Selway Hunt Overview

123efd2

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 2, 2019
Messages
131
Hey guys, Here is all the info learned from my recent selway elk hunt me and my buddy did in ID. It is intentionally vague as I will be returning to hunt here again. Thank you to everyone that provided info to help me scout and plan when I was researching hunting out here. I just wanted to write this up for others who are interesting in hunting this area. I apologize in advance for the length. The below are only representative of my opinions based on my experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Couple of things to note about the hunt:
1. Between my and my buddy hunting separate seasons, we hunted 35 unique days in the field.
2. Hiked a total of 250 miles.
3. First day hunted/scouted: 9/12. Last day hunted: 10.30.
4. Hunted Unit 19 primarily with some time spent in Unit 20.
5. We did not kill elk. For my buddy's tag, that one is on him. He had 3 bulls preseason and just didn't hunt hard enough to kill one. He didn't put in the training required and was not in good enough shape to get to em. For my tag, I was in elk 4 times, 3 were just after dark due to the brightest full moon, I've ever seen. 1 was my fault. I made a bad move trying to close and messed up the stalk.
6. Located 6 total bulls for the hunt. 1 was somewhere I couldn't have gotten him out of. 1 was killed 2nd day by another hunter. 1 was shot at 4th day by another hunter and never relocated. The other 3 are probably still there somewhere.

Couple things to note about the area:
It was an extremely wet year according to Biologists. Water sources were everywhere including up high. I never climbed more than a 1000 ft for water.
It was extremely hot both in early season and mid season.

My pre-hunt assumptions/information gleaned from biologists/other hunters kind enough to share information.
1. Wolves are prominent in the area and impact elk behavior. My experience: I did not see a wolf, hear a wolf, see a track, see scat, or any other sign that wolves are real. If they are there, they had no impact on my hunt.

Edit: since people really seemed concerned about this comment. A different way to say that would be: I have hunted elk in areas with wolves and without wolves. I was able to get into elk in the Selway using the same tactics, thought process, etc. I used to get into elk when I hunted areas without wolves. So the presence of wolves in the Selway did not impact how I approached and executed my hunt.

2. Thermal cover is important. My experience: this is true if unhelpful. Glassing is practically a waste of time unless you are in a burn. The elk stick very tight to thermal cover and I was never able to glass one at distance.
3. Knowing your biology is important. My experience: This is true. Toxic weeds are an issue in this zone. If I was not capable of recognizing productive forage vs unproductive, I would have hunted areas with toxic weeds, etc. Highly recommend talking to as many biologists as possible and studying up on plant identification.
4. They don't really bugle as much. My experience: this is true. We only heard a few bugles pre-season and never heard any in season. I believe this was due to weather not actually the area itself. I know of two bulls killed the 1st and 2nd day of season, that were killed by bugling but that was it.
5. Elk densities are very low. My experience: this is true. I'm not sure if this due to actual densities actually being low or due to the sheer amount of terrain and the difficulty hunting it. Note that they have not done population surveys here since 2007 so IDFG doesn't know either. My biggest takeaway from this is that any elk sign is an indication that elk are in the area. A single fresh bed, one or two fresh crisp tracks, one pile of fresh scat was sufficient for me to hunt an area. If you spend your time looking for heavy elk sign, you will not find it and will think an area is devoid of elk.
6. Elk herds are smaller. My experience: this is true. I never once found or heard or found sign of an elk herd bigger than 8 animals and most 2-5.
7. Getting away from outfitters and horse hunters is hard. My experience: Meh. I can see areas where this would be true but I never felt like I was competing with other hunters. The terrain and low density of elk preclude people really bunching up on each other.
8. This is the most physical hunt you will ever do. My experience: this is true. I've hunted the Chugach in Alaska a lot and can climb 2-3k ft up and down per day in some pretty steep country. This is worse than that. I never felt like I needed climbing gear to be successful (although I did cliff out twice) but hunting the canyons here requires 3-4k vertical ft down and back up per day at a 60 degree grade or worse.


