Mission B unit, 251 was the focus for 2 scouting trips in the last 3 weeks for me and my brother. We spent a total of 4 days scouting everywhere between Tarpiscan Crk and Camas Crk for Mule Deer to prepare for our Oct. 16th - 29th Special Permit Hunts this year.

Overall, I've never been so unimpressed with an area in Washington State, as far as wildlife populations go. Throughout the 4 days we saw a total of 1 deer. This was a doe, eating from an orchard about 1 mile from downtown Wenatchee.

We have hunted Mule Deer all our lives (30 yrs for me) near twisp and Pateros. This was our first time in the Colockum.

To summarize the places we drove to and hiked, looking for fresh scat and tracks (finding none):

Tarpiscan Road, Near the Colockum Unit Manager Headquarters: A large amount of deer sign here, all in excess of several weeks old. The scat was a dried grey to white color, no longer dark brown. All of the browse and shoots of green plants and forbs were eaten down to the shafts. There was also a large amount of Elk sign here, as old or older than the deer sign. This area had been eaten bare and the animals had moved on.

Kingsbury Road at the junction of Moses Coulee Rd.:
The terrain here was nice but ravaged from recent tree thinning operations. There were a lot of cattle grazing in this area but no sign whatsoever of deer presence, old or new. There was a great deal of Elk sign here but all of it at least a few months old. It was bone dry here with no green forage (no food to eat) and little to no escape cover in most of the area. I hiked up to the power lines on Jumpoff ridge in the early morning and carefully looked for deer sign throughout my 600-800' hike. Not 1 (one) single deer turd or track within a 1/2 mile area of the bowl was in evidence. Deer don't live there.

Upper Jumpoff Ridge, overlooking resevoirs above Stemilt Rd.:
Dry as a bone. Some old deer tracks (2 or 3 sets) over a 1/2 mile stretch of woods and old trails. This area, like Kingsbury, had recently been ransacked for tree thinning. Nothing lives there now.

#2 Canyon Rd. Near Stiss Rd and surrounding resevoirs/lakes above Wenatchee:
There was plenty of food here in the creek beds and greenery in the thick woods. Amazingly, even though water was abundant here, there were no signs of Deer or Elk in this area. We hiked throughout the creekbed and around the resevoir.

I could go on, but suffice to say this scene repeated itself hiking at these other locations:
Camas Creek and Little Camas Creek
Various spots along Mission Creek Rd from Cashmere up to and near Beehive
Sandy Creek junction with Mission Creek Rd.
Old Blewett Pass Hwy on the West side of Hwy 97

I'm not confident we will find anything October 16th. Thoughts?