By Doug Rose

There are a lot of things that elk managers can control: They can modify season lengths to increase or reduce harvest, issue cow permits to control population growth, adopt point restrictions to change bull-to-cow ratios, and they can refine management down to smaller and smaller areas. What they can't control is the weather.

Fortunately, the winter of 2002-'03 was the kind that elk managers in Washington and Oregon would prescribe if they could - especially in the central and eastern portions of both states, where heavy snow and freezes can effect elk survival.

"Overall, we had a real mild winter, and there was very little winter kill," said Dave Ware, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's game program manager.

Oregon elk also got through the winter well, according to Tom Thornton, the game program manager of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Everything I've heard suggests it was a pretty mild winter throughout the state," he said. "Most of our snow caps are well below average, and we got some spring green-up. (Elk) did real well."

Each year, Washington-Oregon Game & Fish contacts game managers, regional biologists and outfitters to help hunters decide where and how they want to hunt elk in the upcoming season. After reading our 2003 elk forecast, we believe you will be able to devote your energy on the things that are important - scouting, practicing with your hunting implement of choice, and getting in shape for dragging heavy elk quarters out of the woods - rather than trying to find a place to hunt.

• The Yakima herd is the state's largest Rocky Mountain elk herd, numbering in excess of 13,000 animals.
• The Colockum herd lives between the Columbia River and Wenatchee Mountains.
• The Blue Mountains herd is native to the southeast corner of the state.
• The Selkirk herd's home is in northeast Washington.
• West of the Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula's 10,000 elk are the only pure stock of Roosevelt elk in the region.
• The remaining wet-side herds are Rocky Mountain/Roosevelt elk hybrids and include the Mount St. Helens, north Rainier, south Rainier, Willapa Hills and Nooksack herds.

Photo by Duane Rosenkranz

The Yakima herd is not only Washington's largest, it is also the most popular to hunt. During 2000, more than 32,000 hunters took 2,755 elk from the WDFW's Region 3, the herd's home range.

There are two components to the Yakima herd: the Cascade slope herd, which lives on the east slopes of the Cascade Mountains in Yakima, southern Kittitas and northern Benton counties, and the much smaller Rattlesnake Mountain population that roams the shrub-steppe habitat between the Yakima and Columbia rivers.

The WDFW's Ware says the Cascade herd is about the same size now that it has been in recent years, and hunter opportunity will be similar.

The Cascade herd is migratory, and during the hunting season it is widely distributed in the Taneum, Manastash, Umtanum, Little Naches, Nile, Bumping, Bethel, Rimrock and Cowiche units. All of these are "spike-only" units for general-season hunters; only limited-draw permit holders may take adult bulls.

Access is excellent on Wenatchee National Forest land, although more than 580 miles of road on the Cascade slopes are managed as "green dot" road closures. In these areas, mainline roads are open to motorized vehicles, but spur roads are closed.

Chelan County's Colockum herd suffered heavy winterkill in the 1990s and they haven't rebounded as quickly as hoped. "The Colockum herd seems to be doing a little better than it has the last three or four years," Ware said, "but it's still well below historical levels."

Two years ago, the total elk harvest in Region 2, which includes the Colockum herd, was 70 elk, and more than half of them came from the Mission Unit (GMU 251). Only the Mission and Alpine units were proposed to be open during the general modern firearms seasons this year, but the Manson, Entiat, Alpine and Swakane units are open to bowhunters, and the Chiwawa, Swakane and Mission units have early muzzleloader hunts.

The biggest news out of southeast Washington's Blue Mountains this year was the arrest of an organized elk-poaching ring (see this month's Washington-Oregon In the Field). "We busted a big ring down there," Ware said. "It's looking like they took a bunch of branch-antlered bulls over the last four years."

As a result, Ware says not as many branch-antlered bull tags will be available this year as there have been in past years. Otherwise, the elk population appears stable or improving. "I would say it's coming back a little," he said.