My takeaways:
1. Hunt the freshest sign you can find. Even one good bull track is worth hunting.
2. Be prepared to hike 4k vertical ft down and back up per day. The elk are in the canyons primarily.
3. Glassing is a waste of time. Go to still hunt or don't go at all.
4. Hunt the meadows and know how to talk to the elk.
5. Talk to as many hunters as possible. There aren't that many x's in the area so knowing where bulls have been killed could be the key between killing a bull and hunting an empty meadow.
6. Keep an eye on the weather. Once it snows a lot of those roads are going to be unsafe.

If you want to kill an elk, go somewhere else. If you want an epic hunt, with epic terrain to truly test yourself in, this is the place to do it.
 
Last edited:
OP
123efd2

123efd2

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 2, 2019
Messages
131
Wolves: If they are there they had no impact.

They don’t really bugle as much.

Elk densities are low.

Yes, they did have an impact.
Elk Densities have been low since 2007. Wolves may be the reason Elk densities lowered but wolves had no direct impact on my hunt in style of hunting or any perceivable impact on elk behavior in the area I hunted. 35 days in the woods and not one track, howl, or piece of scat. Wolves may have been or may still be a problem but I did not encounter any evidence to suggest they are as bad currently as I was led to believe.
 

sneaky

"DADDY"
Joined
Feb 1, 2014
Messages
10,015
Location
ID
Wolves are extremely good at staying out of sight. F&G aren't going to do a population survey in there now because they wouldn't be able to sell tags if they did. Talk to hunters that hunted in there before the wolves were introduced in the mid 90s and compare to what you saw in there now. It's the same story as in the Frank. If you didn't see wolf sign, you didn't see fresh elk sign either. Wolves can't eat trees and rocks. Find elk, find wolves. Find wolves, elk are going to be in the area as well.
 
OP
123efd2

123efd2

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 2, 2019
Messages
131
Wolves are extremely good at staying out of sight. F&G aren't going to do a population survey in there now because they wouldn't be able to sell tags if they did. Talk to hunters that hunted in there before the wolves were introduced in the mid 90s and compare to what you saw in there now. It's the same story as in the Frank. If you didn't see wolf sign, you didn't see fresh elk sign either. Wolves can't eat trees and rocks. Find elk, find wolves. Find wolves, elk are going to be in the area as well.
We were in elk 8 days between the 2 of us so I'm not sure I'd agree with that. I'm aware that wolves were definitely a problem 20-30 years ago but thats not a good basis for the current state and I'm just offering another perspective other potential hunters. Also, there are good #s of deer there so I don't know if the wolves are down to trees and rocks yet. I doubt IDFG bases their surveys off selling selway tags since they don't sell out anyway. I'd guess it'd have something more to do with the fact that the doing elk surveys in areas that are nothing but pine isn't exactly effective not to mention its not exactly a secret that the selway zone is tough hunting.

Just my experience. Your mileage may vary. Good luck out there.
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2022
Messages
5
Hey guys, Here is all the info learned from my recent selway elk hunt me and my buddy did in ID. It is intentionally vague as I will be returning to hunt here again. Thank you to everyone that provided info to help me scout and plan when I was researching hunting out here. I just wanted to write this up for others who are interesting in hunting this area. I apologize in advance for the length. The below are only representative of my opinions based on my experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Couple of things to note about the hunt:
1. Between my and my buddy hunting separate seasons, we hunted 35 unique days in the field.
2. Hiked a total of 250 miles.
3. First day hunted/scouted: 9/12. Last day hunted: 10.30.
4. Hunted Unit 19 primarily with some time spent in Unit 20.
5. We did not kill elk. For my buddy's tag, that one is on him. He had 3 bulls preseason and just didn't hunt hard enough to kill one. He didn't put in the training required and was not in good enough shape to get to em. For my tag, I was in elk 4 times, 3 were just after dark due to the brightest full moon, I've ever seen. 1 was my fault. I made a bad move trying to close and messed up the stalk.
6. Located 6 total bulls for the hunt. 1 was somewhere I couldn't have gotten him out of. 1 was killed 2nd day by another hunter. 1 was shot at 4th day by another hunter and never relocated. The other 3 are probably still there somewhere.

Couple things to note about the area:
It was an extremely wet year according to Biologists. Water sources were everywhere including up high. I never climbed more than a 1000 ft for water.
It was extremely hot both in early season and mid season.

