never hunted elk ?

[superdown]

I have never hunted elk before. I have hunted and been successful with Idaho/Wash. whitetail. I got a nice four point last year near colville. I'm not looking for a trophy or anything of that sort, i am just looking for a elk to put down for meat. Anywhere eastern or western is fine. I am mostly looking for an any elk area. It doesn't have to be anything easy, I just need a genreal area on where to go and where there is a good chance to fill the freezer. So if you guys could help me out that would be great.

[STIKNSTRINGBOW]

what weapon?

[superdown]

Rifle

[shoot-em-dead]

We require pics and storys of said whitails

[superdown]

I only have pics of the colville buck i'll put them up in the morning  .

[bobcat]

To give yourself an idea of the units with the most elk, look at the harvest reports on the WDFW site. That's about all you can do. I wouldn't so much look at success rates as I would number of elk killed per unit. The units with the highest number of elk killed every year are the ones you'll want to look at. The "any elk" units are either not that great, or very dependent on the weather, and I wouldn't recommend them. I'd be looking at a bull only unit.

Now as you are probably aware, east of the Cascades is spike only hunting unless you draw a special permit. So you can eliminate that from your consideration. Odds are too low if you're wanting to harvest an elk.

You will want to stay on the west side. Which means hunting around Mt St Helens or Mt Adams, or the Willapa Hills, or the Olympic Peninsula. So just take a look at the harvest reports and look at units in those areas. It will be strictly Region 5 and Region 6.

[superdown]

Here are the pics of my colville deer and the story, I was staying at a flea bag motel in Loon Lake, WA just north of Spokane. We hunted around Loon Lake for 2 day and saw absolutely nothing. Every other hunter was getting up at ridiculous hours like 4 in the morning and having there morning meeting right out side our door (my dad wanted to get up and tell them we have the same amount of deer in our truck as you do which is nothing so go back to bed.)lol with every other word out of their mouth was an F bomb my dad was not happy with having to listen to that. We very leisurely got up and got cleaned up and ate breakfast. We got on the road about 9:30 am and went about 40 miles north up around colville. Found some public land that look promising. We parked and got out and went down a gated logging road. We went in about a quarter a mile both my dad and i heard some deer stomping we walked a little further and jumped two does and this buck to our left. I took a shot at the buck and missed i followed it across the field and across the road up one hill and down another. Got up to the top of the next small hill after taking a few calming deep breaths, creeped over the top of the ridge started looking over the hill and saw the deer walking up a game trail heading NE angle to me. I knelt down and put one round of 325 wsm 220 grain power point right behind his left shoulder it went about 10 yards and fell over on the trail. My guess was it was about 60 to 70 yard shot. After shooting it we had to drag it out about a 1/2 mile through a drainage to the road. No the gun is not pointing at me. Crappy cell pics

[WAPITIHUNTER]

Nice Buck! Congrat's.

[superdown]

do i need any calls or anything or can i get by without them what are some basic pieces of equipment that i would need that a deer hunter wouldn't have . is the Randal/packwood area worth trying .

[bobcat]

You might want to have a cow call. A bugle won't help much as you won't be hunting during the rut.

[superdown]

what do you guys think of the gmu's 520 winston and 560 lewis river ? looking at the latest harvest report for modern those seem to have the highest harvest numbers .

[adam.WI]

There's elk there but the #'s are skewed because there is a lot of hunters as well. I would say any where you go that has elk in that region is as good as any so long as you actually hunt and don't just drive the roads.

[bobcat]

Those two are as good as any. There's always going to be a lot of hunters in areas where there are a lot of elk. You have to hunt where the elk are.

[Crunchy]

I hunted the Winston unit for the first time last year, the key to seeing elk is to get away from the road and back into the timber.  You'll need some decent maps, find an area isolated from roads and get to hiking.

[ELKBURGER]

The 520 and 560 both hold large populations of elk, I've killed elk in both. The down side is lots of hunters. Follow any advice that starts with "get as far away from the roads as possible". Good binos, good boots, a compass/ gps, and a cow call. Alot of that country is brushy but thats why theres alot of elk