I am looking at hunting black bear next year in unit 18 with my cousin. This will be our first trip to Idaho and will probably be more site seeing than hunting. Any advice or tips for this area? How well are non residents treated up there?

That's some steep country, get in shape and you will have a great hunt.

Eat your Wheaties.

Dont shoot one below the road.

When you say next month, are you meaning September?

Non-residents are treated fine from what I see. Lots of non-residents travel to the area for rafting, hunting, fishing, etc... and the locals businesses like it.

There was a bumper huckleberry crop this year so if you go early Sept, you might find bears still working the berries at higher elevations. Normally, bears will drop in elevation in early fall to get to black berries in the creek bottoms and hit some abandoned fruit trees from the homestead era.

You might throw in a .22 or shotgun for grouse.

Riggins survives on tourism. The town is packed with salmon fishermen during the season. If they didn't treat them right, they'd be hurting only themselves.

Thanks for the replies. I should have said it will be a spring hunt, probably the last week of May.

I have hunted in the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, British Columbia, and Alaska. I am expecting those around Riggins to be as tough as any I've seen before. That's kinda what we're looking for. Mostly this will be a mountain camping trip where we get to carry guns. I also want a place not overrun with people where I can spend 5 days or so in peace.

Idaho is famous for steep mountains. They're not as high as CO but ours tend to have deeper valleys between them.

Yeah. Finding a place to put a tent might be an issue.

There is camping just a few miles up the towards White Bird, rd. Recent fires have created pretty good bear habitat. Lots and lots of country. Get on the Idaho F@Game web site and bring up their hunt planner, lots of info there.

Beautiful rugged country... do a combo hunting and rafting trip if you got the coin too

Hell,Riggins is full of out of staters that they call home.

It done got taken over years ago from the real locals.When the mill burnt down and the last logging shop closed down,there just isn't any work there for anyone except Forest service.There is a little logging from time to time but not much.

I listen to the scanner every day for Riggins as it is in Idaho county.Worked and wintered out of there for ever,it seems.One of my all time winter favorites..

From Granite mountain to the South and almost to Whitebird in the North,unit 18 covers a lot of ground with few roads going into it.Our Riggins friends who settled that area years ago with creeks named after there family,always hunted unit 18 by horse and mountain bike in the latter years but he used a 25-06,so what can I say!He always ate wild game.

It would be a hard place to hunt just going in blind.I live about 17 miles from the north end of 18.Every year we here on the scanner a bunch of idiots shooting across the river at game from highway 95 into unit 18..Most don't hit anything and the ones that do,get arrested before they figure out how to get across the Salmon river.Dumb dumb dumb...

I have never hunted bear in 18, but I have been in that unit for recreation a fair amount.
If i were going in "bear hunting" and on a fact finding mission, I would go up Race Creek, just out of Riggins and head toward Cold Springs.
You will find lots of dry camp spots, lots of country to explore and in May those basins should have bear.
It is outstanding scenery and you will have a fine time on the Salmon side and/or the Hell's Canyon side.

About that bridge...the pic is facing north, one time years ago I was heading north and was approaching the bridge when I got behind a huge flock of sheep moving up the road. I spent 15 or 20 min working my way through them. I was within 10' of the bridge when I passed all but the last half dozen sheep. Then 1 or 2 of the damn things took off running across in front of me and the entire flock followed. They flowed like water between me and both sides of the bridge, packed tight against my front bumper. Within a minute, the entire flock was in front of me again and the bridge was packed tight with sheep. Before I finally got by them, I'd wasted almost an hour. There's no place for them to get out of the way there.

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That picture is distorted,it's not like that..Steep but not the way that picture shows....

Don't pay any attention to old Wageslave the flatlander from stinky town. He could have went 5 more miles down the road to Squaw creek and went up to the 7 Devils,a sight to see..One of the prettiest places in Idaho.

Was going up there once just out of boredom living in Riggins and my dog bailed out of the truck and a resident living up the seven devils/squaw creek road had bear hounds that took off after my Blue Heeler.A sight to be-hold...

