Blue Mountains vs Teanaway Archery

[BigGame]

Background:

This will be my 6th season hunting deer/elk in WA and I have yet to notch a tag. Lots of excuses that I'll spare. One thing I know is that I need to spend more time in the field. Last year after the season I bought a bow and have been practicing religiously, more recently I have been putting the time in on a diaphragm call and reading/listening to everything I can.

None of my hunting partners are available for the opening of archery elk next week, so I was planning on a solo backpack hunt in the Blue Mountains, specifically units 166 and 169. However, I just dug up the harvest reports for those two units and there have been ZERO elk killed during archery season over the last 2 years, and a very small handful during modern. The reports ( I'm referencing the wdfw hunting prospects reports for 17 and 18) also mentioned ~80 hunters total in those units. Of those 80, I can't imagine they are all road hunters, some of them had to have done what I plan to do which was hike way back and hunt the isolated areas.

This has me thinking I may be better off heading to the Teanaway. For one, district 8 has a total harvest of ~1500 animals per year. Also, 335 allows cow elk harvest during early archery which would arguably increase my odds drastically. I did some very limited scouting this last weekend (1 and 3 year old in tow) which mainly highlighted that there are lots of dirt bikes in the area which I think will end up pushing me East. Red Top Mountain may be my starting point of I go that route.

Anyways, I'm hoping for some help here. A PM would be great if you can offer anything. I don't need to find the honeyhole for big bulls, I'm just looking to get to an area where I can start learning the animals and hopefully put some cow/spike meat in the freezer this year. I understand it's a learning curve but there isn't anything I won't do (legally) to shorten the curve.

[jackelope]

I have to believe that there were some elk killed in those 2 Blues units. Most of the Tucannon is not really road-hunt-able. Pretty much all of the Wenaha is roadless.

You'll have a lot more hunters in the Teanaway and a lot more rugged and remote country in the Blues...probably some of the most difficult terrain in the state between those 2 units. Elk numbers are down for sure and the Blues have had fire issues the last few years. I would personally choose the area with fewer people if it was up to me to choose, so I'd head to the Blues....

[BigGame]

I had the same thought, there had to have been SOME elk taken out of there. Here are the reports:

2018 (page 10 - archery) : https://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/prospects/2018/district03.pdf
2017 (page 9 - archery) : https://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/prospects/2017/district03.pdf

My point about road hunting is that of the 80+ people that hunted there last year, I am sure some of them did what I was planning to do which is get way back in there to hopefully find where the elk may have holed up. I wouldn't ever give myself enough credit to think that I can go into an area where no one has taken an animal for the last two years and take a spike. Maybe the reports are wrong and I should ignore them?

[jackelope]

I'm not really sure you should ignore the reports. I'm just saying I would expect them to not be 100% accurate. That's not to say I'd expect to kill an elk there either. I'd personally just go there for the solitude and the scenery. An elk would just be icing on the cake.

[BigGame]

Ignoring the reports, I 100% agree, I'd rather spend my time in the Blues away from people... with that said, I need to start finding some elk and filling my tag

[Pathfinder101]

I live in Walla Walla and I can tell you that the elk numbers are way down.  I want to blame it on the wolves, but there are probably more reasons than that.  I still put in for the special draw tags here, but I started hunting Idaho for general season last year.  Was out bear hunting this past weekend and didn't even see an elk.  Going back to Idaho again this season.  Just my 

[BigGame]

Thanks for the information Pathfinder. That's right in line with what I'm hearing from others. It's really tough country and being spike only makes it even that much harder. I can't ignore the part of me says that's a reason I should go there, but reality is that likely means eating tag soup.

[bobcat]

Your odds are probably better in 335, but I'd expect a huge amount of hunters due to it being the only Yakima GMU open to both spikes and cows in the first part of the early archery season.

[BigGame]

bobcat - that's the only downside to that area: number of hunters. I am planning to hunt Sun-Weds, so hopefully as the week comes on number will drop off a bit in time for me to start locating elk.

[dvolmer]

If you want a better camping trip and time in the mountains then go to the Blue's.  If you want a better elk hunt (where chances for success is important to you) then Teanaway is the place to go.  Depends on what you want out of the time in the hills.

[jstone]

Besides the wolf’s.? Why is the blues so bad nowadays? Being so remote? Even more than the teanaway? Where there are lots a roads wolf’s and all the same predators? Why would the tough hunt not hold more animals? Just curious

[nwwanderer]

According to the WDFW meeting last week, a couple of bad winters and a lot of mystery.  Many elk living in the lowlands loving the garbs and being pressured hard by the department to move up to federal ground.  Total number reported about 4000 with a target of 5500.  A fair amount of predator discussion, bears, cats, wolves, but no real plan to reduce them.  Bull/cow ratios pretty good but cow/calf ratios are in the tank.  My take is habitat on the federal ground, even with fires is a problem.  Throw in seeing more bears than elk where the cows calve and calf survival is nasty.  Very hard to grow a herd when more die than are living past one year.  A tiny % of those calves breed there first year so living beyond age two is the only way to increase numbers.  Even with no cow seasons on public ground it is not happening.

Solution is get very serious about habitat where elk are preferred, public ground, and advertise (cheap tags, high cat quotas and more opportunity) the heck out of predator control on those public acres.  Not holding my breath

[dvolmer]

Some of these areas (Dayton) are hit pretty hard by the native hunters too.

[The100Road]

  and not just the Dayton area

[meatwhack]

Every unit in the blues with roads got considerably more popular with natives once WDFW started managing the area for quality. I’m not buying the winter having a significant effect on the elk numbers. They’ve been going down hill for several years and elk can handle the snow much better than deer