Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Oregon, Tillamook Area

My daughter and son in law just moved to Tillamook. He works as a fish biologist for BLM and will be working the Salmon fisheries. He won't hnt this year but is looking forward to next year. Does anyone have an idea about the elk hunting in that area?

Yes, I grew up not too far from there, and spent a lot of time chasing Roosevelt elk and blacktails in that area.

I will say though that I haven't hunted around there for over 15 years so I'm sure things may have changed a bit since then.

I hunted the Wilson, Trask, and Saddle Mountain units which are right in that vicinity. All of them have been heavily logged, which also means that there are a lot of roads. The elk population was fairly good back then, and hunting areas that required a guy to hike back from a locked gate was usually more productive than hoping to find a elk in a clearcut along a road.

Saddle Mountain is a draw unit that had better hunting IMO, but it has a 3-antler point or better requirement. Tags were usually a sure thing for a resident.

It's coastal rain forest country, which means it's thick, steep, and very wet! Scouting is key for the coast, it's so thick that glassing large areas is almost impossible, the only real open areas are clearcuts. Your son is in a perfect situation to spend a lot of time in the area working while scouting it out for his father in law

KCBighorn
Right now he is up to his elbows with looking after trout and salmon streams. He has only been there two months and will not focus on hunting until next year. I know he will have a year to put in some good scouting. He is an outdoor guy and will put the time to be on top of it next year. I will pass the info along. Thanks for your time.

KCBighron absolutely nailed it.

I might add that the country is incredibly thick and rough (wait, KC already said that ).

Lots of elk, but I've worked really, really, really hard for each of them ... never got one out whole, if that tells you anything.

Best of luck to your son-in-law. The elk are there and with a bit of work, he'll do just fine.

God Bless,

Steve

I'm guessing he'll wait until he gets resident status before hunting. There's not a ton of BLM land there, but if he's got a field job instead of a desk job he'll run into the elk over the next year waiting to become a resident.

Even with a desk job, if he's hitting the rivers and streams he'll find elk. There's lots of roads and I've never had trouble finding elk during the off-season. Hunting season is a different story!

Hit the ridges and he'll probably find areas thrashed from bulls over the years. In winter some head lower to private. Finding the elk highways will take some time, but it will be fun and I'm sure he'll find some.

Steep is an understatement. Some trails drop off some slopes that look impossible for any animal to negotiate. The Rocky Mt variety almost seem to have it easy compared to the Rosies. The coastal mountains might not be the biggest in the West, but they are rugged and nasty with the vegetation. They rival anything in terms of steep, impossible holes.

Don't get caught in the trap that elk are always miles and miles from roads either. You'd be surprised how many live right next to roads that nobody walks because they think its too close. Close does not mean "easy" though!

Good luck to your familiy, and welcome to Oregon.

He is waiting for his residency which will be next year. He will spend probably 80-85 % of his time in the field this yaer so I sure he will have the opportunity to scout. He lives about 300 yards from a national forest entry point and walks his dog there. Thanks for everyones help.

I think we'll be asking your son where the elk are, instead of the other way around!

Your son in law may want to look on the east side of the state, I used to hunt the Maupin Unit for deer (140), not a great trophy area but plenty of deer. The residents I hunt with hunted elk by Heppner and Joseph. Good Luck.

Your son in law may want to look on the east side of the state, I used to hunt the Maupin Unit for deer (140), not a great trophy area but plenty of deer. The residents I hunt with hunted elk by Heppner and Joseph. Good Luck.

I killed my second and third elk south of there on Weyerhaeuser ground. His hunting will be private forested lands. There are elk as well as hunters. Draw units are the best bet but it takes years to draw in the best units. He will need to find a general unit that he likes and start building points. Many of the companies do not allow hunting where they are currently logging, so he has to note that also.he will be meeting lots of logs who know exactly where to go. Being nice is a virtue, most loggers also fish

Traipsing through [bleep] isn't fun, until the elk appear, and sometimes that takes awhile.

Get to know the locals and check out the ifish.net forums, it's a more or less local site for fishing and hunting. It's steep and nasty with lots of thorny plants. My biggest problem with the area is you can spend a lot of time exploring and scouting an area then when you go to hunt it all of the trees are gone. Have a backup area.

mousejockey

The OP's son-in-law has ~1 year to learn the area and the elk. The "fun" is finding rubs, scrapes, beds, etc. (and elk!) for someone that might not have ever seen or heard an elk before. Some of their traditional routes are rutted so deep it'd make the greenies cringe from the "erosion" (they seem to think that only ATVs make ruts).

I wouldn't traipse thru [bleep] during the off-season. Its not hard to find the routes before the hunt. He's got 4-seasons to hike and learn. And meet locals. The iFish reccomendation is a good one.

If you're talking about finding elk during the hunting season then all bets are off... you'll need to be hitting hellholes and know where the elk move when pressured. But I think he'll have fun exploring until then, and he'll know how hard and intimidating it can be once he's on those ridges looking down.