NE elk

[6x6rack]

I was thinking of going NE this year to hunt either sex (just a touch of bull fever last season ) and unless the hunting gods smile upon me with another permit...I am getting up there on Moose and Sheep points so who knows.

I have heard the elk are far and few between up there but when you find them it can be a good hunt. Anyone have any ideas or want to go on a scouting trip in a couple months once the snow melts? I know they have been hammered with snow up there this winter which wont help already hard to find herds but...I think I will take a peek.

I drove over to CleElum today and no one has seen elk down low for a couple weeks. I was surprised to see the fields almost empty of snow and just a touch on the higher hillsides. If this holds it will make shed hunting this year very interesting!

[vandeman17]

I know of a few areas that I whitetail hunt in and we always see elk. Like you said, they might not be in there thick but once you find them, its game on.

[Schwag173]

Try the area around the Wildlife Refuge just north of Chewelah.  The roads are gated and it's a hike, but that's why (I hear) it's worth hunting.

[coachcw]

be prepaired for a tough hunt , It can be gruelling

[True Sportsman]

Plan a few scouting trips. Look at lots of ground. Know the difference between moose rubs/tracks and elk rubs/tracks. Even with a lot of planning you are going to have to get lucky...

[bearpaw]

Plan a few scouting trips. Look at lots of ground. Know the difference between moose rubs/tracks and elk rubs/tracks. Even with a lot of planning you are going to have to get lucky...

I will echo this.... watch out for the moose sign, lots of guys waste time with moose sign. 

[buck man]

  No elk left in NE wa. Late Season cow hunt killed all breading stock. Stupid WDFW. Good Luck.

[Elkslayer]

Yep, no elk left in N/E Corner!  Now the wolves are starting to in on the last few remaining. I heard there are quite a few down in the blues though!

[huntnnw]

The only thing you will accomplish with scouting after the snow melts is, seeing the area, roads and terrain. I will gurantee any elk you find or sign will be long gone come Sept. The best thing you can do is find areas on maps you want to hunt, come over look them over. Then come hunting season be here atleast 2 days before it opens and scout, you find elk sign u gotta shot to be in them. These elk move alot, once pressured they move and most herds are 4-7 elk during the rut in NE corner

[go4itlab]

Don't bother stay out of the N/E Corner few and far and hard hunting

[TeacherMan]

The only thing you will accomplish with scouting after the snow melts is, seeing the area, roads and terrain. I will gurantee any elk you find or sign will be long gone come Sept. The best thing you can do is find areas on maps you want to hunt, come over look them over. Then come hunting season be here atleast 2 days before it opens and scout, you find elk sign u gotta shot to be in them. These elk move alot, once pressured they move and most herds are 4-7 elk during the rut in NE corner

good info, but don't waist your time, no elk in that corner 

[fightfire75]

I live in the NE and Last year our herd was dismantled. I mean ppl shot all the bulls.. I only heard of on cow being taking. Thanks to the WSFW the elk herd will be gone. gave over 30 special tags to a high end farmer.  That all they can do is shot and let lay... So hunt somewhere else I do I go 5 hours to hunt.

[Shed Stud]

All this talk about the NE is making me hungy, I'd better pull out some NE cow backstrap for dinner.MMmmmm good!

[TeacherMan]

I live in the NE and Last year our herd was dismantled. I mean ppl shot all the bulls.. I only heard of on cow being taking. Thanks to the WSFW the elk herd will be gone. gave over 30 special tags to a high end farmer.  That all they can do is shot and let lay... So hunt somewhere else I do I go 5 hours to hunt.

what do you mean let lay??? More info please

[huntnnw]

the whole herd.... NE corner is HUGE and thick! maybe your area got hit hard

[hoyt2002]

I seen the blue mentioned theres no elk left lots of wolves. I seem more of them then elk last year. I may go north next year.

[millertime89]

Yep, no elk left in N/E Corner!  Now the wolves are starting to in on the last few remaining. I heard there are quite a few down in the blues though!

There's no elk in the Blues!

[high country]

The ne can be fun hunt, I would not expect to shoot elk or even see elk without a lot of luck and effort. That said, we manage to kill a few every year. Some of us are reeeeeal lucky. Expect hard work and low odds of seeing elk and you will have a great time.

[dscubame]

NE corner holds NO ELK, they went the way of the BLUES.....Ziltch

[Tman]

NE corner holds NO ELK, they went the way of the BLUES.....Ziltch

I'm with dsc on this one, if you want to see elk on the eastside... The blues is the place or go to the westside, heard theres lots in winston.

[Sneaky]

I live in the NE and Last year our herd was dismantled. I mean ppl shot all the bulls.. I only heard of on cow being taking. Thanks to the WSFW the elk herd will be gone. gave over 30 special tags to a high end farmer.  That all they can do is shot and let lay... So hunt somewhere else I do I go 5 hours to hunt.

what do you mean let lay??? More info please

I have heard of orchardists who have permits to kill and let lay the deer that are damaging their crop. The idea is that the rotten smell with act as a deer-repellent... In my opinion the same objective could be accomplished with gut piles and leftovers from the local meat market!

