ID Archery Season--Help Me Choose a Zone?

[MartyHikes]

Hey guys, just getting started elk hunting. I've got all the gear I need to do my first archery hunt in the backcountry, and I'm a backpacker, so I'm used to carrying loads at moderate elevation. I'm getting started on this now so I can train for higher elevations as well before I head out for bow season. I just don't know where to start, geographically speaking. From everything I've read (Backcountry Chronicles and stuff like that), it seems like in ID they just want you to pick a zone and go there, and there's not much help from the Fish and Game folks when you're trying to decide. Any help for a beginner to get the ball rolling on choosing a zone?

 

[OG DramaLlama]

Take a look at the hunt planner from Idaho Fish & Game.

Idaho Hunt Planner | Idaho Fish and Game

You can breakdown each zone by its statistics. Harvest, draw odds, hunter numbers, public land %. You an get most of this data converted to excel as well.

Idaho offers a lot of variety to the elk hunter......Desert in the south, to heavy timber in the North. We also have the Church if you really want to get “backcountry”.

You could also look at a paid subscription service as well, I use goHunt, to get this in a more convenient way.


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[MartyHikes]

Wow, that's awesome. I had never found anything like that. I'll definitely give it a look. I don't know that I want to pay for a subscription, unless it's a pretty reasonable price. I'm on a shoestring budget, unfortunately. Thanks, I really appreciate the tip!

 

[mcdogdoc]

Wow, that's awesome. I had never found anything like that. I'll definitely give it a look. I don't know that I want to pay for a subscription, unless it's a pretty reasonable price. I'm on a shoestring budget, unfortunately. Thanks, I really appreciate the tip!

Hi there, maybe you already know about elk101 university of elk hunting online course, but if not it's pretty informative. I'm new to elk hunting as well and I pulled the trigger and signed up for the course. Very well put together and lots of good info. You probably could find most of the info on there scattered about the internet but it's really well done and worth the money. It does go over scouting and what not to try and locate an area to hunt. Just a thought.


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[idahohikker]

What are you looking for? Trophy quality? Elk numbers? Low hunting pressure? Heavily timbered? Which part of state?

 

[ZeroTucker]

What are you looking for? Trophy quality? Elk numbers? Low hunting pressure? Heavily timbered? Which part of state?

I have more or less the same question as the OP so I'll bite...

Let's say the Northern half of Idaho, maybe draw an east/west line at Stanley and anything north of that.

Timbered or not - well, I have never hunted Idaho but am looking for something better than Spike rocky mountain bulls in Eastern Washington and tons of people crammed into Western Washington for Roosevelts.

Low hunting pressure with decent elk numbers over trophy quality. I am planning a 9 or 10 night backpack archery hunt for 2018 and am a little overwhelmed with the amount of public land available... I would like to spend my days covering country and bivy hunting and be into elk that are willing to bugle. Not much room to do that in Western Washington, you can work your tail off and get 10 miles deep and will most likely run into hikers that hate that you're hunting, 2 or 3 horse camps and half a dozen small groups that backpacked in with the same idea you had...

 

[ZeroTucker]

I have more or less the same question as the OP so I'll bite...

Let's say the Northern half of Idaho, maybe draw an east/west line at Stanley and anything north of that.

Timbered or not - well, I have never hunted Idaho but am looking for something better than Spike rocky mountain bulls in Eastern Washington and tons of people crammed into Western Washington for Roosevelts.

Low hunting pressure with decent elk numbers over trophy quality. I am planning a 9 or 10 night backpack archery hunt for 2018 and am a little overwhelmed with the amount of public land available... I would like to spend my days covering country and bivy hunting and be into elk that are willing to bugle. Not much room to do that in Western Washington, you can work your tail off and get 10 miles deep and will most likely run into hikers that hate that you're hunting, 2 or 3 horse camps and half a dozen small groups that backpacked in with the same idea you had...

I'll add that I've narrowed my choices down to Lolo, Dworshak and Elk City zones based on opportunity for Spring Bear, General Deer tags and Elk. Those 3 zones had the best elk harvest numbers in 2016.... I hear Lolo is a demanding hunt, makes me want to start there!

 

[idahohikker]

Sorry, I don't know Northern Idaho. Good luck.

 

[SWOHTR]

N Idaho is rugged country...pretty much all of it! Not much opportunity for glassing and a lot of hiking. Also, a lot of logging roads (think bottom, top, and middle of most mountains).

An area I haven't had the chance to hunt is Unit 9 out by Surveyor's Ridge. Been there to look and it is some seriously beautiful and rugged country.

Freezeout Ridge is quite popular.

 

[Tywoods]

From what you described above, wanting to cover ground and having never hunted this part of Idaho, I would look at the Dworshak Zone, 10A, or unit 10 of the Lolo zone. These units offer plenty of road-less area, but also have some logging made roads that a guy can cover ground at night to locate bulls. 10A lends itself to being more mobile and being able to spike in a couple three miles from a road when you locate elk. I would say the elk city zone is a mix of the above mentioned units, fair amount of roads that access deep country. As with the majority of NC Idaho, wolves have gone unchecked for many years in these units, be prepared to think outside the box when chasing elk in areas of high wolf density. Good Luck!

 

[Coach529]

Following along and learning.....