I'm not 100% positive but I don't believe they have any elk near Republic. They do have a small herd NE of Spokane that is any elk but it's pretty thick and there's not a lot of elk there.

I hunt the Colockum area. Mostly sagebrush and rocky hillsides in the desert but we have about 4k in our herd. They are hunted pretty hard from all sides though including surrounding the reserve where most of the elk try to go. It's spike only for the general season tags.

You can hunt the Yakima herd but I've never hunted there so don't know much about it.

They also have a fair number of elk on the West coast (Olympic Rain Forest). They are Roosevelt elk so they are larger bodies but smaller racks and thicker. And speaking of thick, the forest are rain forests so it's very hard to hunt that side with all the brush and trees. But I've not hunted it either so dont' know much. Oh, and in SE Wa. in the Blue Mountains is another herd that is hunted.

Basically the best advice I can give you is find someone to take you to their camp, if you can, at least to get you started. That will give you enough to get going. If you want to try it yourself you'll have to pick an area and contact the WDFW for some advice on good areas to try. Just don't expect very much, success rate for Wa. is around 5% and most of the areas are spike-only. Don't bother coming here for trophy hunting, spend your money for a Idaho or Colorado tag, that's what I've done in the past and going to Colorado next year. This state sucks pretty bad for hunting in general, although bird hunting can be good at times, especially ducks and geese.