Has anyone hunted in this area yet? Looking for numbers of birds, sign of or sighting. I'll be making a trip in a couple of weeks and will post a report. Thanks.

Hey fishgut

That area is always good for birds even with the dry weather over there this year.

I grew up in Okanogan County and I spent lots of time hunting the Sinlahekin.

But I was mostly hunting deer especially up above the valley between douglas mt. and coxit mt. and a lot on coxit ridge.

Good luck to you and hope you get some fat birds.

Good to hear PT,
If you don't mind me picking your brain, when you were on the ridges did you see many grouse? Is it a general rule that they tend to stay on the sun side in the early evenings? I have found that to be true in other locations but do not know if was typical. Thanks

fishgut,

Yeah there were tons of grouse up where I hunted damn near step on them when youd step over a log LOL!!!.

And yes they came over to the sunny side of the ridges during late afternoon they get the last warm rays of sun.

If you go up the road just north of blue lake you can get right on douglas mt. The road makes a big circle of the mt. or go farther up you can get to coxit ridge and mt. or find the road that goes over angel pass to conconully I cant remember the road no. as I just drive it (memory thing LOL!!!)but the drive over angel usually produced a ton of blue and roughs.

Heres a story that scared the S#*t out of me while deer hunting coxit ridge.
I was the first dropped off the back side of the ridge(real thick nasty north side). well I stood in the turn around(end of an old skidder road) and waited for a bit before making my hike to the top to watch the little draws and openings of the south side. Well I make my short hike and it still being to dark to hunt I went back into the trees as to not spook any deer that may be feeding. As I did this I looked down and seen some cougar tracks in the light snow we had that night.
I thought cool until I walked back a bit further and saw the tracks over mine so I beat feet to the top of the ridge and heard this big cat rustling through the small trees and I didnt care about deer then he paced there just where I could see him until daylight when he disappeared.
All I can say I must not have looked good or he wasnt very hungry. Talk about spooky LOL!!!!!

Yep, that would spook me well enough. I am ignorant about any type of big game. As in how to know when your being watched, tracked, etc. Hard to imagine something watching me and have them picturing me as table fare. Probably don't have to worry about them for a couple months but maybe I'll take a couple of slugs with me.