Unit 75

Key features guide navigation across this expansive plateau: Winter Ridge and Indian Spring Ridge offer glassing vantage points, while prominent summits like Gift Butte, Ferguson Mountain, and Round Butte serve as visual anchors. The rimrock system—including Coleman Rim, Barnes Rim, and Dead Horse Rim—creates natural terrain breaks and funnels game movement. Named valleys like Drews Valley, Jims Valley, and Lost Valley provide navigation corridors between basins.

Spring names throughout the unit (House Spring, Pankey Springs, Godowa Spring) mark reliable water sources critical for planning routes. Monument Rock and Lookout Rock offer secondary glassing positions across the more open flats.

Most of the unit sits between 5,000 and 6,500 feet, creating a distinct high-desert environment where sagebrush grasslands transition into ponderosa and juniper stands on the higher ridges. Lower basins like Yocum Valley and the Potholes remain open and dry, supporting pronghorn and early-season elk. As elevation increases toward the Hagerhorst Mountains and rimrock edges like Coleman Rim and Barnes Rim, vegetation thickens and scattered forest provides cover.

The elevation bands ensure varied habitat within a relatively compact region—glassing opportunities in open country mixed with timbered pockets where elk concentrate during hunting season.

The unit features a well-developed road network—3.6 miles of road per square mile means access is consistent and connected. Highway 395 and County roads provide entry points from Paisley and Bly, with secondary roads branching into most basins and valleys. This level of connectivity supports good vehicle access during hunting season, reducing walk-in distance for most hunters.

However, the vast size and scattered nature of productive habitat means pressure isn't concentrated—hunter density remains moderate despite the accessible road network. Early season sees more focused pressure on the higher timbered areas; as elk move, pressure shifts across the basins.

Unit 75 encompasses roughly 2,200 square miles of south-central Oregon's high desert plateau, centered on the country around Paisley and Bly. The terrain spreads across multiple interconnected basins and valleys, from the Sprague River drainage on the western edge to the Goose Swale and surrounding flats to the east. The landscape is characterized by low mountains and extensive open country at moderate elevation, with the topography varying from nearly flat basins to rolling ridges.

This is working cattle country mixed with public hunting land, where sagebrush dominates and scattered timber provides seasonal refuge.

Water is the limiting factor in Unit 75. Perennial streams include Black Canyon Creek, Dobe Creek, Brown Creek, and Wildhorse Creek, primarily flowing through the western drainages. Most water is seasonal, concentrated in spring systems scattered across the unit—Pankey Springs, House Spring, Bob Plank Spring, and others are marked on maps but require scouting to confirm flow. Small reservoirs and ponds (Lake Henry, Dog Lake, Noble Reservoir, Obenchain Reservoir) provide secondary water sources, though many are irrigation-focused or seasonal.

Hunters must plan routes around known water and carry capacity for dry stretches; early season offers more reliable sources than late season.

Unit 75 supports elk, pronghorn, mountain lion, black bear, mountain goat, and bighorn sheep, though success varies by species and season. Early season targets bulls in scattered ponderosa stands and around timbered ridges like Winter Ridge and the higher reaches; glassing open country at dawn and dusk is standard. Pronghorn hunting focuses on the lower basins and flats—Yocum Valley, Drews Valley, the Potholes—where visibility is excellent and stalking is possible.

Elk migrate to higher ridges as season progresses and pressure increases. Goat and sheep hunting, if available, follows rimrock systems and steeper terrain. The combination of open glassing country and scattered timber makes this unit suitable for hunters who can read terrain and plan water routes; success depends on knowing which basins hold game during your hunting window.