Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Anyone hunt Idaho Lolo zone?

I hunted unit 12 near the lochsa river for a number of years, until finally giving it up in 2010. My hunty party had success and took a few nice bulls from there but the elk population seemed to be less and less each year until finally you could hardly hear a bugle in a whole week of hunting. The wolves and other factors hit the area hard. I haven't been there since '10 and that was pre-wolf hunting. I'm curious if the elk have made any sort of comeback in the last few years? Anyone here hunt the area or have any first hand knowledge?

If you look at the harvest statistics on the IDFG website, the success has been bouncing a lot. In '10 it was 14%, '11 was 10%, '12 was 21%, and '13 was 15%. '14 numbers won't be up for a few months.
Starting about '10, hunter numbers have dropped by 1/2 to 2/3 and harvest has gone from averaging 20 to 25% down to those numbers.

Used to be good............hunted there during the '80's. Tough hunting.

MM