How did you do ?

[NWTFhunter]

Hi guys,
I have been giving this a lot of thought and have read some posts here from the past about the white tail hunts.
I was just trying to find out exactly how many of you guys took deer from the Colvile Chewelah area this year.
I know that only 1 deer was taken from our group this year.  Not a usual year for sure.
And have talked to a few others whom I know that hunt there and they reported poor results.

Please post up with your tallys.
Im waiting to see the harvest reports from WDFG for these areas, but havent found any releases as of yet.

Thanks
Cameron

[croix]

We had nine hunters in the NE and only took one 3pt. We saw just as much sign as any other year but almost nothing moving during the day. Tough year.

[270Shooter]

Saw 5 deer in 2 days. 1 was a buck. Not a whole lot of fresh sign but it was there. All of the shots we heard were early or late in the day. I heard one shot at 11:00. Wish i could have caught up to that buck he was a nice one .

[Machias]

Hunted 8 out of 12 days, saw a doe and a yearling.  Not near as much sign as normal.  I normally see 30 to 60 deer in a two week hunt.  I have killed a deer every year for the past 14 years in these  areas, Springdale and Chewelah.  Was a rough year for me to say the least.

[Colville]

We've been hunting the same spot for 10 years plus or minus. I know there's going to be all kinds of wringing of hands about the deer pop being way down, but that's not what I saw. But the kill stats will be down this year.

We saw about what Croix did. Clear skies, warm temps and almost no movement in the daylight. Deer were seen mornings before 8:30 and we saw no evening deer whatsoever.  So why do I think they're there? Because I've walked the same benches and ridges for a long time. All the sign is there and there was plenty of it. Lots of rubs in the usual places. However, the scraping was down. There were several scrapes but they were filling with Tamarack needles. They weren't keeping them up. I think rut was coming on late. We saw nothing that indicated bucks were getting itchy about it. It hunted like an early season. Nocturnal deer, bucks not working their rub/scrapes till mid morn or before dark.

Our Group had 6 hunters and we killed one doe and 2 spikes. One hunter saw a decent 4 pt and near first light, didn't seal the deal and that was the only decent buck that was seen. A couple other solo does were seen or bumped and they had no buck company and no fawns. Saw one doe with a fawn. Not many deer taken right in our area but the same hunting pressure levels. (lots of road hunting and near road hunting going on here) There were deer taken at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock last year. Heck most years we'll have reports of does crossing roads mid day from fellas we pass and talk to. Not this year. I'm not in the least concerned because the poop/tracks/rubs over a large area that we cover was "normal". Might be down on the total pop some, maybe more on mature bucks but who'd know because they were most definitely sleeping out the day in un-huntable brushy hell holes.

I think they're down a bit and this warm/starry sky late season ending mean good things for their numbers next year. Baring another nasty snow year there was a lot of escapement on my mountain. ymmv.

[Gobble]

We hunted just south of Colville and hunted 1 day sat (Nov 8th) and I shot a small 4 x 4  . We saw about 12 deer or so on sat.

2 of us were hunting and my other buddy was along for the ride. He tagged out early with a doe tag.

 It was a public land hunt as well.

[mwhite]

I went over this year for the first time.  My dad and I went for the last couple days of the season just to see some new country.  We hunted the Colville area. Walked into a gated area Monday evening and saw a couple of does, no bucks in tow.  Also found a dead buck that someone had cut the antlers off of.  It was a fresh kill.  I would say it was probably a 2 or 3 pt buck.  Not sure why they didn't take the whole deer.  Anyways, I jumped a moose right before dark and that was it.  Tuesday we hiked back in and there was a black bear eating on the dead buck.  Too bad the season ended a couple of days earlier    It was a cool looking bear, all brown with a black head.  I got the video camera out and videotaped it for a few minutes.  It looked like a dry sow to me, large body but a small head.  Not sure.  Anyways we moved up the hill about a half mile and I thought I would try some rattling.  I could hear something faintly moving through the brush but could never see anything.  I looked over at my Dad and he motioned that a cougar had just come in to 30 yards, popped its head up and then snuck away.  No opportunity for a shot.     Not a great start to a deer hunt, but it was interesting.  We did see quite a few fresh scrapes, but since I haven't hunted whitetails like this much I wasn't sure what to do about it.  There were probably 8 scrapes within 400 yards of each other on an old road bed.  I figured we should probably sit and watch them but wanderlust got the best of me since I had never been here before and I wanted to see what was over the hill.  There was plenty of sign and fresh rubs but we couldn't find any deer.  I did spot a really nice muley buck on the opposite hill.  Watched him for awhile, he was by himself just standing and looking around.  Probably trying to find a date    Most of the really fresh sign we found was in the thickest crap you could find, which made sense since it was so nice and they had been hunted for 2 weeks prior.  I finally pushed through some thick crap and jumped deer, but no way to see them or get a shot off.  It was a jungle where the deer were hiding.  That evening we did finally spot a nice buck, 3x3 with eyeguards, decent mass about 18" wide but he was too far away and it was getting dark.  He was with a doe, but he seemed to be just hanging out rather than dogging her.  He was probably 50 yards from her, he did watch her and when she moved he'd follow but just not real rutty.  The following morning we did a quick hunt and since the weather had been so nice and the activity died off pretty fast in the morning we drove the 7 hours home after a couple hours of hunting.  We did see a few deer, but mostly muleys.  Also, saw a nice big flock of turkeys.  Made for a great couple of days with my Dad and we got to see a large variety of game.  The deer definitely seemed to be there, just holed up tight.  A few more days and some better weather and better knowledge of the area would have defnitely helped, but still a good couple of days.

[hambone]

i hunted to the west of the ski slopes off cotton creek road about the same as everone else seen lots of scrapes an sign they just were not moving around much seen 4 does in about 5 days worth of hunting. did find alot of old moose droppings must of been a bunch in there wintering last winter. also found 4 or 5 either winter kill or cat kill within about 50 yards of each other.