My pre-hunt assumptions/information gleaned from biologists/other hunters kind enough to share information.
1. Wolves are prominent in the area and impact elk behavior. My experience: I did not see a wolf, hear a wolf, see a track, see scat, or any other sign that wolves are real. If they are there, they had no impact on my hunt.
2. Thermal cover is important. My experience: this is true if unhelpful. Glassing is practically a waste of time unless you are in a burn. The elk stick very tight to thermal cover and I was never able to glass one at distance.
3. Knowing your biology is important. My experience: This is true. Toxic weeds are an issue in this zone. If I was not capable of recognizing productive forage vs unproductive, I would have hunted areas with toxic weeds, etc. Highly recommend talking to as many biologists as possible and studying up on plant identification.
4. They don't really bugle as much. My experience: this is true. We only heard a few bugles pre-season and never heard any in season. I believe this was due to weather not actually the area itself. I know of two bulls killed the 1st and 2nd day of season, that were killed by bugling but that was it.
5. Elk densities are very low. My experience: this is true. I'm not sure if this due to actual densities actually being low or due to the sheer amount of terrain and the difficulty hunting it. Note that they have not done population surveys here since 2007 so IDFG doesn't know either. My biggest takeaway from this is that any elk sign is an indication that elk are in the area. A single fresh bed, one or two fresh crisp tracks, one pile of fresh scat was sufficient for me to hunt an area. If you spend your time looking for heavy elk sign, you will not find it and will think an area is devoid of elk.
6. Elk herds are smaller. My experience: this is true. I never once found or heard or found sign of an elk herd bigger than 8 animals and most 2-5.
7. Getting away from outfitters and horse hunters is hard. My experience: Meh. I can see areas where this would be true but I never felt like I was competing with other hunters. The terrain and low density of elk preclude people really bunching up on each other.
8. This is the most physical hunt you will ever do. My experience: this is true. I've hunted the Chugach in Alaska a lot and can climb 2-3k ft up and down per day in some pretty steep country. This is worse than that. I never felt like I needed climbing gear to be successful (although I did cliff out twice) but hunting the canyons here requires 3-4k vertical ft down and back up per day at a 60 degree grade or worse.


My takeaways:
1. Hunt the freshest sign you can find. Even one good bull track is worth hunting.
2. Be prepared to hike 4k vertical ft down and back up per day. The elk are in the canyons primarily.
3. Glassing is a waste of time. Go to still hunt or don't go at all.
4. Hunt the meadows and know how to talk to the elk.
5. Talk to as many hunters as possible. There aren't that many x's in the area so knowing where bulls have been killed could be the key between killing a bull and hunting an empty meadow.
6. Keep an eye on the weather. Once it snows a lot of those roads are going to be unsafe.

If you want to kill an elk, go somewhere else. If you want an epic hunt, with epic terrain to truly test yourself in, this is the place to do it.
we hunted 17. The sign we saw was old. We came in second week, I am sure what was close to camping area had been pushed out. I learned a lot, may try it again. Was a brutal and awesome area. We have been thinking of different areas but that place was magic. May try different unit in Selway though.
 

CorbLand

WKR
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
Messages
6,556
We were in elk 8 days between the 2 of us so I'm not sure I'd agree with that. I'm aware that wolves were definitely a problem 20-30 years ago but thats not a good basis for the current state and I'm just offering another perspective other potential hunters. Also, there are good #s of deer there so I don't know if the wolves are down to trees and rocks yet. I doubt IDFG bases their surveys off selling selway tags since they don't sell out anyway. I'd guess it'd have something more to do with the fact that the doing elk surveys in areas that are nothing but pine isn't exactly effective not to mention its not exactly a secret that the selway zone is tough hunting.

Just my experience. Your mileage may vary. Good luck out there.
Grew up hunting the Selway for bears. We never saw wolves in there until 2007ish. Family and friends have been hunting that since the 70s. Wolves were not a problem 20-30 years ago. They have been a problem for the last 10-12.

20-30 years ago was when they reintroduced wolves to that area. They dumped 35 wolves off in central Idaho. You really think that 35 wolves in central Idaho was more devastating than the hundreds there are in the Selway zone now?

