WA River trip in Mule deer country?

[boneill]

Whelp, my season ended on 10/31, and I've already started thinking about next season. I really would like to do a mule deer hunt in Central/Eastern WA. I've taken whitetail, blacktail, and now I'm thinking I would like to try out some Mule deer hunting in some terrain I've never hunted before.

I did a quick overnight steelhead tip this weekend on the Deschutes River, and I couldn't stop drooling at how fun the country looked to hunt. Big open country with steep grassy hillsides and tons of draws, amazing vantage points. Being a WA resident, I don't think I'd fork out the $$$ for an OR license (not even sure if a hunt on the Deschutes would be legal), but I do know of a few other rivers in OR that you could do a cast and blast type of adventure.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions on good cast and blast (mainly Mule deer hunting trip, but some steelhead/salmon would be neat) in WA? Has anyone done this sort of trip in WA? All I can really think of is the Klickitat River, but I'd like to get further east than that. I'm not looking for any honey holes or anything like that, just hoping someone can point in the right direction. Open to bow and rifle seasons as I know flows will fluctuate.

Thanks is advance!

[Buckewe]

Might want to look into the snake river

[theleo]

The Snake or Grande Rhonde would be the first two I'd look into. If you were able to go out of state, the Salmon covers a lot of country in Idaho.

[boneill]

The Snake or Grande Rhonde would be the first two I'd look into. If you were able to go out of state, the Salmon covers a lot of country in Idaho.

Awesome! Thanks....I completely forgot the Grand Ronde flowed through part of WA.

[JLS]

The Snake or Grande Rhonde would be the first two I'd look into. If you were able to go out of state, the Salmon covers a lot of country in Idaho.

Awesome! Thanks....I completely forgot the Grand Ronde flowed through part of WA.

If you do this you definitely want good maps and/or a GPS with landowner data in it.

[Alchase]

The Clearwater in Idaho, if the wolves haven't ruined it yet.

[millerwheeler]

Interested in this myself have a 18ft smokercraft center console sled and thought to myself the same thing at the end of season

[huntnnw]

Id look into ID salmon river or snake on a draw tag and the OR side of the snake. There is not much river frontage you can float on the snake that is in WA. The ronde has a road from the highway at bogans to the OR line and the other side is almost all private. The section down stream that is roadless to shoemaker is 9 river miles and once again mostly private. And some of what isn't private is so steep from the river that you cannot get up from the river either way to steep or you get cliffed out.

[boneill]

Id look into ID salmon river or snake on a draw tag and the OR side of the snake. There is not much river frontage you can float on the snake that is in WA. The ronde has a road from the highway at bogans to the OR line and the other side is almost all private. The section down stream that is roadless to shoemaker is 9 river miles and once again mostly private. And some of what isn't private is so steep from the river that you cannot get up from the river either way to steep or you get cliffed out.

Good info here, thanks for sharing. The more I look into it the more I'm realizing a WA mule deer/river trip might not be in the cards. I know I can make it happen but I'm not sure the effort will be worth it...I'm thinking I'll start planning on an Idaho trip to do in the next few years.

I've kayaked the Upper East Fork of the Salmon near Yellow Pine all the way down the South Fork into the Main Salmon- definitely some amazing country. Those runs wouldn't be 'raft friendly' so I'm wondering if anyone has any input on which section of the Main Salmon they would focus on for a Mule Deer hunt? Anyone done it before?

Thanks for the help and info!