[6x6rack]

We have a small piece of property up NE that we can hunt off of, lots of moose, bear and pig whitetails...the elk sign is there, but it looks like 3 herds of about 4-6 animals each over a large area, with no big bulls so to speak of. I would imagine anyone that knows of a honey hole up there closely guards the secret (or lets everyone know the obvious...there are NO elk in NE  !

I suppose a turkey hunt is in store with afternoons spent looking for last years rubs. If I can find those then Topo and Sat. photo's should fill in the blanks until Aug game cams take over. Never too early to start looking for next years opening morning draw!

Whats this about the landowner cow tag masacre? I haven't heard anything about that, and seein' as WDFW spent over $300,000 to transplant elk from Hanford over there just 4 years ago I cant believe they would go decimate the herd as it's just getting started? Details please!

[frostman]

Sounds to me like a lot of guys guarding a well kept secret. I would love to take the trek and go elkin'.

[CAMPMEAT]

Geeze ! All the elk in the NE have passports, that's what is wrong......
I hope I have everybody straightened out now.

[high country]

orchards.....farmers? we talkin' ne washington or ne clockum? you will starve to death before you find either of those up here in the corner.

[Skyvalhunter]

Yea me and a few buddies will be trying out the NE corner for elk and deer next fall. It should be a good hunt, looking forward to seing a few of you guys over there. 

[Shed Stud]

I live in the NE and Last year our herd was dismantled. I mean ppl shot all the bulls.. I only heard of on cow being taking. Thanks to the WSFW the elk herd will be gone. gave over 30 special tags to a high end farmer.  That all they can do is shot and let lay... So hunt somewhere else I do I go 5 hours to hunt.

what do you mean let lay??? More info please

I have heard of orchardists who have permits to kill and let lay the deer that are damaging their crop. The idea is that the rotten smell with act as a deer-repellent... In my opinion the same objective could be accomplished with gut piles and leftovers from the local meat market!

This BS is all hear-say,WDFW does not give out tags to "kill and let lay" damage hunt or not. If you hear or see this sort of BS going on, CALL IT IN! Sounds like there might be some rouge farmers doing whatever they please. This will stop if there is any truth to these statments.

[bearpaw]

I live in the NE and Last year our herd was dismantled. I mean ppl shot all the bulls.. I only heard of on cow being taking. Thanks to the WSFW the elk herd will be gone. gave over 30 special tags to a high end farmer.  That all they can do is shot and let lay... So hunt somewhere else I do I go 5 hours to hunt.

what do you mean let lay??? More info please

I have heard of orchardists who have permits to kill and let lay the deer that are damaging their crop. The idea is that the rotten smell with act as a deer-repellent... In my opinion the same objective could be accomplished with gut piles and leftovers from the local meat market!

This BS is all hear-say,WDFW does not give out tags to "kill and let lay" damage hunt or not. If you hear or see this sort of BS going on, CALL IT IN! Sounds like there might be some rouge farmers doing whatever they please. This will stop if there is any truth to these statments.

I have not heard of these exact scenarios either, but I do personally know farmers who do get depredation permits for deer eating their crops and they can give these to whomever they want who is a licensed hunter with a deer tag. I know for a fact that some elk depredation permits are given out too, but don't know how many. But all these depredation tags must be used by licensed hunters and the meat must be utilized.

If I am not mistaken when wild animals are destroying your property you can shoot to protect your property and call the WDFW to come and get them. If you are an unlicensed hunter or without a depredation permit if out of season, you cannot do anything with the animal, the WDFW will dispose them, but I would imagine you had better be ready to prove the damage and that you have tried to deter the damage. I have heard a few rumours and seen news reports of a few instances where this has happened through the years, but I don't think its a regularly occuring scenario. We have had woodpeckers causing damage to our house, we asked and were told to shoot them if the problem persisted, but we can't do anything with them.

It's a tough issue because some of these farmers are losing 20%-40% of their alfalfa crops when deer numbers are up. In many cases the deer live on neighboring property where the owner does not allow hunting, the deer come and eat the crops at night when they can't be hunted on the property suffering the damage. Yes there are cases where it seems like the landowner should allow hunting if they are having damage and getting payments for crop damage from the WDFW, but how would you like the state telling you that you have to allow hunters on your property. So the WDFW makes payments for crop damage and they issue depredation permits which must be used by licensed hunters. There may be some other things about these programs I don't know and obviously the system isn't perfect, but it helps deal with crop damage problems.

NE Elk Hunting
There are elk here in every GMU but there is a huge amount of country for them to hide in, so everyone guards their honey holes closely. There are a lot of areas with no elk at all, you will need to cover a lot of ground to locate elk and as others have said, you need to scout right before season. Because these elk can really hide in all this country, there are some big bulls if you can find them. To be honest, I think we have more moose than elk in many areas.

