Anyone interested in goats?

[norsepeak]

Met with the bio. and the head hunting guy with the game dept. in Yak. this morning about the goats up west of town.  They just flew the chinook pass areas on Friday, so I wanted to compare what they got for a population with what I have seen up there.  I live on the pass and spend around 200 days a year in the woods and goats are kinda my personal passion.  I keep a real close eye on them.  Anyway, according to the bio who did the flight, he saw 101 goats total!  Thats what they base their tag quotas on!  So we pulled out some aerial photos and some maps and chatted for about an hour, and I filled him in on an estimate of what the actual number is up there....long story short, I'm going to be working with bio for the next couple of weeks (between guiding for elk) on getting a more accurate count which in turn will help the commission give us more tags.  They are also thinking of making a percent (like 10 or less) specifically for non-res. and the rest for us.  The way it is now "theoretically" all 18 tags in the state could go to non-res.  Bottom line, hopefully with a more accurate population count we may see more tags next year.  At least they are taking the time to listen....

[Ray]

I like the goats so much I might become one for Halloween with my kid. 

[bucklucky]

 

[archery288]

I hope it all works out - a goat is on the top of my list to harvest! 

[WAcoueshunter]

Good for you working with them to get a more accurate number for harvest purposes...those guys get spread pretty thin, so also cool to see the WDFW working with locals who likely know the most about the local populations.

Curious, based on their count of 101, what did they say that supports in terms of a tag quota?  I assume there's some percent they view as harvestable, and a baseline population number they need before issuing a tag.  Just curious what those thresholds are.

[actionshooter]

I have heard they base tags on 5% of the harvestable population.If that true there numbers are off b/c they only offer 2 tags for coral pass. I know in the area you are speaking of I saw 37 different goats in one day a month ago.
 Thanks for helping!!

[heavy hauler]

i was lucky enough to draw the smith creek tag for  goats in 2006.those animals are awesome. bucklucky did a great job mounting it for me.     since i cant draw a goat tag here now its just raffle tickets for me.  i would love to hunt them again

[norsepeak]

They told me that they shoot (no pun intended) for 4% harvest.  So if you do the math, 101 goats and between the two units(corral pass/nachespass), there are 4 tags, it's about right.  The problem is that there population estimate is 66% low.  That being said, we talked about how much to increase the tags...the problem being that the majority of the kills will probably come from areas within the units that are easlily accessible (roads).  So what will happen is those particular populations will continually get hunted and have the most harvest while the populations in the more remote areas will likely never have a consistent harvest.  So to alleviate that delema, we talked about make some of the tags archery only....in the easily accessible areas, and then the next most amount of tags would be muzzleload, and then rifle.  But in the grand scheme we were talking about tripleing the number of tags available with implementing the 10% or less rule for non-residents.  We'll see what we can do, with a 13% success rate state wide for all weapons, it seem very feasible.  The next part to the puzzle is the predators.  The way to get our counties into the depredation hound hunt program is to have lodged complaints.  So if you want to get into the program to have some cats taken with hounds (which is a great mgmt. tool) you guys need to be calling the  county and complaining about the number of cats.

[actionshooter]

Maybe I'm missing something but I believe there are only 2 tags offered for Corral Pass/ Naches Pass (hunt number 6003) . I agree that the population estimate is low with the little time I have spent in the area I'm sure I have seen 50+ different goats inside of 8 days.
 What is the 13% success rate for? All species? The percentage for the OIL hunts are way higher.

[norsepeak]

4 tags for the whole chinook pass area which is corral/naches, and little naches area(name of the unit escapes me right now).  He told me that for all big game species in washington and all weapons the average harvest is 13%.  You have to consider all species when figure the average.  How many people just go ahead and buy a bear tag and cougar tag when they buy their licenses and then don't harvest either one?  That adds into the "average".

[WDFW-SUX]

Goat populations can be hammered in hurry...Id rather they take a conservative approach with them

Im glad were most likely getting a non resident cap

[actionshooter]

4 tags for the whole chinook pass area which is corral/naches, and little naches area(name of the unit escapes me right now).  He told me that for all big game species in washington and all weapons the average harvest is 13%.  You have to consider all species when figure the average.  How many people just go ahead and buy a bear tag and cougar tag when they buy their licenses and then don't harvest either one?  That adds into the "average".

The other area they are refering to must be Blazed ridge? 3-10

[norsepeak]

everything is in the talking stages right now, don't know what will happen for sure, but we as a group (hunters on this site) may be able to use our voice to get some things done.

[GOcougsHunter]

Great info.  It would be really interesting to talk to the WDFW to find out why they stopped the goat hunts on the Olympic penninsula and why there is no hunting in a majority of other areas where there are truly significant numbers of goats.  I have read the WDFW trend reports and they self admit that there is no funding for true population studies and it appears as though they are at a loss on how to manage the entire population.

I echo Passion's statement that I believe in conservative over liberal goat hunting.  But, I spend a whole lot of time in the upcountry, have read every available book, report, study, etc. and I just really do not fully understand the dismal tag numbers as compared to the number of Nannies, Kids, and Billies I see. 

[norsepeak]

Yeah, they keep singing the budget blues...but we talked about some possible remedies to that as well.  They admitted that they only have the funding for one or two flights per year...which isn't conducive to getting accurate data.  Basically the whole system here in Wa needs to be revamped from top to bottom.  But at least they are listening...its a start.