Northeast Washington's Selkirk herd does not turn out a large number of elk kills for hunters, but the herd continues to expand its range and population. The number of hunter kills this year is expected to be typical.

There are two major reasons for such low harvest numbers there. First is the densely vegetated habitat in the Selkirk, Three Forks, Huckleberry and 49 Degrees North units where these elk live. And second is that the herds there are typically small, widely scattered bands of 20 to 30 animals. "It's always going to be a tough hunt over there," Ware said. "But on the positive side, most of the animals escape hunters, so a lot of the elk that are taken are older bulls."

About 2,500 elk are killed annually in Region 5, which is more than three times as many as in Region's 4 and 6 combined. "We kill a lot of elk in the Mount St. Helens area," Ware said. "The elk in the Mount St. Helens area are more productive than in the Olympics." Ware says this is attributable to continued logging in the area, which creates a mix of open areas where forage is produced along with older timber that provides cover and thermal protection.

The Marble, Siouxan, Mossyrock, Winston and Coweeman GMUs have each turned out between 150 and 200 elk kills in recent years, and the Lewis River Unit has given up nearly 300. All of these GMUs are roughly within Weyerhaeuser's Mount St. Helens Tree Farm. Despite the implementation of widespread road closures in the tree farm last year, harvest numbers do not seem to have fallen noticeably.

"It looks like a lot of hunters have figured out how to hunt behind the gates," Ware said. Road closures only restrict vehicular traffic, not access. Main roads in the southern parts of the tree farm have remained open during the modern firearms season.

The Willapa Hills elk herd, which has been estimated to contain as many as 8,000 elk, ranges through the timbered foothills of western Region 5 and southern Region 6. Some 200 elk are taken annually from the Willapa Hills Unit (GMU 506), along with an additional 150 or so in the neighboring Fall River and Williams Creek units, which are Region 6 units. Timber companies own much of the habitat in the Willapa Hills, and access is available, although many roads have been gated to restrict travel to foot, horseback and bicycles. At the opposite end of Region 5, the Wind River and West Klickitat units come to turn out around 200 elk annually, and the WDFW has allowed "any elk" regulations, because it wants to limit elk expansion into the Columbia Gorge's celebrated blacktail deer habitat.

As for the Olympic Peninsula, historically the largest producer of elk along the coast, its numbers have rebounded from lows in the early 1990s. "The elk are increasing in the Olympics," Ware said. "We essentially have about 10,000 elk on the peninsula. It's been a kind of gradual recovery."

The Clearwater, Goodman Creek, Sol Duc, Matheny and Quinault Ridge areas are the most productive of the West End Unit. During the 2000 season, however, the Skookumchuck and Mashel units, which are located east of I-5 and are populated by the north and south Rainier herds, were more productive. The Weyerhaeuser Vail Tree Farm (800-361-5602) and the Rainier Timber Company's Kapowsin Tree Farm (800-782-1493) offer the best access in these areas.

Upwards of 140,000 hunters kill between 20,000 and 25,000 elk statewide during an average season. Perhaps more significantly, overall success ratios in Oregon hover around 18 percent - well above Washington's average of less than 10 percent. However, opportunity in Oregon is more restricted, with most of its highly prized Rocky Mountain elk managed by either controlled hunts or "spike-only" regulations.

The ODFW did not propose any major management restructuring this year, and game managers expect the fall season will be similar to last year. "We have made some adjustments in local herds, but we don't have any major changes," said game program manager Thornton. "We will have a pretty standard season this fall."

Unfortunately, the elk in many of the northeast's most celebrated units - Sled Springs, Wenaha, Imnaha, Chesnimnus and Pine Creek - have been declining for a number of years. Regional biologists attribute this to predation from cougars and bears in the wake of hound hunting prohibitions. Whatever the reason, calf survival has been low. "Calf survival numbers are still below what we'd like to see in the Wallowas and Blue Mountains," Thornton said.

