LOLO zone ID

[BT_NVhunter]

I think this could very well be said for about any zone in Idaho.

Ya I think over the next few years I will be spending a lot more time up there my wife is a photographer and her dream is to capture some wild photography with wolves and wild backgrounds. And my dream is to kill as many wolves as I see lol so I think I’m going to be up in the sawtooths and other areas panhandle and what not take a look around and find an area that I like find some sign then see what I have to do for tags and what not. In the meantime just gonna plan an OTC Colorado archery hunt in a zone that me and my brothers plan on rifle hunt in 2023 once we build enough points for the first rifle. Thanks guys. Also the western Colorado hunting is going to be more comparable to what I will be hunting here in NV so better for getting me prep’d for my resident tags here. Thanks for the help sounds like that LOLO just needs a few cigarette throwers to visit in August!!

 

[sapperJ24]

Is this mapping from the ID fish and game hunt planner?

caltopo.com with the Forest Service map as a base layer and Fire History overlay (don't mind the snowmobile layers). Lots of additional layers you can turn on and tools you can use for trip planning.

 

[BAKPAKR]

There is not lots of burns in the Lolo units and its quite the opposite. Ive talked to wolf bios and other bios in the unit and a huge problem with the lolo is the vegetation has grown up so much limiting elk feed and lack of fires creating openings and more feed.The 3 bios I have talked to all said there needs to be more fires and bigger fires. There hasnt been a sizeable fire in lolo in quite some time the only fires they have gotten of recent is little spot fires which adds up to nothing. Much of the units is so remote that logging is not a option. The forest is not healthy in many parts. Fires dont start and spread here easily due to tons of snow in the mountains clear into July. The mountains get sizeable thunderstorms quite often soaking the mountains in the summer and fall coupled with cool temps in the dead of summer makes fires hard to come by. I have spent alot of time in these mountains over the past several years.

I would not call this place a high black bear density or even close! Example: last summer to Oct 10 I got 40,000+ trail cam pics and 2 of them were bears. If this were other parts of N ID or NE WA I'd have thousands of bear pics. Wolves are plentiful , but very hard to actually get shots. I had a pack of 14 living on 1 cam all summer.

Is there elk? sure is and I am highly successful there, but for every guy that is successful there is 40-60 hunters who are not. Every drainage looks like elk heaven, but you will soon find out you can go drainage after drainage and be void of elk and can become very depressing and mentally challenging. Then add in huge country places so thick with deadfalls you can go crazy...confidence goes fast. My wife and I first year hunting this unit we decided to drive a road on a atv to cut tracks in fresh snow and glass to just locate elk and make a plan. Well day 1 found us with 38 miles on the Atv 1! single elk track and 0 elk spotted and things were very discouraging. These roads are not heavily traveled either by people, some roads have 2-4 camps over 20 miles

Weather is a major factor here and more so with rifle hunts. It has ruined more hunts here than not.Problem with the road system here is you are following the river valleys in most of the unit then you have to head up and these roads heading up get bad. Last year alone Oct 10 weather made a drastic change and we spent 6 days packing a elk and trying to remove 2 camps, cutting out 27 fallen trees in the road and 12-18" of snow. Year before it snowed 5" then was in single digits on opener. Traveling some of these roads up on mountains is treacherous in places once it snows. Plan on having chains and a saw for wind storms and falling trees. After Oct 17 none of the high country was accessible and almost everyone was on the main road on the clearwater as it snowed 14" more.

Hunting these units Id look at as a 3 year investment minimum with scouting and hunting to learn and find elk spots. Going in blind and new you will have extremely low % chance of taking a bull. Id only hunt here if you are committed to learning it and continuing to hunt it.

What I wrote may have been misleading as half of the Lolo zone did not burn. What I meant to say is that about half of my specific hunt unit, within the Lolo zone, had burned the year before I hunted it. I will edit my original post to clarify, and I give my most humble apology to anyone who drove around Unit 10 looking for burns based on my post.

In the past 15 years, a significant portion of the eastern half of Unit 12, south of Highway 12, has burned. I hope that will help future big game recovery in the area.

 

[Deleted member 20812]

In the past 15 years, a significant portion of the eastern half of Unit 12, south of Highway 12, has burned. I hope that will help future big game recovery in the area.

Some significant fires in the north half of the unit would do wonders.

 

[HUNTNNW]

significant fires through out out would do wonders! When the elk numbers were peaking in the 80's there was a decline beginning to happen in the lolo with the elk in early 90's and then wolves were re introduced. Bios said habitat was beginning to worsen at that time and coupled with wolves has decimated the herd. Which the latter had more of an effect than IDFG wants to admit. I went round and round with them over this. They cant even give you a straight number on how many wolves are in that area. I asked them what in the hell do wolves eat then? grass? Its staggering how much wolf sign you see here. I drove a 22 mile road one day and there wasnt a section without a wolf track on it.

