Wenaha vs Walla Walla
Oregon
I have been saving my elk preferense points for 5 years to get a quality area. I had been hunting with a rifle in party hunts, but got turned on to bow hunting 3 years ago, and have never looked back. I have been bivy hunting for the last two years on a general tag, but I would like to know if there are guys out there that have had much luck in controlled archery units. The Walla Walla unit and Wenaha unit have good odds of getting a quality Bull, but you need more points to get a shot at those tags. I don't mind waiting, since I don't know that much about the area in either unit. It would almost be a once in ten year draw to get either one.
My questions are...
For Wenaha or Walla Walla...
Would you recommend a guide, or would you go it alone? How do you hunt that area?
Are there better areas that are general season?
Thanks Todd
I have been saving my elk preferense points for 5 years to get a quality area. I had been hunting with a rifle in party hunts, but got turned on to bow hunting 3 years ago, and have never looked back. I have been bivy hunting for the last two years on a general tag, but I would like to know if there are guys out there that have had much luck in controlled archery units. The Walla Walla unit and Wenaha unit have good odds of getting a quality Bull, but you need more points to get a shot at those tags. I don't mind waiting, since I don't know that much about the area in either unit. It would almost be a once in ten year draw to get either one.
My questions are...
For Wenaha or Walla Walla...
Would you recommend a guide, or would you go it alone? How do you hunt that area?
Are there better areas that are general season?
Thanks Todd
http://forums.bowsite.com/tf/regional/thread.cfm?threadid=128060&MESSAGES=7&state=OR
I personally plan on holding out for Wenaha. I currently have nine points I believe. I wonder how much longer it'll be before I draw it?
I have nine points also. I just went to the ODFW web page and according to the draw stats there is roughly 230 people ahead of me and 113 with the same points, so its not gonna be soon. Unless I luck out and get one of the 25% tags :) It would be nice if they would issue more tags and make it where you could'nt hunt the unit unless you drew a tag.(like Sled Springs) No spike and cow hunters bugling the same bulls. My huntin partner has 13 points, so I may get to go before I get to old. Might have to go back to MT. or ID.
If you go to the ODFW web page, you can navigate to the preference point data and with a little math, you can get a pretty good idea of how long it will take to get into the drawing pool...if the numbers of tags remain the same.
Twojump, if you are going into next year with 6 points, (assuming you added one this year) then you can expect to be in the drawing pool for Walla Walla in 11 years...add 3 years if you only have 5 points. You can draw the Wenaha in 31 years...add 12 years if you only have 5 points.
My math for this is as follows: There are 469 people that have more points than you that put in for the Wenaha in 2007. 15 or 16 of those are removed a year in the preference point drawing (and there is chance that up to 4 more that come from the random draw (but people with fewer points may also get these 4 tags).
So at 15 tags a year, it only takes 10 years to eliminate 150 of the folks that are ahead of you, 30 years to eliminate 450.
The same is true for Walla Walla, but there are only 169 people ahead of you.
Thats the way I understand the preference point program. Good luck.
G2H
A guy drew the Wenaha this year with only 3 pts, so miracles ARE possible.
You won't need a guide, unless you're completely inept at finding elk or deaf.
Are there general areas as good or better? Not in Oregon!
they dropped the tags down to 10, then bumped back up to 20. 10 years from now who knows ....
I'll start listing my first choice as Wenaha and second choice Walla Walla. Is Walla Walla as hard to hunt and as steep as everyone says? I have hunted the Snake for years, and it's rough, but do-able.
There's no point in listing walla walla as your second choice. You can't draw any hunt as a second choice that doles all it's tags out to 1st choice applicants.
I had the opportunity to hunt Wenaha this year with both bow and rifle with the Statewide Rifle elk tag. I don't have experience in Walla Walla to compare it to, but all I can say about Wenaha is WOW! That corner of Oregon is our best kept secret. I spent about 3 weeks total chasing the big guys with a bow, and ended up tagged my bull after switching to rifle for 2 days. I would have preferred to have killed it with a bow, but I am also a taxidermist, and I was out of time. I would be risking missing too many projects by hunting too far into October. I ended up taking a mid-340 gross 7x7 on Oct 1st.