Not trying to be an asshole or argue but 35 days in an area is not a good base line to say something didn’t have an affect when you can’t even fathom what is was like 35 years ago.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 17, 2013
Messages
2,254
Grew up hunting the Selway for bears. We never saw wolves in there until 2007ish. Family and friends have been hunting that since the 70s. Wolves were not a problem 20-30 years ago. They have been a problem for the last 10-12.

20-30 years ago was when they reintroduced wolves to that area. They dumped 35 wolves off in central Idaho. You really think that 35 wolves in central Idaho was more devastating than the hundreds there are in the Selway zone now?

Not trying to be an asshole or argue but 35 days in an area is not a good base line to say something didn’t have an affect when you can’t even fathom what is was like 35 years ago.
Agree! I watched it go down the crapper from 1999 to 2010. Unreal.

Also you can’t really say the hunting is “good” unless you’ve hunted other places and have something to compare to. In relation to where I hunt now in Wyoming elk hunting in the Selway is freakin horrible! It’s not even good compared to the Montana units just east of that in the Bitterroot.
 

freddyG

WKR
Joined
Jan 25, 2020
Messages
355
Everything is relative. If you hunted there in the 90’s, you would be asking “what happened to all the elk?”
 
OP
123efd2

123efd2

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 2, 2019
Messages
131
Grew up hunting the Selway for bears. We never saw wolves in there until 2007ish. Family and friends have been hunting that since the 70s. Wolves were not a problem 20-30 years ago. They have been a problem for the last 10-12.

20-30 years ago was when they reintroduced wolves to that area. They dumped 35 wolves off in central Idaho. You really think that 35 wolves in central Idaho was more devastating than the hundreds there are in the Selway zone now?

Not trying to be an asshole or argue but 35 days in an area is not a good base line to say something didn’t have an affect when you can’t even fathom what is was like 35 years ago.
Lmao. Please see disclaimer in my original post. Your mileage may vary. To be very clear. I never said wolves haven't impacted the elk population over the past 30 years. No one is debating that. I said wolves did not seem to (key word seem to) affect the elk behavior of the elk I hunted. As I said in my original post, all information is merely my experience for others to use as they will. Good luck out there!
 
Last edited:

Ralphie

WKR
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
340
Reading your list of experiences I would come to a different conclusion about wolves.

Are you saying elk avoid areas with toxic plants? If so which plants?
 

Wrench

WKR
Joined
Aug 23, 2018
Messages
5,594
Location
WA
Wolves reduce elk population, which reduce hunter interest, which reduces hunter presence both during hunting and scouting seasons....which reduces pressure on wolves which cycles over and over until they can't make a living in that area....because the elk are gone.
 

magnum

FNG
Joined
Apr 25, 2013
Messages
24
OP,

Thank you for taking the time to recap. It was a good perspective and well written.

I have never looked into this area before. I am interested in it now. Thank you for bringing it into the light.
 
OP
123efd2

123efd2

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 2, 2019
Messages
131
Reading your list of experiences I would come to a different conclusion about wolves.

Are you saying elk avoid areas with toxic plants? If so which plants?
Spotted Napweed is the big one. From my experience, elk will not be in areas where it is prevalent. Be able to recognize it and know when to pull out because it is the main forage you see.
 
Joined
Feb 23, 2021
Messages
74
Hey guys, Here is all the info learned from my recent selway elk hunt me and my buddy did in ID. It is intentionally vague as I will be returning to hunt here again. Thank you to everyone that provided info to help me scout and plan when I was researching hunting out here. I just wanted to write this up for others who are interesting in hunting this area. I apologize in advance for the length. The below are only representative of my opinions based on my experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Couple of things to note about the hunt:
1. Between my and my buddy hunting separate seasons, we hunted 35 unique days in the field.
2. Hiked a total of 250 miles.
3. First day hunted/scouted: 9/12. Last day hunted: 10.30.
4. Hunted Unit 19 primarily with some time spent in Unit 20.
5. We did not kill elk. For my buddy's tag, that one is on him. He had 3 bulls preseason and just didn't hunt hard enough to kill one. He didn't put in the training required and was not in good enough shape to get to em. For my tag, I was in elk 4 times, 3 were just after dark due to the brightest full moon, I've ever seen. 1 was my fault. I made a bad move trying to close and messed up the stalk.
6. Located 6 total bulls for the hunt. 1 was somewhere I couldn't have gotten him out of. 1 was killed 2nd day by another hunter. 1 was shot at 4th day by another hunter and never relocated. The other 3 are probably still there somewhere.

