Hunting Washington Forum
Big Game Hunting => Elk Hunting => Topic started by: Fireant11 on December 23, 2023, 11:40:56 AM
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I'm going to be moving up to the Port Angeles/Sequim area in a couple of years and was curious about the elk hunting in that area. I'm currently down in the Puyallup area and have been hunting the eastside (Nile, Bumping, Rimrock, Manatash) since about 2000. Does anyone have any experience with elk hunting in the Sol Duc unit (GMU 607). Wondering how you've done. I hunt either archery or modern firearm (depending on my work schedule).
Is it worth checking out?
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The upper peninsula that wraps around the NW corner tends to have lower elk densities. Harvest statistics will show that in comparison to the SW of the state. There are bruisers in that country, but finding elk can be tough in a 1-3 day window. If you can scout and run cameras then you’ll be better off.
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Per local elk hunters.......Archery is more productive than Modern Firearm since the earlier hunters will have them off in the steep and deep........and then you have to find areas that you can actually be allowed to hunt on.
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Yes it's worth checking out.
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I grew up there, hunted it a lot. Things to keep in mind are there are the Jamestown S’klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Elwha, Makah, Quileute, Quinault, and Hoh tribes on the peninsula. The shortest season for any of them is August 1 - December 31 for elk, with a rifle. Anything accessible by truck or E-bike gets hunted hard. They can also hunt anything with a spike on it for a general tag and have a lot of antlerless tags. Your units are 3pt minimum. I have gotten on a lot of herds 45+ head with no bulls in them.
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I grew up there, hunted it a lot. Things to keep in mind are there are the Jamestown S’klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Elwha, Makah, Quileute, Quinault, and Hoh tribes on the peninsula. The shortest season for any of them is August 1 - December 31 for elk, with a rifle. Anything accessible by truck or E-bike gets hunted hard. They can also hunt anything with a spike on it for a general tag and have a lot of antlerless tags. Your units are 3pt minimum. I have gotten on a lot of herds 45+ head with no bulls in them.
Last year I spent opening archery up there on the peninsula, located a big herd with 4 legal bulls 2 hours behind the gate up a nasty grade day before the opener. Hour into first light opening day and I bump into three tribal hunters on e-bikes with rifles. I pulled out and relocated to a different walk-in only area. No sense in trying to compete with a bow and peddle bike.
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It can be crowded at times. It's kind of steep in a lot of the unit, so the flat areas the elk kind of like to congregate are kind of known to many people. And being relatively close to port Angeles, it's a first stop only stop for many. In units farther off, people don't want to do that drive daily, and when it rains a lot, camps just pack up and leave. Then you get a break near the end. For sol duc, since many hunters are going back to their homes each night, the rain isn't as big of a deal. So if the weather improves the last couple days, it has a ton of people again.
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Thanks everyone for your inputs, I appreciate it! Sounds like I might be better off making the drive to the east-side and hunt my normal areas.
Merry Christmas all!
