Palouse special permit last minute hunt...Mica Peak?

[brewdog]

Hey all,
My dad and I drew the late Palouse (3pt minimum, GMUs 127-142) WT hunt this year. We have private land lined out in Pullman/Colfax. However, when we went over to scout, every farmer said the same thing...the blue tongue has been brutal and there aren't many deer around. I spoke to a F&W biologist who said the same thing. So, dad and I decided not to go since it was right in between elk season and our annual MT deer hunt, and we didn't want to be away from our families that much, escpecially with a low deer herd in that area (I'm from eastern WA, but now live clear across the state, so it's a long trip).

Well, very surprisingly, my wife has been telling me to go out and hunt this weekend. So, I'm considering making the drive over to Spokane and hunting the inland paper company area on Mica Peak, or any public or feel free to hunt in Roosevelt, Cheney, or Harrington GMUs. The biologist said those areas didn't get hit as bad with blue tongue.

I'm a meat hunter, so a 3pnt would do just fine :-). Without giving away your honey holes, do you all have any thoughts on where I should spend my time? I'll be staying in a hotel in the area, so any of those units are a possibility. I like the fact that the roads on Mica Peak are closed, since I do a lot of hiking and don't enjoy getting passed by guys on 4 wheelers.  What do you all think?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Hope you all are having a successful season!

[huntnnw]

I live in 127 and have heard of 0 blue tongue dead deer in the last 2 years. Don't expect to see bucks running around this weekend almost no movement so far by bucks.

[dscubame]

2nd no movement yet. 

[brewdog]

Hmm, the truth hurts :-) thanks for the heads up guys. Any suggestions on areas to check out or do some glassing? Is Mica peak worth the time?

[Rainier10]

When I hunted Mica I was on private ground.  It seemed that most of it was private.  I think IEP does have some land there but I haven't hunted it.  We were allowed to hunt the private ground with kids shooting does, bucks were off limits.  Sorry I don't have more to give you.  Good luck.

[brewdog]

No worries Rainier10. Thanks for your help.

[Henrydog]

Brewdog.  IP does have land on Mica.  It gets hammered during modern elk, but you should have a lot less people by the late season, except a few Moose draws.  Radar Road up to the summit will get you on to IP land, the 1st mile or so is private.  I hunted muzzleloader elk there last year when it was pretty dry I saw no signs of blue tounge

[brewdog]

HenryDog, thanks!  If I'm not mistaken, general elk season will still be open this weekend, so there will likely be a lot of hunters up there??  Maybe I should check out one of the other areas where the elk hunters won't be.

[Seabass]

Henry Dog is right on about the first mile being private AND elk season. You won't have much company this weekend. I would get after it if I were you. I live in the unit and have noticed some daylight buck activity in the last few days. No way will shoot one in 127 from your couch on the west side.

[brewdog]

Thanks Seabass. You may have convinced me to head over. :-)

[brewdog]

Thanks everyone for the input. We ended up going to gmu 130 and Hinton for a day and a half (due to other obligations). We stuck to the DNR land up there. Saw lots of deer, mostly mulies though. The whitetails that we did see were either does or legal bucks on land we couldn't hunt, or non legal Bucks on land we could. The fog didn't help either. Still a fun but short trip. Headed to eastern MT on Sunday. I'll post pics of what we get.

[Rainier10]

Thanks for the update.  At least you got to see some new country.  That could be helpful in the future.

Good luck in Montana.

[T-Dozzer]

This is the 3rd year we have had problems with blue tongue on the palouse. We hunt the area pretty hard (thousands of acres) and have only seen a few decent WT bucks.
In the past 2 years I have found 35 dead deer in the same general area. 19 of those were bucks (both muley & WT).