Washington state woes

[wcasey755]

So the title says it all, man I struggle with elk. I consider myself a pretty efficient blacktail hunter. Even have a nice buck with a recurve. I kill ducks, bobcats, coyotes. But man that elk eludes me. I hunt the coweeman unit in cowlitz county. My question for all my Washington peeps. The numbers where I’m at are low, the hoofrot is high. Can anyone point me in a direction? Anywhere in Washington. I don’t want OnX waypoints or honey holes. Units? I just want to have a better opportunity than 6%. Even just being able to see more sign would lift my spirits. I don’t want any trophy class animal. Just a better chance at a legal bull. I’ve looked at harvest reports but it’s hard to tell what has draw only or no public access. So I thought I’d check here first. I just Bring one home to my three year old girl next year (shameless pandering).

 

[Thejet]

Probably not going to find anyone on here that’s willing to point you to a unit. If you put a little effort in you can find unit by unit harvest stats and cross off areas with higher hoof rot.
Do some research this off season and put yourself in a unit with higher success, higher population, and less hoof rot. Scouting the place you picked wouldn’t hurt either.

 

[eightyeight mag]

Elk hunting is hard.
It’s been 6-8% success rate for years in general hunt units. Well before the hoof rot debacle.

Hoof rot has been significantly reduced due to the mass culling by the wdfw. Cow tags have been mostly eliminated in SW Wa to rebuild herds.

You still have 5 days left in the season to go out and find your bull. They are out there for guys willing to work.

 

[wcasey755]

Elk hunting is hard.
It’s been 6-8% success rate for years in general hunt units. Well before the hoof rot debacle.

Hoof rot has been significantly reduced due to the mass culling by the wdfw. Cow tags have been mostly eliminated in SW Wa to rebuild herds.

You still have 5 days left in the season to go out and find your bull. They are out there for guys willing to work.

While I agree. Hoofrot is far from gone and it makes hunting a area null and void unless you want to roll the dice on that meat. I definetly do have five days left and im going to use them! this season has just been defeating.

 

[wcasey755]

Probably not going to find anyone on here that’s willing to point you to a unit. If you put a little effort in you can find unit by unit harvest stats and cross off areas with higher hoof rot.
Do some research this off season and put yourself in a unit with higher success, higher population, and less hoof rot. Scouting the place you picked wouldn’t hurt either.

Ive been working on that but where can you find statistics for hoofrot to cross refrence units? I am doing research, I just thought someone might be extra nice and cut the time off it.

 

[Thejet]

You can find areas listed that are worst than others. You would have to overlay the areas vs units as I didn’t find anywhere they broke it down to a unit level.