek, Mill Creek, Wenaha, Mountain View and Grande Ronde -- accounted for 83 of the area's 210 harvested elk.

Located on the east flank of the Blues, the Mountain View Unit turned out the most elk with 40 kills recorded, and its 10-percent success rate also led the region's harvest stats.

The Blue Creek Unit, on the western edge of the range, is also among the Blue's most reliable elk hunting areas, offering rifle, bow and blackpowder permit hunts in addition to general-season spike hunts.

Of particular note is the Watershed Hunt within the Mill Creek Unit, a modern-firearms-only hunt with a 3-point minimum bull elk or antlerless harvest restrictions. It is the only hunt open in the GMU.

Access in these units varies widely, depending on elevation and the lay of roads and river valleys. The Blue Creek Unit holds the least public land -- basically a sliver of the Umatilla National Forest.

Moving east, nearly all of the Mill Creek Watershed and Wenaha units lie within the national forest, and the Wenaha Unit is almost completely designated as a roadless area within the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness.

The area is popular with hunters with packhorses during the early seasons, before snow locks up the higher trails. The Mountain View Unit is approximately evenly divided between national forest and private ranch lands.

THE FOOTHILL AND VALLEY UNITS
The foothills of the northern Blue Mountains are incised by the Touchet and Tucannon rivers and Asotin Creek. Ranging from around 1,400 feet to about 5,000 feet in elevation, this transition zone contains the Dayton, Tucannon and Lick Creek GMUs -- the other most productive units in the Blue Mountains.