methow observations

[buckfvr]

Some of the Wardens are our bastion of hope, anything out of Olympia or Spokane is agenda driven.............wrong agenda I might add.....

[Elkpiss]

The WDFW report at the recent meeting over here was that there was a 34:100 buck  to doe ratio during their counts last year.  What they forgot to mention was how many overall deer to get this ratio.  "They didn't have the exact numbers" LOL.  I'm betting 100 .  Again, these studies are ridiculous, bacause they are done when all the deer are down, making them easier to see from the air.  Lot's of country for those deer to disperse in during hunting seasons.  Also, they said there was a 25% harvest rate last year and that the numbers were high for a successful season.  Really?  No way.  Again, what they failed to mention is that these were the numbers for the whole state including second deer tags and antlerless tags throughout all the seasons.  Good luck to everybody hunting north central WA this year, and don't expect a banner year like they're predicting.  Reality is, I've seen FAR less deer this year, then I've ever seen before. 

Mtmuley     .. No deers to shoots?  dang more beers to drinks then..

[turbo]

I've hunted the Methow HARD for 25 plus years and agree totally with bigmacc, and welcome to the forum. The deer have been crushed. My question for all is when are we going to do something about it? It's our herd. It's time for drastic measures and we need to come up with a plan.

WDFW does not care, do you?

[Skyvalhunter]

The best way to make your voice heard is during the time frame when they accept comments makes sure to write a letter. I do it every year but it has to be done by more than just a few.

[bigmacc]

Can't wait for the stories and old time pics.

eventually i,ll get the pic thing figured out but heres a good story thats not mine but was told to me from an old cowboy who was raised in the methow. i,ll just call him "friend" in the story because i havent talked to him in awhile and dont know if hed appreciate me puttin his name out there on one of these "new fangled hippie screens"(thats what he called computors )..here goes---friend and his wife would come to our camp every year at least once or twice,we,d sit around the fire,eat,have a beer or two and be mesmerized by his life as a cowboy and a packer.I,m 56 now so he must be in his 80,s as he was about 25yrs older than me.About 15 yrs ago they came to camp to visit and friend told us they found the "mule deers graveyard" (with a wink at us that his wife couldnt see)..One year he said, while his wife and him were on a horseback trip in the pasayton during the summer scouting some new areas for the upcomming hunting season they came upon a box canyon/basin sort of thing that was about 300 yards wide and about 400 yards deep and all sides were straight up and down and there was one way in and one way out. They rode in and friend said under the trees all around them on the sides of the canyon were the remains of deer,50 or 60 of them he said and about 10 of them with horns still attached(3 of them he said were well over 30 inches).His wife asked him what he thaught happened and his reply to her was "well darlin, i guess we found the spot where old mule deer go to die".She was amazed by what they'd discovered and for years kept the secret he asked her to keep as far as the location of this important scientific discovery ..he finally ended up telling her the truth (or at least what he thought happened) this was back in the late 70's/early80's i think and during the general season winter came fast and furious.Some might remember that year,the season went into the 1st wk of november and during that wk the temps dropped into the single digits and it snowed like crazy,we had a foot and a half at our camp that was about at 2500 ft elevation and the roads in the hills were about 6 inches of solid ice.The weather hit fast and hard and was even worse in the high country.What friend figured happened was when that weather came in up in the high country (which as said was a heck of a lot worse than what we got with about 5 feet of snow and 15 below up at Spanish camp) was those deer were starting to bunch up for the migration,the rut was beginning,the weather was brewing and they just plain got stuck in that canyon and couldnt get out,they took the only refuge they could under the trees to wait out a storm that wasnt gonna stop and they all died under those trees that winter.They had a little instamatic camera with them and snapped 12 pictures of the carnage...when looking at the pics and hearing the story told by an old grisled cowboy who can tell a story much better than me,it would make the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention.

[mkcj]

I did a quick figure of the deer per acre and came up with 1 deer for every 123 acres in the 10 unit's that make up the methow, Now take into account that maybe half of those deer live in or near the valley floor all year and that's not many left to populate the close to 2 million acres that are left. Now those are rough figures but can you imagine if there is only 15K deer instead of 25K. I hope my number are wrong but I think there pretty close There are so few deer now that they live in their winter range all year long because the food supply never runs out, why migrate if they are not forced to in the spring! I think most migrating deer/ bucks that do never make it to the true winter range except on very bad winters anymore.

[buckfvr]

Too many folks living in their traditional wintering grounds.  Just like most other places in the west.

[Boss .300 winmag]

Can't wait for the stories and old time pics.

