Unit Box Elder, Sawtooth

UDWR draws an exact line around unit Box Elder, Sawtooth and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such. The unit lies in Box Elder County. It runs to about 374 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Raft River, Dove Creek and Dove Creek Pass

UDWR draws unit Box Elder, Sawtooth in Box Elder County with a boundary that runs on Raft River, Dove Creek and Dove Creek Pass, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.

High ground inside the line: George Peak, Raft River Mountains and Rosevere Point

Named high points inside the unit include George Peak at 9,574 feet, Raft River Mountains at 9,224 feet, Rosevere Point at 9,008 feet, Mahogany Peaks at 8,326 feet and Pinnacle at 8,234 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.

Holding ground: Clarks Basin, Browns Canyon and Bull Canyon

Below them sit Clarks Basin at 7,036 feet, Browns Canyon at 6,992 feet, Bull Canyon at 6,691 feet, Middle Fork Dunn Canyon at 6,654 feet and Big Hollow at 6,607 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Water: Birch Spring, Lynn Spring and Little Pole Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 71 mapped stream reaches, 1 lakes, 13 stock tanks and 12 springs. Named sources include Birch Spring, Lynn Spring, Little Pole Spring, Boundary Spring, Pine Spring and Stevens Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

Before you apply: who owns this unit

A UDWR permit does not authorise hunting on Native American trust lands, on a CWMU without that CWMU's own permit, or on National Park land, and written permission is required to hunt private land. Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 32% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. The unit runs from 5,199 feet to 8,882 feet, averaging 6,601 — enough relief to separate summer range from winter range.

UDWR's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit Box Elder, Sawtooth at archery 18%. A number that low means most hunters here go home empty, and the ones who don't put the days in first. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

Glassing from Black Hills, Nut Pine Hills and Black Butte

Take a position on one of Black Hills (7,095 ft), Nut Pine Hills (7,032 ft), Black Butte (5,303 ft) and George Peak (9,574 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water against feed

There are 71 mapped stream reaches and 13 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. A tank with no tracks is a tank with no reason to sit on it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 75/47°F, Oct 60/35°F and Nov 45/24°F. Warm afternoons compress the hunting into the first and last hour, and make meat care the day's real problem rather than the shot. Precipitation runs about 1 in. in Sep, 0.9 in. in Oct and 0.6 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks George Peak, Raft River Mountains, Rosevere Point and Mahogany Peaks as places to see from, and Bull Flat, Dry Fork Pine Creek, Little Basin and Birch Spring as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

What a day here costs you

374 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The nearest services are at Malta, about 28 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 3,683 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

What we can't tell you

A UDWR permit does not authorise hunting on Native American trust lands, on a CWMU without that CWMU's own permit, or on National Park land, and written permission is required to hunt private land. Settle access before the season rather than during it. Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.