My brother and I decided at the last minute to get elk tags for bow hunting in oregon. We have descent success here on the wa coast here but would like to try the east side and get out of the brush. Have never been so looking for any info to get us pointed in the right direction. A friend is recommending the desolation area . Also were planning to hunt herefirst and come down there for the last week thinking rut will be going later better than early. What do you think? Thanks for any info or advice and good shootin to all.

Desolation and Starkey units hold a lot of elk. Quite a bit of pressure also. Get off the beaten track and you'll do good. The last week is a shouting match and a little harder to fool the herd bulls. Good luck it's worth the drive.

Scott
It's pretty hard to not find elk on the east side.
Lots of habitat with lots of elk. Where to try your luck depends on what you want to shoot. Some
of the easy stuff pulls a lot of people. You say that you want to come during the rut so I assume your wanting horns. Not all units are open to branched antlered bulls without a drawn tag. Example Mt. Emily is loaded with branched antlered bulls but you can only take a spike or cow if you don't have a special tag. If I were to just take a fling at it I would be more prone to look at the Lick Cr. area and hunt high(ImnahaUnit). If your young and tough look at Cow Cr. in the Northern Snake Unit. You won't have everyone and his brother on your back. If your tougher than nails and are willing to make your body pay the price there is another spot. E-mail
if you want it. Its a 6 plus mile walk before you get into their haunts so it realy should be a sleep in for a couple of days. Lots of water but thats all you have without taking it in. You will have one party to contend with but the bulls are special. The other party is composed of three locals in the area. One is an outstanding caller(won the RMEF)and you will probably only get the leftovers. I took a small 7x7 while they were busy with another herd.
No matter what you wind up doing have a great time on the east side. We think its special.

Thanks for the replies. Now you are making it hard for me to decide where to go. The desolation area sounded good mostly because we had been given a little info that would save us from wasting a bunch of time searching where to even start hunting. BigShark it sounds like you now your stuff as I have seen your posts before on eastside deer hunting. I'm a rookie here so don't now how to find your email so tell me and I will email you. We feel young (30) and in descent shape and really like to get away from other people if possible. We would like a chance at big bulls as we have meat elk here at home, plus $350 for tag and license and taking a week off work ,having a shot at a trophy would be great. Couple questions about those spots you mentioned. How will this dry hot weather effect the hunting there and do they close it down for fire danger. Here it is so dry with all our brush I'm not sure how we will put the sneak on an elk . Also here the bulls don't really get fired up until after the season closes Sept 14, do they bugle and carry on over there? Our biggest concern is having a quality area we can hike into and not spend our whole time trying to figure out where to hunt. Thanks again guys.

Hi Big Shark, reading your posts is a great help to those of us learning to hunt the east side of Oregon. You mentioned in your reply to Scott B.to e-mail you. Did you know your e-mail icon is not activated? I know mine wasn't for a while. Is this your preference for privacy? I'd like to chat about hunting if you'd activate the e-mail function here at piscatorial pursuits. I'll keep in touch as I'm hunting bucks in the Snake R.
unit and will use your advice to hopefully make meat of Mr. Big Horn. Good Hunting!

Hi Big Shark, reading your posts is a great help to those of us learning to hunt the east side of Oregon. You mentioned in your reply to Scott B.to e-mail you. Did you know your e-mail icon is not activated? I know mine wasn't for a while. Is this your preference for privacy? I'd like to chat about hunting if you'd activate the e-mail function here at piscatorial pursuits. I'll keep in touch as I'm hunting bucks in the Snake R.
unit and will use your advice to hopefully make meat of Mr. Big Horn. Good Hunting!

Scott
The reason those elk are there in those areas is because there is water and fewer people to push them around. The east side is true cattle range and there are water troughs everywere. Most hunters don't see them as they are driving slowly down the roads "hunting" if thats what you want to call it. I don't have a chip on my shoulder about it as they will only get an occassional glance at a bull. But those bulls don't wait for you to open the door or even stop the rig.
All of these places are over 5000 ft and borders
on alpine. Cold as heck at night and will snow from time to time if your lucky that last week.
You will need to be prepared for both warm and cold if not wet days. I love it wet but do just as well when dry. There are some tricks but they aren't secrets, just common sense. What a little excitement in your hunt? Backpack in and sleep under the stars(but take a lightweight tarp just in case). Practice your calling just before you
get in the sleeping bag. Then as your trying to get to sleep you hear a creeper coming in. You may smell him but won't see him. Or it can be a susie looking for big daddy. Anyway if you have to get up and take a leak, wow what a rush when that elk takes off. You will be glad you brought the exta shorts. The more time you spend over in that country the more stories you can only guess if anyone really believes them. You have to do it
the hard way. More people with their little bugels and cow calls, tooting away as if they were in the highschool band. They will learn in time if they pay the price with the legs and listen. The elk will tell and show you what to do if you study them. Many hunters just won't stay still and watch and learn. It's all part of the fun. Killing gets old after a while. It's fooling them before they can fool you thats so much more fun. I hope you get a big bang out of the eastside
and have a safe and exciting time.

PS I think I activated the e-mail but let me know if I didn't do it correctly. It should appear when you click on the profile icon above my post.
Badboy.....good to hear your out there. I welcome your e-mail. Sure hope you get one of those mulies.

Scott B. I archery hunted the Desolation area 3 years ago, upper middle fork of the John Day. Incredible area, we hunted 6 days, and were in elk every day. I mistakenly passed up a cow at 10 yards the day we set up camp and unfortunately that was my only real opportunity. I was hunting with 2 buddies, 1 missed a decent bull that we called in but later got a nice cow, the other guy shot a nice 4 pt. buck.
We were hunting in 75-85 degree weather, everyday, yet the elk were very active and very vocal.
I've only hunted Oregon that 1 time but I'm hoping to make it back next year.

AkKings, That is some of the area our friend was telling us about. It sounds like there are a lot of elk. Hard to take a cow when you are seeing nice bulls too. What was the hunting pressure like and how far off the beaten path were you? Did you pack in and stay or hike in every morning? I'm getting excited now our season starts tomorrow here and sounds like MAYBE rain on monday, that would be great! I now it sounds like I'm prodding everybody for info but I just hate to go down there blind and I'm self employed and had to save all my time off for the hunt so no scout trip. By the way you guys in oregon have been huntin a week now whats the word and what are the elk doing? Straight shooting and good luck.

Scott B. We were hunting out of a base camp and though there were a few other camps in the area , we never saw another hunter once we were off the roads.
The way we hunted the area was to drive each morning up on the ridge above our camp and drop down into a deep canyon, we were in the timber a 1/2 hour to an hour before daylight and did alot of calling, the hike was about 3 miles and not for the out of shape.
We saw elk everyday but according to the guys I was with, it would have been alot better with cooler weather or rain, which I don't doubt but I can't complain 1 bit, we were in elk everyday for a week, I've elk hunted Wa. for 20+ yrs. and not seen that many elk in a weeks time.