 

[HUNTNNW]

Ya I think over the next few years I will be spending a lot more time up there my wife is a photographer and her dream is to capture some wild photography with wolves and wild backgrounds. And my dream is to kill as many wolves as I see lol so I think I’m going to be up in the sawtooths and other areas panhandle and what not take a look around and find an area that I like find some sign then see what I have to do for tags and what not. In the meantime just gonna plan an OTC Colorado archery hunt in a zone that me and my brothers plan on rifle hunt in 2023 once we build enough points for the first rifle. Thanks guys. Also the western Colorado hunting is going to be more comparable to what I will be hunting here in NV so better for getting me prep’d for my resident tags here. Thanks for the help sounds like that LOLO just needs a few cigarette throwers to visit in August!!

problem is I have been here in August alot and you couldnt light the high country on fire if you tried LOL! Its so wet and green

 

[HUNTNNW]

I'll be honest, I didn't believe that there 'are not a lot of burns' in the Lolo units, but now I can't believe how few fires there were over the past 20 years especially north of highway 12. Makes sense though with the cedar/hemlock forest and, as you mentioned, the persistent snowpack. Sure there's been a bunch of fires south of the highway and into the Selway zone. For reference the 2017 Lolo Peak fire was about 40,000 acres.


View attachment 172544

lots south and into MT, but unit 10 and 12 are not hit much and when people talk burns and wanna hunt burns we are talking about new burns and not 5-10+ year old burns. 5+ year old burns here and you wouldnt be walking thru it with the amount of deadfalls and new growth. trees grow fast in these mountains

 

[mdhunter]

I had a moose tag in there several years back. My memory of the area is as others have described. I saw some limited elk sign but never one on the hoof.

 

[sapperJ24]

lots south and into MT, but unit 10 and 12 are not hit much and when people talk burns and wanna hunt burns we are talking about new burns and not 5-10+ year old burns. 5+ year old burns here and you wouldnt be walking thru it with the amount of deadfalls and new growth. trees grow fast in these mountains

I was backpacking in the Weitas area back in mid August of 2015, wrapped up the hike and tried to drive out of there, but there was fire everywhere! I guess I pictured that as more wide spread in 2015, but clearly that wasn't the case in the Clearwater.

Other areas (Bob Marshall) that have forgone full-suppression over the last 30 years have seen some real benefits in areas where 2 or 3 fires have occurred.

 

[Ozmt56]

Just curious if anyone has experience hunting the general season elk in Lolo zone of ID what’s the land layout thick? Burns? Or is it zero visibility lol just hoping to speak with someone who’s had boots on the ground. Also are the bears thick around there?

 

[Ozmt56]

Just curious if anyone has experience hunting the general season elk in Lolo zone of ID what’s the land layout thick? Burns? Or is it zero visibility lol just hoping to speak with someone who’s had boots on the ground. Also are the bears thick around there?

I'm born and raised in the area. I've hunted lolo for 30 years. Until 10 years or so ago, it was a great spot to hunt. Plenty of open area and best of all.... no wolves. Between the over growth and the stupid over population of these killers, there just aren't many bulls left. After harvesting 15 or so in 20 years, almost no sightings over the last 10 years. The population count went from 20k to 1k. Probably even less today as the wolves thrive. (Thank you tree huggers)
My advice is to hunt elsewhere. I've taken 2 years off because I'm just so disappointed. No tracks no sightings, no own area and yet the non residents still flock there, I just don't get it. I help anyone I see that asks up there but there just aren't any good answers these days except buy a tag in southern Idaho. Lots of elk. Lots of open space. No wolves

 

[BT_NVhunter]

I'm born and raised in the area. I've hunted lolo for 30 years. Until 10 years or so ago, it was a great spot to hunt. Plenty of open area and best of all.... no wolves. Between the over growth and the stupid over population of these killers, there just aren't many bulls left. After harvesting 15 or so in 20 years, almost no sightings over the last 10 years. The population count went from 20k to 1k. Probably even less today as the wolves thrive. (Thank you tree huggers)
My advice is to hunt elsewhere. I've taken 2 years off because I'm just so disappointed. No tracks no sightings, no own area and yet the non residents still flock there, I just don't get it. I help anyone I see that asks up there but there just aren't any good answers these days except buy a tag in southern Idaho. Lots of elk. Lots of open space. No wolves

Thank you for your response hopefully this was one of the areas under fire by the ID fish and games new war on wolves for population reduction. We can hope sometime in the next ten years they can return to at least a decent population. It’s crazy to me the population reduced that much and you still have any otc tags available.

 

[huntoneagain]

I'm born and raised in the area. I've hunted lolo for 30 years. Until 10 years or so ago, it was a great spot to hunt. Plenty of open area and best of all.... no wolves. Between the over growth and the stupid over population of these killers, there just aren't many bulls left. After harvesting 15 or so in 20 years, almost no sightings over the last 10 years. The population count went from 20k to 1k. Probably even less today as the wolves thrive. (Thank you tree huggers)
My advice is to hunt elsewhere. I've taken 2 years off because I'm just so disappointed. No tracks no sightings, no own area and yet the non residents still flock there, I just don't get it. I help anyone I see that asks up there but there just aren't any good answers these days except buy a tag in southern Idaho. Lots of elk. Lots of open space. No wolves

I guess you know Ryan? I hate what has happen has happened there. Two old boys from Georgia been hunting there for over 30 years and only fish now!