Future of Washington Hunting Season's

[Dman]

 Like it the way it is 

-Or change it?

[ICEMAN]

I say cancel the whole weighted draw. No points year to year. None. Everyone has the same chance to draw year to year.

What I believe you would see happen is 80 percent less people applying for permits. Dedicated serious hunters would be the only group applying.

Raising money by raffling off the game of this state has always seemed a bit wrong to me.

[Dman]

 Not sure why it was cut off

 My statement was;
 I would propose the following system; Entire State goes to draw only for alternating two year intervals for buck deer, with doe hunts every year. you could apply as a group, or individual. The first year, 50% of licensed tag holder's would be drawn, the other 50% the following year would be guarenteed a tag. You could then count on being to hunt a quality hunt and know when it would happen. Quota's would be instituted for max hunter's per unit (multiple hunt choices).

[bobcat]

It wouldn't be right to cancel the point system now. I would like for them to go to a system similar to Oregon's, with mule deer hunting by draw only, and most elk hunting by draw only. But it will never happen, at least not in the near future. There are too many people that will complain if they can't hunt both deer and elk every single year, in any area they want. 

I like having general seasons too, for the flexibility they provide, but I think there are just too many people now, and not enough deer and elk, to allow the unlimited hunting that we have now.

[Bobm]

I like the way things are and hope they keep it that way.

[jackelope]

I like it the way it is, also.

[Dman]

 I think Western Wa. could still support a general season, but Eastern Wa. is too open and receives more pressure (combined with tribal harvest). I think it makes more sense to go to draw only for E. Wa. muleys. Whitetail could likely also stay general season in the NE corner habitat.

[bobcat]

That's why I said similar to Oregon. They still have general seasons for blacktail deer and Roosevelt elk in western Oregon, but most of eastern Oregon is by permit only, except they do have general archery seasons over there. I just think a lot of the mule deer gmu's get too much pressure, some don't, but some do. For elk, I don't really like the spike only general season. I'd rather see no general season, and a lot more permits given out for any bull. I do see a problem with improving the quality of our deer and elk herds in eastern Washington- as soon as they start producing trophy animals the tribes go in there and kill everything off. So I suppose for that reason, it probably should be just kept as is. 

[Curly]

I agree w/ Bobcat and Dman.

[nw_bowhunter]

I like having the general otc hunts I would never want to loose the opportunity to hunt elk or deer  and make it draw only. Why give up opportinuty to hunt?

[Machias]

All they need to do is OPEN up all the GMUs and stop craming us all into a few GMUs, they elk would adjust and so would the hunters.  I'd rather chase a few elk in areas with NO hunters then a handful of elk with everyone else crammed into the same two or three GMUs.

[dreamingbig]

I don't think the current system is ideal, but haven't quite been able to come up with a better alternative yet.  Need to think a little longer on it before I post.  One thing I am struggling with is that the results of the draw don't seem to give much weight to the points helping you.  They might well, be but lets see the results!

That said the current system is supposed to increase your draw odds, but I would like to see them publish the stats for each unit.  i.e. how many points it took each applicant to draw the permit.  This seems reasonable and might help to convince me that the draw is being done correctly.

[jackelope]

like i've said about 143 times, this is the first time i ever really paid a lot of attention to the draws. it seems kind of wierd how many people drew tags with 4-5-6 points and you guys with 9-10-20(polarbear) didn't draw. maybe it's the tags your putting in for, not sure, but seems like some pretty good tags got drew with 4-5 points.

[bobcat]

dreamingbig, I think the reason points don't seem to help in some cases is that many people only apply for the best, and most popular permits, and most of these same people have been applying for the same permits from day one. So, a large percentage of the applicants for the best permits have the maximum number of points possible. It's almost the same as if there was no point system when everybody has the same number of points. The odds of drawing just aren't going to change significantly from year to year.

[Dman]

 I too wish the whole draw process was open to the public with statistic's provided, cripe we couldn't even get last year's harvest result's in time to help us make good decisions on selecting hunts this year. Why the heck do we have a Jan 1 deadline to report if they can't count up the notched tags over a six month period???