Wenaha has a big chunk of wilderness that isn't for the faint of heart. I am sure it is overrun with monster bulls, but trophies exist outside of this wilderness. If you drop into the wilderness expect either a 15 mile pack in and 2000 feet of elevation drop. Outside the wilderness, it is easily huntable. Get in excellent shape and be ready to move quick and move a lot. I spent most of my time outside the wilderness, and covered 15+ miles on most days.
I am torn on what I think about having Wenaha open for spikes during the early season. Fact is, I saw a lot of guys bugling and chasing the big bulls around, and many of them had to be spike tag holders. Are you going to tag a spike by chasing the big guys? Maybe...maybe not. More likely, you are messing up the hunt of a lifetime for someone that waited forever for the chance to hunt there. The biggest thing for me is being respectful of the other guys and being smart on how you try to take a spike. Don't push the big guys out of the area. Work the fringes of the herd, since that is where the spikes should be anyway.
I used and filled my general season tag in Wenaha this year with a spike. I was searching for the big one, and had a spike show up looking for that cow!
If you want to hunt Wenaha or Walla Walla, you better have lots of points saved up now, or be willing to wait 40+ years. Luck is also helpful.
I think the best thing that ODFW can do to make these hunts easier to draw is add new trophy hunting opportunities via new hunts like they have proposed in 2008 for deer. I expect those new hunts will shift the numbers around so that everyone can get the hunt of a lifetime while you are still alive! Giving out more tags for the existing hunts in Wenaha, Walla Walla may make the hunters happy initially, but believe me, you will prefer hunting those areas when their are fewer people. It is awesome hunting for 3 weeks and never see a single live person in the field!
WOW, I never bothered to do the math or that much research to know I will have to wait 'til after my death to draw a tag. That's sad. Not sure what I will do now...maybe rely on luck and keep applying since there really aren't too many other good options for use of preference points.
I gave up on drawing one a few years ago. Oh, you could get lucky I guess. But there are far better odds for better hunts in out of state draws. That is where I hold hope for a great hunt. Until this state manages units for quality hunts you won't see hunts like what the Wenaha offers. They would have to restrict tags offered. They wouldn't get as much money by doing this so they won't. This is one unit out of all the units in Oregon that you will ever see as a true quality hunt. It's all about the money.
If they add more tags to W and WW the elk will be gone in a few years. Those units got to be quality units by accident. There's not enough calf recruitment to allow for very many tags. That spike hunt is nothing but a money grab. They have super low recruitment, very few spikes and they give out hundreds of spike tags? They're simply selling an "opportunity" to hunt.
Heck, half of us will be gone in a few years, that will open up the draw for sure....LOL.
with only one point im lookin at not drawing wenaha anytime soon, i should of started putting in alot sooner, i hear it takes 13-14 points to draw the tag but even then you arent guarenteed are you because they give out only 25 tags or so, i have a friend who has 11 points so hes getting close to having a chance.
WapitiBob has it right, Wenaha didn't become a trophy unit through good game management, it was purely accidental after suffering a couple hard winters, excessive elk kills during hunting seasons, excessive logging by the USFS eliminating lots of prime calving grounds and banning predator hunting with hounds. All of these factors combined have reduced the elk herds by over half, more like a 65% reduction from historical populations of the past. It's not a success story at all, it's really a tragedy and demonstrates a severe problem facing many of the elk herds and game units on the east side of the state.
After saying all that, I still love the country over there and after hunting Wenaha with a bow for over 20 years, I would like to hunt the unit again with a bull tag. I'm currently up to 11 preference points and figure I'll need at least 13 or 14 before drawing a tag.
As far as the future goes, I don't see anything changing concerning the number of elk tags available. If anything, the numbers/tags will drop since elk still suffer from low recruitment.
What could really help is having people concentrate on predator hunting. During archery season one year my brother saw a cougar and a camp near us watched a bear and cougar in a stand-off over a dead elk calf. In a typical year, I would see 3 to 4 bears in a week of hunting. So if your going to hunt that country, be sure to carry a bear and cougar tag.
If you want a model for increasing elk and size of bulls look at the Warm Springs Indian Res. They have an active predator management program in effect. They have bulls that are 360+. Of course, they don't allow hunting...but they are definitely ahead of the state game dept. when it comes to predator control.
I though everybody snuck into the res to hunt elk.
