New High Hunt opportunity?

[bobcat]

I still haven't seen where it says you have to hunt inside the wilderness boundary. In the pamphlet the "Game Management Units" are listed, and all it says is "Mount Baker."

So this may be a much bigger hunt area than you all are thinking.


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[Bob33]

True but it is listed in amongst other wilderness areas. The only high hunt areas that aren't wilderness are explicitly stated as such.

I think it's an oversight that it is not explicitly mentioned as the Mt Baker Wilderness.

[NWWA Hunter]

You all go up there so I can kill that Giant elsewhere alone.

[bobcat]

I think it's an oversight too, but it's a fairly significant detail that they left out.


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[fillthefreezer]

There's a lot of wilderness boundary that you can drive right to. I know of areas where the road is the boundary. Easy access into a wilderness area is nothing new.
I can't speak for this specific wilderness area because I've never been in there, but I have driven to the wilderness boundary before in 2 different wildernesses.

There are lots of wildernesses with easy access but most of them are not open for a high buck hunt.  I can't speak to the Olympic wildernesses as I've never been to any of those, but Pasayten, Glacier Peak, Alpine Lakes, etc. all are true wilderness with no easy access to hunting areas.  Mt Baker wilderness is completely different.

More bears than deer will get killed during this hunt.

 

im not too familiar with this area but i am the others your referenced, i can think of multiple places where youre parked at wilderness boundary.
most of these (not all) are low elevation with significant climb to the alpine, maybe thats the difference here?

[jackelope]

There's a lot of wilderness boundary that you can drive right to. I know of areas where the road is the boundary. Easy access into a wilderness area is nothing new.
I can't speak for this specific wilderness area because I've never been in there, but I have driven to the wilderness boundary before in 2 different wildernesses.

There are lots of wildernesses with easy access but most of them are not open for a high buck hunt.  I can't speak to the Olympic wildernesses as I've never been to any of those, but Pasayten, Glacier Peak, Alpine Lakes, etc. all are true wilderness with no easy access to hunting areas.  Mt Baker wilderness is completely different.

I've done the high hunt in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and have driven to within a half mile of the wilderness boundary.
I've done the high hunt in the Henry M Jackson Wilderness and the road I drove in on was the wilderness boundary.

Shhh....don't tell anyone.

Mu daughter is 6. She has hiked into 5 different wilderness areas. 3 of the 5 of them are high-hunt-able. She's not exactly a model of strength and physical fitness. I guess what I'm saying is, there's lots of wilderness areas you can get to and hunt the high hunt that are not hard to get to. If they were that hard to access, my 6 year old wouldn't have been there.

[shanevg]

im not too familiar with this area but i am the others your referenced, i can think of multiple places where youre parked at wilderness boundary.
most of these (not all) are low elevation with significant climb to the alpine, maybe thats the difference here?

I can think of 3 trailheads where you are parked in alpine and less than a quarter mile from wilderness.  I can think of 2 others that are less than 2 miles and 1000 feet elevation gain to get into alpine. 

Again, I'm all for increasing hunting opportunities.  It's just that for this particular area, I would have much preferred to see two birds killed with one stone.  Help draw odds by adding more hunts (and therefore spreading out hunter applications) by adding maybe 25-100 high buck hunt tags, increasing late season tags (and lengthening season) and if you want to add an OTC hunt than bring back late archery in the unit which is what most locals grew up hunting anyways. 

Increasing hunting opportunities this way is coming at a significant expense to pretty much all the other seasons in the area and is going to result in some major hunting pressure for deer and bear very early in the year.

[pd]

Shane and 3nails are exactly right on this one. The area is WAY to small and easily accessible to add the kind of pressure this will bring. And these area's are absolutely covered with the tree huggers this time of year. I agree with Shane that it would be a good season to have permits to draw for. I think 25ish would be the right number. I don't think this will take a big toll on the deer numbers though. There are not many deer up there anymore to begin with, and with the kind of pressure it will get hit with there will be VERY few deer taken.

Thanks, 3Nails, ShaveVG, and CBoom.  Your knowledge of the area is instructive.  Good luck to you all this year, and let's all hope for a minimum of hunter/hiker friction.

[shanevg]

Shane and 3nails are exactly right on this one. The area is WAY to small and easily accessible to add the kind of pressure this will bring. And these area's are absolutely covered with the tree huggers this time of year. I agree with Shane that it would be a good season to have permits to draw for. I think 25ish would be the right number. I don't think this will take a big toll on the deer numbers though. There are not many deer up there anymore to begin with, and with the kind of pressure it will get hit with there will be VERY few deer taken.

