Unit 7W (Tonto Basin West)

Start with AZGFD's eight names

AZGFD's GMU 7 guide is blunt about 7 West: the herd is healthy, and elk are present in nearly every portion of the unit. That's rare. Most units make you hunt a pocket. Here the agency gives one list for both early and late seasons: Government Prairie, Sitgreaves Mountain, Slate Mountain, Kendrick Mountain, Red Mountain, Red Hill, Squaw Mountain and Wild Cat. We'd build the scouting plan around those.

The guide doesn't rank them or say which holds the most elk. Pick two or three that are far apart, then let sign decide.

Ponderosa above the pinyon-juniper

The guide says the highest elk densities are in the ponderosa pine forests above the pinyon-juniper belt. The unit averages about 7,032 ft and bottoms out near 6,108 ft, so the low country is pinyon-juniper and grass. Start higher. Sitgreaves Mountain tops out at 9,369 ft and Kendrick Peak at 10,374 ft in the landform data. Government Hill (8,433 ft), Government Mountain (8,325 ft), Slate Mountain (8,207 ft), Red Mountain (7,941 ft) and Red Hill (7,744 ft) all sit in the middle band, and all are public land.

Skip the open, low-elevation grasslands. The guide says elk aren't typically found in them. That passage describes the grasslands north and east of the Peaks, but the point holds anywhere you're glassing bare ground with no timber behind it.

Feed moves the herd

AZGFD says elk are sensitive to food and will travel long distances to country where summer rains improved the forage. Burned ground draws them too, because post-fire growth is rich. So a good spot from last year can be empty this year. Check where the monsoon hit, and look for burn scars inside the named areas before you commit to a drainage.

Springs and tanks

The packet counts 380 tanks, 23 springs and 11 lakes in the unit. Named springs include East Elk Spring, West Elk Spring, Beale Spring, Fues Spring, Kendrick Spring and Slate Well. We can't tell you which are flowing in your season, so treat them as places to check on the map. The packet doesn't say what the guide's water advice means for 7 West, since it only covers the wilderness hunt area, but any wet spot in dry timber is worth a look.

Ownership and getting in

Only about 60% of 7W is national forest. State Trust is 8%, and a hefty 32% is private or other. Don't drift off the forest by accident while following a bull. I-40, US 180 and AZ 64 cross or border the unit. Two pipeline easement roads, El Paso and Transwestern, are graded gravel that a 2WD rig with a small trailer can manage. NFR 71 is high-clearance. Williams, Parks, Bellemont and Red Lake are the nearest towns.