I have an uncle who hunts North of Meeker every year and he fills the freezer pretty regularly. I'm not sure if he's hunting in unit 11 or 211, but at least I can assure you that there are plenty of elk in the general area.

As for specifics, spend time studying maps. The two I recommend are BLM "Surface Management Maps," which are 1:100,000 scale and will show you what is public land and what is private land, and USGS quadrangle topo maps, which are 1:24,000 scale and show the terrain detail. Between these two you can usually find a good place where you'll be allowed to hunt and where elk are likely to be.

Here's a link to BLM maps...
http://www.co.blm.gov/mapinfo/mapinfo.htm

Here's a site where you can order USGS maps, but you have to know the name of the area you want...
http://store.usgs.gov/

Here's a site where you can look at maps online and it will tell you the name of the quadrangle in case you want to buy a hard-copy of that map...
http://www.topozone.com/

Good luck!

[ This Message was edited by: donmillion on 2004-03-29 12:34 ]

thanks for the reply
I need all the info I can get

We haven't hunted Unit 11, however we have hunted Unit 211 bordering 11 to the east. Great country for elk and mule deer.

The terrain is mostly rolling sagebrush hills, with quite a bit of BLM public land. Lots of elk, particularly during the winter months. Elk, mule deer and antelope like to winter in this area.

What season are you thinking of coming out to hunt? If its still warm, the elk may not have moved out of the high country and you may have difficulty finding any. They typically move to higher elevations during the warmer summer months and don't move down until after the first snow/freeze.

For more information you can contact the Craig Chamber of Commerce at 1-800-864-4405, they have a sportsman's info guy on staff (Tony). They also have maps.
http://www.craig-chamber.com

Good luck!

Cowgal
thanks for your reply and info.
We are planing on the first season rifle Oct 9-13

I have been hearing that they combining Units that are close together to allow hunters to go over into another one if they do not find Elk 'something to do with the CWD I heard' in the one they are hunting!

I have been hearing that they combining Units that are close together to allow hunters to go over into another one if they do not find Elk

That is news to me and would be suprised if it were true. I suspect someone is pulling your leg, but I may be wrong.

There was a program that if your elk head turned up with CWD they would refund the tag, although I don't know if that is continueing.

There are some licenses that cover combined units. That is, the one license covers multiple units. I think the reason is simply that they have the same management objectives for several contiguous units, and the hunting opportunities are equivalent in them, so it's easier to just issue one license that covers them all.

Frankly, I doubt that this has anything to do with making it easier on the hunters, but is for the benefit of the DOW. In any case, it does give one more choices of where to hunt if you get one of these licenses.