I was lucky to get a Oregon Snake river area buck tag. Can you help me with some advice on where to hunt this unit? I'm a backpacker who will go anywhere to find a good spot.

If your a backpacker you have a big advantage over the majority of hunters in the snake unit. The bulk don't like to put the pain on the body that can happen when moving around much on foot.
The whole unit carries a good number of mature bucks but it is no cakewalk. Do you want to hunt the north or south part? The south has more water on the upper parts as its used for cattle grazing. The road closes Laborday weekend and the buffer zone between the wilderness is usually good. There will be some horse traffic. If you walk the skyline ridge road from where the gate is (a few miles past McGraw Lookout)your first swail is PO saddle. Hunt from there to Himilwright Springs and then on up to Benjarmin. Thats an eight mile walk on the road. You can break off either side. Another good buck area is south of Mc Graw called Pudderbaugh. Work the west side of the road about
75 yards down from the top. The flat area on top will have roadhunters running around and they push everthing off onto this side. Hope this helps. If you get a good detailed map we can chat some more. The horns in the area are tall and wide but only a few will be really massive. If you have time and can drive over before Laborday, it will be very helpful

Thank you for the great information. I'd like to talk more after I study the map. I think I'll go over July 4th and have a look at the areas you mentioned. You really know the area well.If you don't mind, please e-mail me to talk about hunting some more. Thanks so much, John olsonjw2@yahoo.com

BigShark, what about Crazyman? It used to hold some nice bucks. It's been awhile since I was in there.

tks
Sorry I can't comment on it as I don't recall it.
Is it in the north part of the unit? There's a lot of round up there I haven't stomped around on as when I originally scouted the area by plane there were some parts that didn't look like good bowhunting ground so didn't cover it. Tell us about it. What are some of the names around it? Where would it be in relation to either airstrip?

I believe Crazyman is the last left before you get to the gate in the area you were describing. I've bow hunted in the same area you described. We were in too early. Saw some bulls but no shots. We saw some nice bucks in the Crazyman drainage. Steep and deep!

OK......I know where you are talking about now. Guess we just got into calling it by our own names for certain spots we didn't pay good attention to the real names. I don't have a map any longer so have to do this by memory. The area is on the west side of the main road and goes out to the breaks of the Imnaha River. Yes the two largest bucks I have ever seen in the south snake unit were out in that area just before you get to the powerlines. I would guess they were twins as their horns and size looked like two peas out of the same pod. They were exceptional and I would guess that gene pool is still going, just got to find a 4 or 5 year old animal to see what it really looks like. They have improved and increased the amount of roads in there in the past few years which makes it tough for those animals to get old enough to show you what their potential antler growth is. Anyway good luck on the hunt, stay in touch if I can be of any help and be sure to post how the hunt turns out.