I hunted the late muzzy elk tag a few years ago and hunted all over from top to bottom. The top had maybe 4" of snow, we saw way more deer halfway down from the top and all the way to river. we used the jet boat hunt a lot between heller bar and down river to where private starts. We saw 1 buck Id shoot and it was in the drainage just north billy creek, it looks like a bowl if you look on a topo. Buck was a 27-28" 4x4 with a few stickers and great forks and fronts I woulda put him at 180"ish. We found pockets of big herds of does with small bucks, but the rut looked to be all but over by Nov 25th lots of bucks grouped up by then. If you have a gmail account Ill send a map to you where we found the deer they were great areas that you couldn't see from river and looked to be used a lot. I would definitely take drift boat to cross.