Couple things to note about the area:
It was an extremely wet year according to Biologists. Water sources were everywhere including up high. I never climbed more than a 1000 ft for water.
It was extremely hot both in early season and mid season.

My pre-hunt assumptions/information gleaned from biologists/other hunters kind enough to share information.
1. Wolves are prominent in the area and impact elk behavior. My experience: I did not see a wolf, hear a wolf, see a track, see scat, or any other sign that wolves are real. If they are there, they had no impact on my hunt.

Edit: since people really seemed concerned about this comment. A different way to say that would be: I have hunted elk in areas with wolves and without wolves. I was able to get into elk in the Selway using the same tactics, thought process, etc. I used to get into elk when I hunted areas without wolves. So the presence of wolves in the Selway did not impact how I approached and executed my hunt.

2. Thermal cover is important. My experience: this is true if unhelpful. Glassing is practically a waste of time unless you are in a burn. The elk stick very tight to thermal cover and I was never able to glass one at distance.
3. Knowing your biology is important. My experience: This is true. Toxic weeds are an issue in this zone. If I was not capable of recognizing productive forage vs unproductive, I would have hunted areas with toxic weeds, etc. Highly recommend talking to as many biologists as possible and studying up on plant identification.
4. They don't really bugle as much. My experience: this is true. We only heard a few bugles pre-season and never heard any in season. I believe this was due to weather not actually the area itself. I know of two bulls killed the 1st and 2nd day of season, that were killed by bugling but that was it.
5. Elk densities are very low. My experience: this is true. I'm not sure if this due to actual densities actually being low or due to the sheer amount of terrain and the difficulty hunting it. Note that they have not done population surveys here since 2007 so IDFG doesn't know either. My biggest takeaway from this is that any elk sign is an indication that elk are in the area. A single fresh bed, one or two fresh crisp tracks, one pile of fresh scat was sufficient for me to hunt an area. If you spend your time looking for heavy elk sign, you will not find it and will think an area is devoid of elk.
6. Elk herds are smaller. My experience: this is true. I never once found or heard or found sign of an elk herd bigger than 8 animals and most 2-5.
7. Getting away from outfitters and horse hunters is hard. My experience: Meh. I can see areas where this would be true but I never felt like I was competing with other hunters. The terrain and low density of elk preclude people really bunching up on each other.
8. This is the most physical hunt you will ever do. My experience: this is true. I've hunted the Chugach in Alaska a lot and can climb 2-3k ft up and down per day in some pretty steep country. This is worse than that. I never felt like I needed climbing gear to be successful (although I did cliff out twice) but hunting the canyons here requires 3-4k vertical ft down and back up per day at a 60 degree grade or worse.


My takeaways:
1. Hunt the freshest sign you can find. Even one good bull track is worth hunting.
2. Be prepared to hike 4k vertical ft down and back up per day. The elk are in the canyons primarily.
3. Glassing is a waste of time. Go to still hunt or don't go at all.
4. Hunt the meadows and know how to talk to the elk.
5. Talk to as many hunters as possible. There aren't that many x's in the area so knowing where bulls have been killed could be the key between killing a bull and hunting an empty meadow.
6. Keep an eye on the weather. Once it snows a lot of those roads are going to be unsafe.

If you want to kill an elk, go somewhere else. If you want an epic hunt, with epic terrain to truly test yourself in, this is the place to do it.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I spent the last two seasons in the Selway (Same area, from what I gather.) and I think you are spot on with your assessments. It's brutal country and the numbers can feel dismal, but if you are willing to put in the time and learn it, typically over a few years, it is a solid area.

I still can't believe how small my recorded onX tracks look on a map when I know it was a 14 hour day afield, haha.
 
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