In 1990 the area was chartered under the Blue Mountains Elk Initiative as the Sled Springs Management Demonstration Area and sanctioned by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to develop methods for improving hunter-landowner relations, increase hunter satisfaction with various land and wildlife management programs and test new elk management methods. Only 17 percent of the management demonstration area is in public ownership. There are roads out there, but nobody's on them. The road closures are a big factor in the quality of the hunting experience. In fact, on opening day over half of the Demonstration Area's elk tag holders chose to hunt on one-third of the area with road closures, as opposed to adjacent lands where roads are open to vehicles.
Hunters take two approaches to hunting the area.
One is to camp along the main roads, then walk out behind the gates to hunt each day. The other involves packing gear out past the gates and setting up camp in the backcountry. The second piece of the quality-hunting puzzle is managing the numbers of hunters. In the 1970s as many as 17,000 deer and elk hunters converged on the Sled Springs area each fall, causing a nightmare for wildlife managers and Oregon State Police wildlife officers. They really cleaned the bulls out.