New To Hunting in Washington, Can Someone Help Answer Some Questions?

[RobT]

Hello!

 I've been hunting most of my life, but I've never seriously hunted Big Game (until now). Most years I hunt ducks and upland birds. I'm a non-resident (from California-I'm not a commie) and I have some questions about how hunting in Washington works.

 I purchased the Deer, Elk, Bear, Cougar combo tag. For Elk (which is my primary pursuit) I chose Western Archery. When I look at the maps provided by WDFW there are GMUs and Elk Areas (example Elk Area 5056). Are the "Elk Areas" areas for special permits or special draw hunts? If I designated that I want to hunt Western Washington can I hunt any GMU or are there additional tags or permits that I need to purchase for a specific GMU? I ask because I saw in another thread someone mentioning there were only "X" amount of tags left for a certain GMU.

 I've never hunted Elk before, so any advice anyone has to offer would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[bearpaw]

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01903/wdfw01903.pdf

page 49 tells you which units are open during the general archery seasons for the western or eastern archery tag, any units or elk areas not mentioned there are special permit only

[RobT]

Thank you for the reply. That's how I read it, but I got confused after reading another post.

[biggfish]

When you read the regs the elk areas aren't all special permit. A lot of them are open to master hunters which wouldn't apply to you. If it isn't labeled as (except elk area xxxx) then you can hunt it.

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[emac]

What you might of seen in another thread anout a certain gmu with only "x" amount of permits left could be referring to private timberlands

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[RobT]

emac, you might be right because I think I did see some conversations about gates and different logging companies.

Thank you all for helping to clarify. In California, there are different zones (GMU) and your tag is only good for that zone, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't need any other permit or tag to hunt a specific GMU.