Unit research · Washington GMU 162

Dayton — Washington

25% public across 134,418 ac. Road access is easy — only 16% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

Open in map

Black bear draw odds (1)Deer draw odds (3)Elk draw odds (3)Odds and pins: free, no account

GMU 162Full map — ownership, roads, wind →

1,510–6,020 ft

elevation range

25%

public land

16%

of public >1 mi from a road

280 ac

landlocked public

1.46

road miles per mi²

108 mi

maintained trails

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

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

7 limited-entry black bear, deer and elk hunts are drawn on GMU 162: apply in the Washington draw, by the agency's deadline below.

Black bear tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$42.47 resident · $458.40 nonresident

Deer tag · 3 draw hunts (2026)$71.31 resident · $751.37 nonresident

Elk tag · 3 draw hunts (2026)$78.90 resident · $837.90 nonresident

Plus: Washington big game hunting licence$61.70 resident · $599.07 nonresident

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

WDFW — Big game hunting licences and tags (2026) ↗

WDFW — Big game hunting licences and tags (2026) ↗Draw odds for Washington black bear →Draw odds for Washington deer →Draw odds for Washington elk →How the Washington draw works →

Fees and draw dates from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 2026, verified 2026-08-15 — past its verify-by date, confirm with the agency. Tag type from the agency's published draw statistics: a gmu that appears in none of them has no limited-entry hunt we know of. Source: WDFW — Big game hunting licences and tags (2026) · WDFW — Special hunt permits.

Land & access

■ USFS 24%■ SDNR 1%■ BLM 0%□ Private 75%

Unit area134,418 ac

Public land33,650 ac (25%)

Landlocked public280 ac (0.8%)

Black bear draw pressure0.35 tags/mi² public (0.086 of total area)

Deer draw pressure2.3 tags/mi² public (0.57 of total area)

Elk draw pressure0.077 tags/mi² public (0.019 of total area)

Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)306 mi

Maintained trails108 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road5,545 ac (16% of public)

Road density1.46 mi/mi²

Managed byUSFS 32k ac · SDNR 1k ac · BLM 0k ac

Elevation1,510–6,020 ft

Median elevation3,440 ft

Median slope19°

Where the ground sits

1,510 ft6,020 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 25%

E 22%

S 17%

W 36%

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

73,342 ac of this gmu has burned — 55% 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

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

Measured at WALLA WALLA REGIONAL ARPT, 35 km from the unit’s center and ~2,300 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · general season

16.6% success

184 taken by 1,106 hunters

Deer hunter success · 2018–2025 · 20% → 17%

Season breakdown · 2025

Season	Success	Harvest	Hunters
Archery	6%	5	85

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

Elk · 2025 · general season

4.3% success

23 taken by 532 hunters

Elk hunter success · 2018–2025 · 0% → 4%

Season breakdown · 2025

Season	Success	Harvest	Hunters
Archery	5%	5	108
Muzzleloader	6%	7	111

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

Black bear · 2025 · general season

7.8% success

20 taken by 258 hunters

Black bear hunter success · 2013–2025 · 5% → 8%

Harvest estimates from WDFW's hunter reports, published per GAME MANAGEMENT UNIT as HTML tables — the only state we carry that publishes harvest as structured markup rather than as a PDF whose layout has to be recovered from whitespace. Success rates are WDFW's own and are carried verbatim. METHOD IS THE VARIANT. Archery, Modern Firearm and Muzzleloader are separate seasons with separate tags in Washington, so a hunter appears in exactly one and the 'all' row is their sum. "Multiple Weapons" is its own tag type rather than a total, and is carried as its own variant. ⚠️ TWO TABLE SHAPES. Deer and elk put the GMU in the table's caption with one row per method beneath; black bear puts the GMU in the row's first cell with no method column. WDFW also upper-cases unit names in the deer and elk reports ("101 - SHERMAN") and title-cases them in the bear reports ("501 - Lincoln") — an uppercase-only pattern reads deer and elk perfectly and silently skips every bear table. General-season reports only. WDFW's special-permit tables carry harvest by point class but no hunter count and no success rate, so they cannot be turned into a rate and are not ingested; the general-season tables cover the same units. Deer and elk carry eight seasons and black bear thirteen — the older deer and elk reports use a layout this reader does not handle and are omitted whole rather than in part. Source: WDFW Game Harvest Reports (per GMU, per season).

How these numbers are made

public_land_pct = public_area / unit_area
landlocked = public ∖ reachable(roads, corners)
remote = public ∖ buffer(roads, 1 mi)
# AGPL — read the pipeline →

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 GMUs

Tucannon · GMU 16696% public · 18% remote Mill Creek Watershed · GMU 15796% public · 59% remote Wenaha · GMU 169100% public · 69% remote Blue Creek · GMU 1542% public · 12% remote Marengo · GMU 1635% public · 4% remote Peola · GMU 1784% public · 1% remote

Ready to scout it?

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

Open GMU 162 in the map