Just kidding Slave.

Were you there back in the 70's when the landslide buried the road south of there at Pollock? It couldn't have happened at a better place. Pollock is on the opposite side of the river and there are 2 bridges to it. The slide happened between the bridges. It buried the road 20 or 30' deep IIRC so they just routed the traffic over the 2 bridges and through Pollock. They let the mud sit for a couple years to dry out then rebuilt the highway over the top of it.
If that slide had happened anywhere else between New Meadows and Whitebird, it would have completely shut off all travel between north and south Idaho. You would have had to go through either MT or OR & WA to go around.

Yup,that and the big flood that wiped out some of the best Salmon and Stealhead holes..Saw refrigerators/propane tanks and a bunch of stuff go floating by our place on the little salmon.

French creek in the summer months is a great way to get out of Riggins going South if 95 is blocked.Takes ya right to McCall and Allison creek takes you right to Grangeville both by-passing highway 95 with some great hunting on the way.

Hey, Cutter is the 7 devil's road in 18?
I wasn't sure if it was.
That is great country also.

I bet those are entertaining in a semi. Yeah, I know logging trucks travel them but those guys are nuts to start with.

It is right up until the end of the road where it changes to unit 23(McCall)at the very end of the road,then you can walk like 50 yards and be back in 18 and hunt down because you are on top with a great view.Wild and pretty country..

The Seven Devils view is second to none..Paradise for a backpacker.

I liked it better when I could ride a bike to those lakes.
Those were the days.

Something Kodiak might be interested in,Verizon put a new tower in Riggins and theirs an Alltel tower there also but AT&T bought out the Alltel towers in central Idaho so they will be AT&T towers by late this year.

Excellent 4G data and service there now.

Idaho's cell service is getting better all the time. They wanted to put one of those fake tree towers on top of Galena Summit north of Sun Valley which would give service to the entire Wood River Valley but the greenies blocked it. Idiots. That would be a very useful thing to have.

We are certainly early in the planning stages. We will probably hunt the last week of May so we can get into more areas. Hard to say exactly where we will go in. We are currently looking at Smokey Boulder Road south of Riggins in unit 23 all the way to the north of Riggins on Cow Creek Road. I will talk to F&G and try to get a feel of what area to concentrate on but plans may change once we are on the ground.

We are approaching this as a two year plan. Try to learn the area the first year and be able to really hunt the second. It's hard to get an idea from looking at maps only.

Are most FS roads still open in those areas or have the greenies started getting areas closed off? Camping allowed anywhere in the NF or designated areas only?

Hard not to be springer fishing in the mornings that time of year in Riggins. I would fish the morning and hunt the evening.

Late May is the peak of run off and the streams will be high. Roads in the high country could still be closed because of snow. There will be plenty of places to hunt and you should see a few bears.

Bring chains, wench, shovel and chain saw.

Some pics from the area you are considering

Is the wench in case the bear hunting is slow?

Well, due to my cousin knocking up his wife again, we didn't make it last spring. It's on for this spring though. Current planning we will be there 7-10 days in the mid to late May timeframe. Probably May 15-25.

I am currently looking at area 23 in the Lake Hazard area. I've never been anywhere near there, so it's a blind shot in the dark, but it does look like there may be decent access past the lake to find some decent hunting and hopefully far enough off the beaten path to not be in others way.

Anyone have info on that area and what to expect? What will road conditions be in mid May?

Unless it's a very, very, very dry winter I don't think you'll be driving on the Hazard Creek road in mid-May. When i say dry, I mean Earth will likely have to crash into the Sun for the snows to have sufficiently melted.

Also, be advised the Tepee Creek fire from this summer burned almost everything around Hazard Lake. Google "Tepee Creek Fire" for a map of where it burned.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but I also don't want you to waste a bunch of time, energy, and money either.

Dave

Still in the planning stages, so it's good to get info, even if it's bad. I have May 9-29 off work, so I'm looking for something that will have decent access in mid to late May. I will talk to the Idaho Fish and Game to see if they have any recommendations as well.