Elk hunting in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest

[logger]

A few years ago the department of aggravation spent thousands of dollars on  a study of why the decrease of elk in the gifford, and when it was all said and done no logging was the problem, just like everybody was telling them all along for free. When there was logging they didn't have the elk problem in dowtown packwood like they do now.

[Bigshooter]

The best feed in the 513 and 516 is down town packwood.  And that's now joke.  Take a drive through town and you'll see elk.

[couesbitten]

Yes very hard to get thru alot of the areas undetected. there are a few open areas that i was able to find BUT far and few between. the snow really helped to find the fresh tacks ect. but always led to a wall of nasty wall of thick brush....... I really hope they are able to do some logging up there.

No logging in a wilderness area.

[Basket Rack]

I would like to know when logging operations will start again.

As long as we have the Endangered Species Act there will be little to no logging.  I would like to see a major fire that starts say just south of hwy 12 on the USFS prop. line and burns clear to Mt. Adams.

[logger]

I agree with that, let it burn thats the only way we will get good habitat again, when we used to log the national forest's there were elk everywhere, I don't think they need to go back to the heydays but they need to do something.

[elksnout]

Our party struggles to locate elk in our area in the GF. The clear cuts are all done now, save for a few peek a boo views. Pretty much a timber game so we about step on them when we do find 'em. On Thursday when the warden drove into camp to check our elk he said that he wished too that they would at least go in and thin the reprod to increase the feed which would bring back up the elk numbers. And this year there were way less hunters in there.

[haus]

Well I dunno about the whole of the GPNF, but I can provide some insight on the SE portion of it. Basically the Mt. Adams herd, South and east of Steamboat Rock in the GPNF.

I'd summarize hunting the Adams herd as being damn difficult until you put in a lot of time scouting. Sometimes just finding an elk is difficult let alone one you can put a bullet in.

In the GPNF there is a lot of area to pick through and all of it might hold some elk now and then, but it takes a lot of scouting to find the concentrated pockets. The Adams herd isn't very big and they have a ton of area to hide in.

We didn't have any luck this year but we came close several times, unfortunately we had to leave on Thursday just when I'd narrowed down a couple holding areas that I was confident could produce some success, since on Wednesday we chased they hell out of them. The snow hit hard on Tuesday and the elk locked up most of the day until late evening. I managed to sneak in on a herd, but I only got to stare frustratingly at a spike through my xhairs at 50yards. Wednesday was exciting, I was kinda like a Lab in the middle of a covey of quail, too many tracks going every which way lol. I got close to lots of elk all morning, but never got a legal bull in xhairs.

One thing I've learned about that area recently is that you have to be at the right elevation, which I applied this year and I was able to get close to elk every day. Though its hard to pinpoint them without a good snow. That's why it got so good for us on Wednesday. Without the snow they're scattered about and you can end up covering a ton of ground to no avail.

The Adams herd has been beat up bad by the amount of elk taken over last few years in the any elk units south of 560. Thankfully the WDFW ended that this year. They gave out many cow tags this year but at least there is a cap on the total take now. Poaching has done a lot of damage too, talked to some hunters that caught some brush pickers with elk stuffed under a heap of bear grass in their hauler in August. 

I've never seen much sign of cougars being around the area I hunt once the deer move out in September, but the bears are around in solid numbers.
Cut track of two bears on Wednesday within a few hundred yards of each other. Tailed one that I found mid day but the temps shot up and the snow was melting, lost him as he dropped elevation 

As for logging.....they're logging on the 23 south of the 90 junction and down the 500. 6x feller bunchers. Bout damn time too, this is the first active logging I've seen in the area we hunt in many years.
Those guys looked like they were bustin butt everyday to get done before the snow pushes them out.



Hope this helps

[logger]

yep those guy's are bustin ass, we are on schedule to do a sale up by baby shoe in the future, I drove the 23 on average of 4 times a week except when it was snowed out,and only saw an elk a couple of times and never up high either, I would like to see them do several small sales all over the gpnf, without habitat we have nothing and I am also with haus when those elk come down into the troutlake valley during muzzleloader they can get hammered, hopefully there will be a better qauility hunt in the future.

[fair-chase]

yep those guy's are bustin ass, we are on schedule to do a sale up by baby shoe in the future, I drove the 23 on average of 4 times a week except when it was snowed out,and only saw an elk a couple of times and never up high either, I would like to see them do several small sales all over the gpnf, without habitat we have nothing and I am also with haus when those elk come down into the troutlake valley during muzzleloader they can get hammered, hopefully there will be a better qauility hunt in the future.

I've found myself in the middle of those shootouts on more than one occasion. Seems like everytime I get into the elk over there so does the rest of the country. Has gotten to be worse than modern rifle the last 5 years. I hope the new three point min will bring some balance back to that area. It's a step in the right direction anyways. Now just need to get some trees cut. What are you waiting for get to work logger.

[logger]

We were on king mt. last year and I started feeling sorry for the elk, pretty high success rate that year, hell I ended up shootin a cow that had been gut shot, shot in the ass a couple times,poor thing just stood there begging to be put out her misery.

[fair-chase]

Yeah that herd and that hunt has really went downhill over the last few years. Good luck on your upcoming sales, that area needs some thinning done for sure.

[Wazukie]

Not many Elk in the South GF,  they all went east to the YNF

[GooNiEs]

yea i poked all over ... 23 myself this year...   from mp 31 to 22....  only elk i heard of were in dark meadow and sunrise point.. which got fogged out... on opener.....   i jumped a elk up top by 2325.. in the thick brush too hard to tell if it was a bull or not .. so thick just seen left rear hind qtr. .. heard the steam train after that... the elk tore out of there ... 

[Rdnkgirl88]

I just got back from Trout Lake last week. We hunted off of the 24 road mostly and saw 14 cows, we saw a lot of sign though. Only heard of maybe a dozen guys that got bulls.

[Magnum_Willys]

Indian Heaven:  Saw hundreds of tracks but the animals all stuck to the thick stuff and just moved around you in the crunchy snow.  Pretty tough to get a shot - they just live in the thick stuff during the day and there are hundreds of square miles of it.  Top of Indian Heaven was snowed in and very little stayed up there.   Success was about average - heard of about 8 bulls taken near us out of at least 100 hunters though probably double that number of hunters.    If you got a good look at a couple cows you were about average.   Cell tower going live next week up there - may be time to invest in a trail cam.