Hunters who shift their focus to the eastern slopes of the Blue Mountains will have much better odds this fall. Indeed, the units of the ODFW's Umatilla-Whitman Zone have accounted for about 7,000 elk in recent years, compared to only 2,000 from units to the east; the Starkey, Ukiah, Heppner, Desolation and Sumpter units are the most productive. All are controlled hunts during the early modern firearms seasons and "spike-only" during the November second season.

Access varies widely, with the Heppner, Ukiah and Sumpter made up of less than 50 percent public land, while the Starkey and Desolation units are, respectively, 67 percent and 87 percent public land. Within the Starkey Unit, more than 200 square miles of roads are cooperative travel management areas during the elk season.

The Ochoco-Malheur zone will likely turn out the second-largest Rocky Mountain elk harvest this year. Modern firearms hunting is permit only, but the Northside, Murderers Creek, Beulah, Ochoco, Maury, Silvies, Grizzly and Malheur River units are all open during the general archery season in September.

Moreover, ODFW created a new "Canyon Creek Hunt" for 2003 within the Murderer's Creek Unit. It reserves 35 square miles of public land for traditional long and recurve bows from Aug. 30-Sep.5, then returns to any legal archery gear for the remainder of the season.

Hunters in the Central Area, which extends from the Columbia River to the California border, will have advantages and disadvantages this year. On the positive side, modern firearms hunters will be able to buy over-the-counter licenses for the early Oct. 29-Nov. 2 general season. But the Paulina, Silver Lake, Klamath Falls and eastern Fort Rock units turn out far fewer elk than eastern units, and success ratios are typically 10 percent or less.

Elk harvest numbers in the southeast corner of the state are even lower, but hunters who draw controlled hunt tags have a relatively good chance of seeing an elk. "The elk have been doing well in southeast Oregon," Thornton said. "The numbers out in the more open juniper country have increased in the last 10 to 20 years."

"It will be the same October season in the High Cascades this year," Thornton said. There were concerns initially that the Cascade Mountain hunt would attract too many hunters, but Thornton says that has not occurred. "It's a huge area," he said. "There are a lot of elk in the Cascades, but there is also a lot of cover." He says that some areas are popular but that anyone who wants to find solitude will have no problem. "There's a lot of room in the mountains, and if you find a bull there is a good chance it will be a mature bull."

Two years ago, the ODFW carved out a Wilson/Trask hunt with different management from neighboring coastal units. "We reduced the seasons by a couple of days," Thornton said. "The adjustments were to improve bull-to-cow ratios, and we have seen bull ratios improve. We are maintaining the October season in the Wilson/Trask units." The new hunt gives hunters the choice between a five-day any bull season in late October and a seven-day spike-only hunt in late November.

The remainder of the Midcoast Valley Zone is managed with a traditional split season, although it was shortened from a five-day/nine-day first season/second season split to a 4/7 structure in 2001.

According to the ODFW, elk within the Stott Mountain Unit tend to be concentrated in the middle third of the unit, while the best hunting in the Alsea Unit usually occurs on Siuslaw National Forest land between Waldport and Florence. The Siuslaw Unit is legendary for trophy bulls, but bull numbers have been below management objectives recently. Steep coastal hills here guarantee a physically demanding hunt.

Thornton says elk populations along the South Coast are fairly stable. All units are controlled hunts for rifle hunters, but bowhunters have open entry. The Tioga Unit is one of the most productive in western Oregon, with archers and rifle hunters combining to kill upwards of 800 animals in recent years.

Harvest figures and hunter percentages remain good in the Sixes Unit, and the Powers Unit has seen increasing numbers of branch-antlered bulls. The coast's southernmost unit, the Chetco, was the site of the 700-square-mile Biscuit Fire two years ago. Hunters should contact the Siskiyou National Forest's Chetco Ranger District (541-469-2196) about access and conditions.