eventually i,ll get the pic thing figured out but heres a good story thats not mine but was told to me from an old cowboy who was raised in the methow. i,ll just call him "friend" in the story because i havent talked to him in awhile and dont know if hed appreciate me puttin his name out there on one of these "new fangled hippie screens"(thats what he called computors )..here goes---friend and his wife would come to our camp every year at least once or twice,we,d sit around the fire,eat,have a beer or two and be mesmerized by his life as a cowboy and a packer.I,m 56 now so he must be in his 80,s as he was about 25yrs older than me.About 15 yrs ago they came to camp to visit and friend told us they found the "mule deers graveyard" (with a wink at us that his wife couldnt see)..One year he said, while his wife and him were on a horseback trip in the pasayton during the summer scouting some new areas for the upcomming hunting season they came upon a box canyon/basin sort of thing that was about 300 yards wide and about 400 yards deep and all sides were straight up and down and there was one way in and one way out. They rode in and friend said under the trees all around them on the sides of the canyon were the remains of deer,50 or 60 of them he said and about 10 of them with horns still attached(3 of them he said were well over 30 inches).His wife asked him what he thaught happened and his reply to her was "well darlin, i guess we found the spot where old mule deer go to die".She was amazed by what they'd discovered and for years kept the secret he asked her to keep as far as the location of this important scientific discovery ..he finally ended up telling her the truth (or at least what he thought happened) this was back in the late 70's/early80's i think and during the general season winter came fast and furious.Some might remember that year,the season went into the 1st wk of november and during that wk the temps dropped into the single digits and it snowed like crazy,we had a foot and a half at our camp that was about at 2500 ft elevation and the roads in the hills were about 6 inches of solid ice.The weather hit fast and hard and was even worse in the high country.What friend figured happened was when that weather came in up in the high country (which as said was a heck of a lot worse than what we got with about 5 feet of snow and 15 below up at Spanish camp) was those deer were starting to bunch up for the migration,the rut was beginning,the weather was brewing and they just plain got stuck in that canyon and couldnt get out,they took the only refuge they could under the trees to wait out a storm that wasnt gonna stop and they all died under those trees that winter.They had a little instamatic camera with them and snapped 12 pictures of the carnage...when looking at the pics and hearing the story told by an old grisled cowboy who can tell a story much better than me,it would make the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention.

Wow what a sad sight that would have been! 

[sakoshooter]

My old hunting partner, my daughter and I hauled over 2 ton of feed donated by Excel Feeds back in the bad winter of 92/93. Worked w/WDFW on distribution into various feeders. Bad winter kill. Lost over 80% of the mule deer. There were huge piles of carcasses that we checked out. My daughter was very young but got a good education as to what happens when mother nature has her way compared to hunting and quick, humane kills. It bounced back since then but the last 4-5 yrs has been on a down hill slide. I think predators are to blame. We've had easy winters lately and there's a lot of feed in those hills. Very sad the WDFW can't see what we see so clearly.................

[bigmacc]

My old hunting partner, my daughter and I hauled over 2 ton of feed donated by Excel Feeds back in the bad winter of 92/93. Worked w/WDFW on distribution into various feeders. Bad winter kill. Lost over 80% of the mule deer. There were huge piles of carcasses that we checked out. My daughter was very young but got a good education as to what happens when mother nature has her way compared to hunting and quick, humane kills. It bounced back since then but the last 4-5 yrs has been on a down hill slide. I think predators are to blame. We've had easy winters lately and there's a lot of feed in those hills. Very sad the WDFW can't see what we see so clearly.................

i remember that winter also...My dad and i went over thanksgiving weekend to checkout deer movement and take pictures,we stopped in to talk to Mountjoy and ended up hauling about 10 bags of food pellets to an old orchard down off the Burma Road. They had cut holes in the fences to let the deer get into the orchard so they could eat the darn bark off the trees! the snow was about 2 ft deep and had about 2 inches of ice on top. Someone(the owner,county or the dept)was keeping the access road plowed so we drove down the road towards the orchard and by the time we got to the fence we had about 100 starving(but very happy to see us)deer comming thru the holes in the fence and surrounding our truck! I actually had to crawl thru the sliding rear window of the truck(i was a tad smaller back then ) because we couldnt open the doors  we had so many deer piled  around us.  Obviousily the deer had been fed a few other times before we did cause soon as they spotted us comming down that road they couldnt get out of that fence fast enough.it was really crazy'

[boneaddict]

Welcome Bigmacc!   I've been shouting your exact sentiments on here for a long time.  Glad to hear the stories and observations and wisdom from someone who has been around for awhile and not just passing through for two weeks in October.   Jim was a good man and so was Sig.  I haven't met Cal yet, but I believe my dad speaks highly of him. 

There were old trapper stories above graveyards you have talked about.  It usually involved a big cat finding a yard of deer and eating them for the winter.   I have been  amazed by some of the yards I have found while tromping in that backcountry.  Snow to the top of the cabin up Billygoat, but deer still managing to live there.   I agree....Noble creatures.   Nothing more noble than a mossyhorned muley standing up in the rocks and the fog surveying his kingdom.

Welcome

[bearpaw]

bigmacc welcome to the forum 

[bigmacc]

Welcome Bigmacc!   I've been shouting your exact sentiments on here for a long time.  Glad to hear the stories and observations and wisdom from someone who has been around for awhile and not just passing through for two weeks in October.   Jim was a good man and so was Sig.  I haven't met Cal yet, but I believe my dad speaks highly of him. 

There were old trapper stories above graveyards you have talked about.  It usually involved a big cat finding a yard of deer and eating them for the winter.   I have been  amazed by some of the yards I have found while tromping in that backcountry.  Snow to the top of the cabin up Billygoat, but deer still managing to live there.   I agree....Noble creatures.   Nothing more noble than a mossyhorned muley standing up in the rocks and the fog surveying his kingdom.

Welcome

Thankyou.....I remember one year a friend and i hiked into beaver meadows. The season went into november  and it was cold!! We started up the lightning creek trail and there was about 6 inches of old snow on the ground from a storm the week before.When we made it up to the   meadows there was about 2 feet of snow and about 15 degrees cooler and the deer were still hanging around up there happy as clams at high tide .

[boneaddict]

Those were the days and that was one of my favorite hunts.    I could also go out before work during the season and count 200 plus deer on my morning hunt in the sage during the season.   I am not sure I could count that many deer in the whole season now in the same spots.

[mkcj]