Hunting Washington Forum
Classifieds & Organizations => Where To Go - Partners - Hunt Swaps => Topic started by: Caveman123 on September 24, 2025, 10:44:55 AM
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Planning a trip over for elk and with online research it seems it’s one fire and covered in wolves. Anyone willing to share any general info such as if the elk tend to hangout low by the highway or on the ridge lines? Or if the elk heard has recovered at all? Been to Idaho I few times but this is a new area. I know boots on the ground is the best way but nothing wrong with a little fishing.
Thank you for any help
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Good luck with that. There’s a reason why there are always lolo tags available.
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Was part of a habitat survey there abouts in the early seventies and we predicted a crash that has happened, from a peak of 15,000 down to less than a 1,000 today with IDFG numbers. The study was with a wildlife biology class and the prediction was without predators being considered, just food. The cats, bears, coyotes and wolves add to the the crash. Good boots and great glass a must!!!
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It’s pretty country… hunted it once and it was the only trip I ever made to Idaho where I never saw an elk. Good luck.
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I spend a lot of time in there and all I can say is good luck ! Elk are where you find them . They could be in the river drainages all that way to the highest ridges and in between. It’s not on fire and the fires burning are tiny . Anyone that spends time in that country would like to see million acres burn. Habitat was a small part in the decline of the elk crash from 15-16k to 1,200 was not a coincidence that it started when wolves were released ! Losing 5-7k elk due to just habitat was reasonable. Reason IDFG flys it every winter and shoots wolves cause they are having an impact . When they added an apex predator to an ecosystem already having a healthy population of bears and cats what did they think was going to happen. Idaho will try and tell you cougars are responsible for the decline . I have probably 600-800k trail cam pics plus a ton of scouting and hunting time in there and I have 1 cat on cam ! In 8 years. I heard 2 around our tent one night. Latest numbers from IDFG is there is around 2,400-2,600 elk and if you look at the size of unit 10 and 12 that's not a lot of elk in that much terrain.
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Hardly any acres burned this year again in the zone. Had one fire I was hiking into daily and rooted for it to crank but never did. Elk have been hanging out in that fresh burn since then.
Gotta hunt your butt off, but the elk are there.
Contemplating buying a tag so I can chase bulls this fall on top of shooting a cow out of another unit.
Some long timers who’ve hunted the zone and have shot a bull nearly every year have told me if you ain’t 1-2k feet above the river by daylight you won’t be into the elk.
