Raft River/Grouse Creek Utah OTC Spike Elk - Looking for advice/experience

[jdd32]

Hello all, longtime white tail hunter from the midwest here. Never hunted elk or other big game.

Moved to north-central Utah earlier this year. I just assumed that I was too late for any big game tags, so figured I'd have to wait and go for some next year. After some looking into it, I realized there were still otc spike bull tags available, and I'd love to do a muzzleloader hunt which would be the first weekend of November.

I'm looking into all the different zones and was wondering if anyone wanted to share some knowledge of the box elder zone. The location would be great for me as far as being close enough to get some scouting done, and seemingly receiving less pressure than the wasatch zones. I've seen a few threads that say to go high as possible in this zone, which I assume would mean up the raft river range. Looks like there's a lot of 4x4 trails through the area, but if there's a better remote spot I'm definitely not afraid of long hikes.

If anyone would love to share some knowledge, it would be much appreciated. My next pick of zone would probably be the Oquirrh/Stansbury zone.

Thanks.
Jason

 

[fullthrottle]

If we are talking elk, neither of those two zones is a very good choice. You would be better off focusing your elk efforts in the area northeast of Logan on the cache unit.

 

[jdd32]

Thanks for the info!

I had found an article from a few years ago with some data. And while cache had more total bulls, it was a pretty low success rate. The other two weren't much better, but less pressure to go along with less harvested. 3rd table down https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/top-utah-general-rifle-elk-units/

I think I will take your advice though and start doing some research into that zone.

 

[Vanilla]

General OTC elk hunting in Utah has low harvest rates all across the board. Spike hunts are particularly low success rates.

Best bet is to find an area that usually holds elk and pound it.

 

[heartshot]

If I were going to hunt for spike elk.....Box Elder Grouse Creek would be at very bottom of any list I made.