Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes (Fishlake/Thousand Lakes)
Utah Hunting Guide — Elk
Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes lies in Emery, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties and covers about 1,192 square miles. Ground runs from 6,014 to 11,139 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 28%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
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Elk Hunting in Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes
Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes lies in Emery, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties and covers about 1,192 square miles. Ground runs from 6,014 to 11,139 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 28%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Elk in Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes
UDWR's material on unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its elk live. 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 Emery, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties. It runs to about 1,192 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Rock Springs, Willow Springs and Windy Peak
UDWR draws unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes in Emery, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties with a boundary that runs on I-70, and on Rock Springs, Willow Springs and Windy Peak, 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: Mount Marvine, Whiskey Knoll and Mount Terrill
Named high points inside the unit include Mount Marvine at 11,605 feet, Whiskey Knoll at 11,530 feet, Mount Terrill at 11,528 feet, Hilgard Mountain at 11,518 feet and Flat Top at 11,289 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.
Holding ground: Sevenmile Cirques, U M Yogo Saddle and Bull Run Flat
Below them sit Sevenmile Cirques at 10,430 feet, U M Yogo Saddle at 10,413 feet, Bull Run Flat at 10,284 feet, Rock Canyon at 10,266 feet and Wiffs Pasture at 10,255 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: Torgerson Spring, Gahew Spring and Teeples Spring
The water inside the unit line comes to 348 mapped stream reaches, 19 lakes, 151 stock tanks and 58 springs. Named sources include Torgerson Spring, Gahew Spring, Teeples Spring, Praetor Spring, Bronco Spring and Potter Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.
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 6,014 feet to 11,139 feet, averaging 8,084 — that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.
Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 6,014–11,139 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 8,084 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
- 1,191.5 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 32%
Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 151 tanks
- 58 springs
- 348 stream segments
- 19 lakes
Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Mount Marvine (11,605 ft), Whiskey Knoll (11,530 ft), Mount Terrill (11,528 ft), Hilgard Mountain (11,518 ft)
Holding ground: Fish Lake Hightop Plateau (11,435 ft), U M Plateau (10,640 ft), Na-Gah Flat (10,575 ft), Torgerson Spring, Bronco Spring
Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.
How to Hunt Elk in Unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes
Elk Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes that we can read back to this unit on its own. Where the agency reports a unit inside a grouping, or prints a table our parser cannot resolve to a single column, we leave the number out rather than publish a statewide average as though it had been measured here. UDWR's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.
Elk Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 4 | 15 | 26.7% | — |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 1 | 6 | 16.7% | — |
| Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 8 | 210 | 3.8% | 11 |
| Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 1 | 78 | 1.3% | 11 |
| Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 39 | 304 | 12.8% | 13 |
| Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 4 | 113 | 3.5% | 13 |
Data from 2023 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineUDWR's 2023 draw recap for elk in unit Plateau, Fishlake/thousand Lakes, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- Rifle, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 968 applicants for 25 licences, 2.6% drawn, 14 bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 358 applicants for 65 licences, 18.2% drawn, 15 bonus points needed
- Rifle, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 329 applicants for 2 licences, 0.6% drawn, 14 bonus points needed
- Muzzleloader, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 304 applicants for 39 licences, 12.8% drawn, 13 bonus points needed
Utah draws on bonus points in a weighted random draw, not in point order, so the figure above is what it happened to take that year rather than a threshold you can plan to reach. More points buy more chances, never a turn. There are 2 further season-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. These are the figures as published in UDWR's own draw recap; we have not yet checked them back against the agency row by row, so confirm the hunt you mean to apply for before you count on a number.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
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Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-24.
- UDWR Hunt Boundaries — boundary descriptions from the Hunt Planner boundary layer — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, UDWR's private-land note for the unit · accessed 2026-10-24
- UDWR DWR_Hunt_Boundaries_combined feature service — all 687 published hunt boundaries, including the CWMUs — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-24