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Units / Oregon / Unit COLUMBIA BASIN

Unit research · Oregon Unit COLUMBIA BASIN

Unit COLUMBIA BASIN — Oregon

2% public across 1,832,956 ac. Road access is easy — only 16% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Watch the checkerboard: 8,437 ac of public land has no public route in.

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Elk draw odds (1)Pronghorn draw odds (2)Odds and pins: free, no account
Unit COLUMBIA BASINFull map — ownership, roads, wind →
260–3,470 ft

elevation range

2%

public land

16%

of public >1 mi from a road

8,437 ac

landlocked public

1.09

road miles per mi²

601 mi

maintained trails

Computed from primary government data by the open pipeline. See the code →

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

3 limited-entry elk and pronghorn hunts are drawn on Unit COLUMBIA BASIN: apply in the Oregon draw, by the agency's deadline below.

Elk tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$66.00 resident · $670.00 nonresident
Pronghorn tag · 2 draw hunts (2026)$68.00 resident · $453.00 nonresident
Plus: Oregon annual hunting licence$39.00 resident · $193.00 nonresident

Season dates: see Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's regulations

ODFW — Licence, tag and permit fees (2026)

Oregon elk and pronghorn draw calendar

  • May 15, 2027application deadline
  • May 15, 2027application deadline

Fees and draw dates from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, 2026, verified 2026-08-15. Tag type from the agency's published draw statistics: a unit that appears in none of them has no limited-entry hunt we know of. Source: ODFW — Licence, tag and permit fees (2026) · ODFW — Controlled hunt applications and tags · ODFW — How to navigate the controlled hunt process (standing May 15 deadline).

Land & access

BLM 1%FWS 0%OTHF 0%□ Private 98%
Unit area1,832,956 ac
Public land28,075 ac (2%)
Landlocked public8,437 ac (30.0%)
Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)3,121 mi
Maintained trails601 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road4,398 ac (16% of public)
Road density1.09 mi/mi²
Managed byBLM 15k ac · FWS 4k ac · OTHF 3k ac
Elevation260–3,470 ft
Median elevation1,340 ft
Median slope

Where the ground sits

260 ft3,470 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 25%
E 28%
S 18%
W 29%

Share of ground steeper than 5° — flat ground has no facing

North slopes hold shade, cover and snow; south slopes open first.

USGS 3DEP 1 arc-second (30 m), slope at native resolution in a local metric projection, sampled on a 200 m grid. See the code →

Unit intelligence report

70,580 ac of this unit has burned — 4% of the unit. The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.

Open the report →

Season conditions — measured, not vibes

Historical temperatures · 2000–2025

Monthly normal highs and lows, °F40° high28° lowJFMAMJJASOND

Normals for 2000–2025 — tap or hover for a month

Measured at EASTERN OR REGIONAL AT PENDLETON AP, 44 km from the unit’s center. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2017 · controlled hunts

51.8% success

869 taken by 1,677 hunters

Deer hunter success · 2015–2017 · 59% → 52%

Season breakdown · 2017
SeasonSuccessHarvestHunters
Antlerless69%119173

Which season is the value play here — same ground, different odds.

Estimated harvest from ODFW's MANDATORY HARVEST SURVEY — every tag holder is required to report, and the department extrapolates from the returns. These are estimates by construction and ODFW labels them so; the success rates are the department's own and are carried verbatim. Weapon is the VARIANT, because in Oregon a rifle, archery and muzzleloader hunt are separate controlled hunts with separate tags rather than methods within one season. A hunter appears in exactly one. These summaries are also the only published link from an Oregon hunt to its unit. ODFW names its controlled hunts in prose — "Alsea - Stott Mtn", "Aldrich 01 Bow" — and publishes no hunt-to-unit table anywhere; the Unit Name column here is the crosswalk, and without it the draw statistics could not reach a unit page at all. ⚠️ ODFW SPELLS ITS OWN UNITS TWO WAYS. The harvest summaries say "Alsea", "Lookout Mountain", "Murderer's Creek"; the boundary service says "ALSEA", "LOOKOUT MTN", "MURDERERS CREEK". Every harvest row is mapped through the LAYER's ids so a unit named here always exists on the map. Seasons are uneven: the current summaries carry one year each and the dated archive reaches back to 2014, but several of those older files use a layout this reader does not handle and are omitted whole rather than in part. Source: ODFW Big Game Hunting Harvest Statistics (estimated harvest by unit and hunt).

How these numbers are made

public_land_pct = public_area / unit_area
landlocked = public ∖ reachable(roads, corners)
remote = public ∖ buffer(roads, 1 mi)

Computed, not curated: no paid research team, no opinions dressed as data. If a number looks wrong, file an issue — the fix ships for everyone.

Nearby units

Unit UKIAH35% public · 3% remoteUnit HEPPNER34% public · 2% remoteUnit MOUNT EMILY46% public · 5% remoteUnit FOSSIL15% public · 27% remoteUnit BIGGS13% public · 45% remoteUnit WALLA WALLA33% public · 7% remote

Ready to scout it?

Everything on this page, live on the map — ownership, boundaries, roads, and your own waypoints.

Take Unit COLUMBIA BASIN into the field

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What happens nextMay 15Elk application deadline · details →May 15Pronghorn application deadline · details →
Watch this unit — freeReturned and leftover tags, new legal closures, fire near the unit, weather warnings — by email. One unit free, no card.