Do you think the WDFW is doing a good job?

[Jerbear]

NO
As I have stated before, I have hunted since the early 50's.  I grew up in the Yakima Valley down by Wapato.  In 1955 my uncle took me deer hunting.  That is when I was told I had to get a hunting license and a deer tag.  What a concept.  I still have the license. It cost $4.00.  I could hunt everything as long as I had the tags.  The deer tag was $2.00.  I could hunt anywhere in the state, and that included the elk.  Deer season started in mid October and ran until mid November.  The month long elk season kicked in the last week of deer season.  Hunting camps were set up in October and were there until the end of elk season.  Good times were had by all.  Here in Klickitat County where I now live, on the east side of Satus pass, they issued 1,000 doe tags, on the Greyback side, 1200.  The herds were well maintained and healthy.  Now lets go to the winter of 96-97.  Thousands of deer died because there were to damn many.  You see the biologists started getting into the picture.  And a more recent example is the Elk Conservatory by Mt. St. Helens.  I believe it was a year ago in the spring when channel 6 news out of Portland went in and filmed all the dying elk.  They showed a beautiful 6x6.  well the rack was beautiful.  The animal was skin and bone dying of starvation.  What the television crew reported and what the game dept reported are two different figures.
We have in this county, two game agents.  I have no idea how many biologists.  The are two doing studies on the Western Pond turtle.  Eggs are gathered in ponds and taken to state hatcheries to hatch the N.W. spotted frogs.  Go to the game dept. web site and under hunting click on Southwest Washington report. 
They say here in Klickitat county they went to the min. 3 point on deer because the buck to doe ratio is off.  I ask the biologists how they determined that.  He said they drive up and down road and count the animals.  I live right next to the Klickitat wildlife area.  There are more does here in the spring that you can count.  This is just one wintering area .  It is like this all over the county.  But it is better to let them starve during the next bad winter.  A retired  biologist set the fall turkey hunt quota at 75.  Now this is for FOUR game units which take in a hell of lot of country.  Fewer people are putting in each year, as the odds are just too great.  I can show you flocks of 70 to 100 birds all over the county.  We should be able to hunt in the fall if you have the tags.The sale of hunt applications is what matters. 
A few years ago Field and Stream magazine stated that the Washington state game dept was the most political department in the whole U.S.  An example of this is when the Queen Bee  stole the election for Governor.  She replaced 3 commissioners on the game dept, with her own choices.  One was Bob Tuck from Selah.  He hunts and fishes and listened to us.  He did not even know he had been replaced until he stopped getting mail and had to call to find out what had happened. No thank you, nothing.
Until ALL THE SPORTSMEN AND WOMEN, all the organizations get together and organized and make a change it is going to get worse.  The solution.  Get Tim Eyman or some attorney that hunt and fishes, and get it on the ballot that we elect the game commission.  Period.  I will now get off my soap box and go do my chores.

[WDFW-SUX]

AMEN

One thing you said reminded me of something........and that is the flawed method that they use to guess the number of animals in one area...........here is what happens when you actually count

http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2007/aug/27/elk_numbers_jump/

Oops

[WAcoueshunter]

here is what happens when you actually count

Funny, I was about to post an article about the same study...but my point was that this is a Colorado story.  Just shows that there are G&F problems everywhere, and we can't say ours is necessarily worse than others. 

To reply to the other stuff from Jerbear's post, to me, the big difference is the number of residents.  Certainly the game populations were better 50 years ago.  But we also had a fraction of the current number of WA residents.  Not only are there more hunters, but those people also live in developments, cut timber, develop/pave former habitat, etc.  As a result, we now have a lot of great whitetail and turkey habitat, but our muley populations are hurting.  I don't blame this on WDFW, but on development.  Not sure what to do about that...but I can say I'm generally in favor of laws that generally slow down development.

[dbllunger]

They are controlled by a liberal democratic party and so it will not change.  I would say they do the best they can based on who is in charge.

[Fesup]

I would like to see them do away with the any buck on the west side black tail

[Intruder]

Bone makes some really excellents points in his first post on this topic.  While I generally think that the WDFW do NOT do a very good job.... they are behind the 8 ball on alot of things.  Now the flip side is, if they weren't would they do better.  I tend to think that it wouldn't be a whole lot better but ya never know. 

[WAcoyotehunter]

I agree that the WDFW makes some unclear rules/decisions, Keep in mind how many different groups they're fielding calls from- i.e developers, snow mobile clubs, ATV clubs, horseback clubs, hunters, anglers, ranchers..... They're in a tough position to please everyone, and they're doing what they can to manage more than just the game animals. 
Keep making the phone calls and pushing for different management aproaches, but keep in mind, they have a lot of peeple leaning on them for their own interests as well.

[edmondshunter]

Its hard to say if the State really has a handle on the mang. end of hunting in this state.  There are some back assward rules. Why cant you get a doe tag for open GMU's?  Also why the ghost numbers for tag drawings, if you don't want to be drawn, don't apply. I understand the weighted point system but why make it so complicated. I guess it comes down to money.

I think they should make the game regs. a lot easier to understand, and use to the hunters advantage.  Right now they are deceptive and sometimes down right hard to comprehend.  Being a novice hunter with no one to show me the ropes, I find it hard and discouraging to prep for a hunt in a new area.

[tmike]

I also believe, can't prove, just my opinion, that a lot of the decisions are based on politics not biology and many of those decisions are trade offs between deer, elk, shellfish, salmon and steelhead with the tribes. No one would say that. Just a gut feeling based on some of the answers I've heard.

[M_ray]

A staggering number of no votes someone should forward this on to the WDFW ... oh wait never mind like they care anyway  what was I thinking!

[billythekidrock]

A staggering number of no votes someone should forward this on to the WDFW ... oh wait never mind like they care anyway  what was I thinking!

 

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Read through this thread and here we and here we are same issues 7 years latter. id be willing to bet in another 7 years it will be the same??

[buckfvr]

Same mismanaged cluster schmuck no account dont care anyhow bunch of agenda driven studies to no end.  Get as much money as you can while it lasts is what I see. 

[snowpack]

Good job for who?  For hunters and fisherman overall, I think no.  Yeah, they have to deal with lots of obstacles--feds, liberal Seattle and treaties; but it seems they can work around much of that kind of stuff.  They could open cougar and bobcat season year round and make no bag limit.  No bag limit for bears and lower the price of additional tags.  Etc.  For fishing, they keeping cutting back on hatchery plant numbers and rivers planted.  For halibut season, they could move the Thursday portion to the weekend, so people could fish instead of being at work (overall number of days might be shorter to get the quota, but more people could make it out to fish).  They could release more pheasant and extend the season.  Seems there's lots they could do to encourage more people to hunt/fish.