This still rankles many hunters, and some have abandoned these units entirely. But hunters willing to spend the sweat, time and thought that it requires to hunt away from their vehicle have a very good chance of seeing a deer -- often a very good one.

THE WYNOOCHEE UNIT
The Wynoochee Unit, Game Management Unit 648, is entirely in Grays Harbor County. It extends from the upper tributaries of the Humptulips River across the Olympics’ southern foothills to the old logging town of Grisdale and then down the South Fork Satsop to the Satsop and ultimately to the Chehalis River. One of the peninsula’s largest units, it includes portions of the East Fork of the Humptulips, Hoquiam, Wishkah, Wynoochee and West Fork Satsop watersheds.

This is overwhelmingly private industrial timberlands. The only significant public lands are a few square miles of WDFW’s Olympic Wildlife Area on the upper Wynoochee and lower Wishkah, and scattered pockets of Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) holdings.

The Wynoochee Unit has the same regular October general hunt and four-day November late hunt as other western Washington GMUs. Its archery season is also standard, with a 30-day September hunt and the normal 24-day November-December late hunt. Any deer is legal for bowhunters. There has been no black powder season in recent years.

In recent years, the most avidly sought-after hunt in the Wynoochee Unit has been the Wynoochee B permit hunt. This 11-day modern firearms hunt in November provides rifle hunters a rare crack at bucks in the middle of the rut. Recently, more than 600 hunters have applied for 10 permits. Hunters looking for a young doe for venison should consider the Wynoochee A hunt, which offers more than 100 “any deer” tags.

The Donkey Creek Road (Forest Road 22) forks off U.S. Highway 101 a few miles north of the Humptulips River bridge, providing year-round access to the northwest corner of the unit. It extends through cutover land for many miles to its junction with the Wynoochee River Road near Wynoochee Lake. The Wynoochee River Road is also a good road, and it bisects the unit from the lake to the Chehalis River, providing access to dozens of spurs and forest roads.

The Cougar Smith Road connects the Middle Fork Satsop and West Fork and serves as the northeast boundary of the unit. From the south, the Wishkah and Hoquiam roads provide access to the southwestern corner of the unit.

THE SATSOP UNIT
Though the Satsop Unit has turned out more deer than the Wynoochee Unit in recent years, it is actually significantly smaller. The Wynoochee Unit forms its western border, and it’s bounded on the north by the Middle Satsop Road, the Deckerville Road and the Shelton-Matlock Road. Highway 101 is its eastern boundary, and Highways 8 and 12 form its southern boundary.

This is the heart of the Simpson Timber Company holdings. You can hunt on most of it, but many roads are gated. It includes the lower reaches of the Middle Satsop, the east side of the main stem, and virtually all of the East Fork, the drainage’s largest tributary. The unit is largely low elevation and is characterized by an abundance of feeder creeks, with virtual thickets of riparian areas and swamps such as Deckerville Swamp.