Northeast Elk Management & Politics
Many farmers do not want any elk here in Northeast WA and the WDFW wants to maintain NE WA as primary whitetail range. Many of our GMU's are either-sex elk units for these reasons. Many local hunters are pissed that the WDFW keeps allowing unlimited cow elk hunting. We could have awesome elk hunting here by now if the WDFW wasn't allowing every elk seen to be shot for the last 30+ years. Mostly due to public pressure from hunters, the WDFW has began to manage a few units with bull-only seasons (including the unit where the elk were transplanted from hanford), and in spite of either-sex hunting the elk numbers are slowly increasing in most other GMU's too. 

[huntnnw]

The last 10 years the elk have taken off in NE WA.  I remember growing up hunting these units and seeing elk was a feat!

[smartazz171]

Call me lucky.... But I KNOW there are big bulls up there.  But as stated by almost everyone, They are very hard to find.  Example= Living in Spokane and hunting elk in the NE region, I have spent hours upon hours in there.  Haven't connected yet... But Rifle season 4 years ago came across a 7x7.  Missed him.  switched to archery the next year.  Couldn't find a elk track in Sept. where that elk had been in Oct/Nov the year prior. In the last 3 years of archery, I've been within 50 yards of 7 bulls.  5 of which were 5x5's or better.  Point is I know my honey hole, and the area WELL. But once I over hunt that same herd, I have yet to be able to disconnect and locate other herds.  Moral of the story:   If you can spend massive time up there, you can have the best hunts of your life (as I have), But more than anything you will go days without ever seeing an elk, unless your lucky. 

[KimberRich]

There has been a few threads on this topic over the years and more than once someone says "know the difference between moose and elk sign/rubs".  Which seems to be great advice but not being an experienced Moose hunter, what is the main difference in the sign?  Rub height on the tree?  Turd shape/size?  I can see where it would be easy to get mixed up.

[Machias]

I got to WA in 1994, had never elk hunted before.  Looked at the map and found an area with few roads in or around it, headed up there.  Side road in I ran into a camper and a guy who looked just like the guy on Josie Wales movie with the big bug eyes, "Looks like we got ourselves Josie Wales!"  Scary    Anyways he says yep there a few elk here.  I go up the road and over the next four days I see and hear elk everyday, very nearly launch an arrow into a cow.  Seen a huge 6x6 bull.  Had a blast!  "This elk hunting's not so hard, for this savy eastern whitetail hunter.  What the heck are these guys talking about?"  "Look at all this sign too!"  Next year, go back to the same area, same massive amount of sign....not a peep, no sightings, nothing....oh all that sign is moose.     Next THREE years, I never see hide, nor hair of an elk in there.  Move to the middle part of the state and hunt the Manastash Unit.  Lots of elk, see LOTS of elk, hear LOTS of elk, also see and hear LOTS of friggen people and 4 wheelers and little Suzuki trucks and Jeeps.  Get sick of the circus and head to Idaho...Ahhhh  Blisssss

[BeeMan]

N/E elk are hunted way too heavily thats partly why heards are small and dont frequent the same areas from year to year!!  I killed a small 5x5 about 4 years ago in N/E (Pure luck...right place right time) after taging the elk and while gutting it, 3 other groups of hunters came over to investigate. Went back to the exact same spot for opening day the next year and counted 10 orange jackets from my vantage point at the head of the draw, 5 mins later shooting started about 500 yds away.  Bullets started flying from every direction... saw 2 elk go over the ridge where the shooting started from. All the hunters started off in the same direction, not kidding there were at least 25 hunters within about 600 yards of each other.  We didnt even bother to stick around. Heard from a friend later that the guy who finally dropped the bull said there were 5 different holes in it besides his kill shot, and he had quite a time with several other hunters trying to claim they killed the bull and he stole it out from underneath them. Everybodys got a friend, who tells a friend, who tells a friend, who tells.............................
I know several guys who regularly hunt Elk in the N/E year after year and eat there tags every year! 
Your chances for a successful hunt are better in other places.....

[huntnnw]

The small herds has to do with the extreme brush and timber in this part.. anywhere u get where it opens up you get bigger herds Eastern MT, Blues... I grew up my whole life here.. I remember starting to hunt when I was 9 to see a elk in NE WA was a feat! the last 10-12 years the elk herd has exploded in NE WA.. there are elk almost everywhere in the mountains here.. if there is any logging or old burns there are elk around

[high country]

There has been a few threads on this topic over the years and more than once someone says "know the difference between moose and elk sign/rubs".  Which seems to be great advice but not being an experienced Moose hunter, what is the main difference in the sign?  Rub height on the tree?  Turd shape/size?  I can see where it would be easy to get mixed up.

Track shape is the first dead giveaway....moose are quite pointed.  Droppings can very from one animal to the next in regards to size and shape with elk being able to get mistaken for deer and moose at times....but, moose live on brush....and their turds are just oversized wood pellets in content. Rubs will leave behind hair, moose are nearly jet black, elk can be dark too but almost always a shade of brown.