Hunt Area EH-02 Elkhorn (EH-02)

A pressured, close-to-town opportunity hunt: the legacy Starkey unit sits minutes from La Grande and most bucks taken are spikes and forkhorns, though mature deer survive in the roadless canyon breaks and thick plateau timber. ODFW cut eastern Oregon deer tags about 9 percent for 2026, and this area's collared Elkhorn-herd deer are the reason the boundary now wraps the whole herd range.

• →Get off the road grid — pressure is the defining feature here; the canyon breaks along the upper Grande Ronde and the bigger roadless benches hold the older bucks.
• →Glass bunchgrass south slopes and stringer-meadow edges at first and last light, then still-hunt the dark north-slope timber where deer bed.
• →Hunt the northern Elkhorn front above the Anthony Lakes Highway early in the season while deer are still high.
• →Later storms push deer toward the valley-fringe foothills along I-84 — low-elevation draws that most forest hunters drive past.
• →Old Starkey Unit 52 intel and harvest history still apply almost exactly — 95 percent of this area is the legacy Starkey hunt.

Union County holds one of northeast Oregon's established and expanding whitetail populations, concentrated on agricultural land and brushy bottoms along the Grande Ronde Valley fringe — solid enough that ODFW created dedicated whitetail hunts here for 2026, including whitetail-specific bow hunts. It's a low-elevation, edge-habitat hunt entirely different from the mule deer program.

• →Focus on the brushy draws, river bottoms, and field edges where the forest meets Grande Ronde Valley agriculture west and south of La Grande.
• →Most prime whitetail ground is private — secure permission early or hunt the public timber fingers that drop toward the valley, catching deer transitioning off ag fields at dawn.
• →Sit stands or ground blinds on travel corridors rather than covering country; these deer pattern tightly on feed.
• →Know which tag you hold — 2026 separates mule deer and whitetail hunts in this area — and identify deer carefully in the foothill overlap zone.

This is famous elk country — the Starkey Project's research herd made the unit a household name among elk biologists, and the surrounding Wallowa-Whitman timber carries strong elk numbers with equally strong hunter pressure out of La Grande. Note that in 2026 only deer hunts moved to the new hunt areas; elk hunts still run on the legacy Starkey WMU boundary.

• →September archery: work the plateau wallows and cold north-slope benches between the Grande Ronde and its tributaries; bulls are vocal before pressure builds.
• →Once rifle seasons open, elk bury themselves in the biggest dark-timber blocks away from open roads — hunt security cover, not feed.
• →The fenced Starkey enclosure concentrates hunters on the surrounding forest; expect company near its perimeter and plan drainages away from it.
• →Snow in late fall gets elk moving toward lower winter range on the south and east fringes — fresh tracks in new snow are the best scouting tool this country offers.

ODFW's northeast-area hunting report describes cougars as common in Union County, and this deer- and elk-rich timber country is exactly where they live. Nearly all are taken opportunistically by big game hunters carrying a cougar tag.

• →Carry a cougar tag while deer and elk hunting — chance encounters along canyon rims and timbered saddles are how most cats are killed here.
• →Focus on game-rich ridgelines and saddles that cats travel between the Grande Ronde canyons.
• →Predator calling near a fresh deer or elk kill (set up downwind) is the highest-odds targeted tactic, per ODFW's district biologists.
• →Fresh snow on the plateau roads makes track-based hunting realistic in late fall.