Thanks, 3Nails, ShaveVG, and CBoom.  Your knowledge of the area is instructive.  Good luck to you all this year, and let's all hope for a minimum of hunter/hiker friction.

That's exactly right!  I know the local "roving" forest ranger for the district and mentioned to her that they were opening up this hunt.  First of all she was really glad someone told her (she said WDFW never communicates these sort of things to them.)  She also said she's hopeful for a minimum of hiker/hunter conflict.  She is not a hunter herself but comes from a hunting family and told me she's been working really hard to help defuse a tense situation over recent years.  They get a lot of complaints about hunters and she tries to explain to everyone that this is public land and hunters have as much right to access the area as hikers do.

[3nails]

Little surprised by the response to this.  My hope of course, is that opening up extra land will help spread us out.  I don’t know much about the deer population health up there, and if it can handle it, and no doubt the bears will be hit, but most high hunt areas seem to have more bears killed than deer.

I am also surprised people are struggling with the wilderness boundary thing.  It’s the USGS clearly defines Mt Baker wilderness.

In terms of hunting close to trailheads, there are plenty of places in Henry M Jack, Glacier Peak, and alpine lakes that are less than one mile from the trailhead.

Alpine lakes and Glacier Peak have some places where the hippy hiker population have to be worse.  I mean, you can be in Alpine lakes wilderness from downtown Seattle in less than 2 hours (including driving and hiking).
I guess I am just not seeing how this can be worse than Alpine lakes wilderness.

One of my main issues with hunting in Washington is avoiding people, so anything to help spread us out I appreciate, hopefully it is not a disaster in other regards.

Two things to consider. One, Whatcom Co. may be the center of the greenie universe. Two, probably 3/4 of the hikers are Canadian.   

[Boss .300 winmag]

I don't see why? almost every wilderness area has "bunny huggers" on the main trails during high buck. should be a great hunt some guys.

Well then you don't know the area well. Super easy hike into it from anywhere. WAY more day hikers than other high hunts. There's not one single area worthy of needing horses to get into. I guarantee at 3 miles in from any trailhead there will be ten camps set up to hunt the same bowl. I've yet to talk to a single local hunter who is happy about this.

I'm local on my side of the mountain and it will open a deer area to a month before the muley season, SO IM HAPPY. 

Now when I go to one of my favorite bear areas me or my kids can score a nice blackie if we see one, defiantly will be a massive 3 point or a nice 4 point before we would pack it out of our hell hole. 

As for the hikers well their just gonna have to get used to hunter orange and rifle noise. It's just as much our recreation area as theirs.

[JackOfAllTrades]

Now when I go to one of my favorite bear areas me or my kids can score a nice blackie if we see one, defiantly will be a massive 3 point or a nice 4 point before we would pack it out of our hell hole. 
 
As for the hikers well their just gonna have to get used to hunter orange and rifle noise. It's just as much our recreation area as theirs.

I was talking to a buddy that frequents much of the area as his Bear hunt. He looks at it the same way. While not going to 'hunt' bucks, he likes the opportunity to take a buck while Bear hunting. Nothing more. He won't plan on making this a week long high hunt. Still, like others have said, I bet the place will be packed with west side hunters on the opening/weekend, that don't normally go on high hunts on the east side. This will take a toll on the Bear population and likely increase opportunity for conflict with greenies.
 
As for Hunter Orange...  We're the ones with guns. We have to wear the orange. But the greenies don't. How bloody stupid is that?
 
-Steve

[James]

Two things to consider. One, Whatcom Co. may be the center of the greenie universe. Two, probably 3/4 of the hikers are Canadian.   

I have spent some time in bellingham, so I know what you mean.  But there are tons of trails into Alpine Lakes that you can see over 50 people in an hour, areas that they limit the number of people hiking via permit, etc . You can almost see more people than walking the sunday Ballard market on a nice day.  It just can't be worse than that, there just are not even close to the same number of people in Whatcom country as there is in King and Snohomish.

[X-Force]

I don't see why? almost every wilderness area has "bunny huggers" on the main trails during high buck. should be a great hunt some guys.

Well then you don't know the area well. Super easy hike into it from anywhere. WAY more day hikers than other high hunts. There's not one single area worthy of needing horses to get into. I guarantee at 3 miles in from any trailhead there will be ten camps set up to hunt the same bowl. I've yet to talk to a single local hunter who is happy about this.

I know the area fairly well. I don't hunt or hike the big trails; Skyline, Ptarmigan, heliotrope, etc.  people that go into those areas will find out very fast that they are going to have lots and lots of company.

More bears than deer will get killed during this hunt.
 

[JLS]

More bears than deer will get killed during this hunt.

I keep hearing this over and over, are you folks suggesting this is a bad thing, or just stating opinion?