Goodbye late season honey hole... :(

[RadSav]

I've seen more evidence of night poaching in the Winston over the past few years than ever before.  That can have a strong effect on resident herds too.  Last year four of us worked an area all day leaving at dark.  First light the next morning there were two yearlings field dressed with no tags on them right where we enter the woods.  That herd who had been there for a few days was never seen again that season.  From what I saw yesterday in the snow there were plenty of night hunters in our area again the night before. 

[steeliedrew]

I've seen more evidence of night poaching in the Winston over the past few years than ever before.  That can have a strong effect on resident herds too.  Last year four of us worked an area all day leaving at dark.  First light the next morning there were two yearlings field dressed with no tags on them right where we enter the woods.  That herd who had been there for a few days was never seen again that season.  From what I saw yesterday in the snow there were plenty of night hunters in our area again the night before.

That sure is a bummer.  People that do that deserve a kick in the *censored*.

[eldplanko]

Sad to hear also. It might have been worth checking in on your spot a few times earlier in the year, as depending on details, it can take some time to get an area ready to cut (i.e. survey, mark the boundaries, leave trees, rehab any roads, etc). If  you start to see a bunch of orange/green/blue paint on trees or  timber boundary markings the "time" may be coming.

Also, if you hunt DNR land, check online on their timber auctions. They added a nice online map (https://wadnr.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=b57d179877ac46fc9f18917f677d8f86) recently that makes it easy to tell where pending and active timber sales will be, as well as past sales that haven't been cut yet.

[Slimdog350]

My bro in law and I had a spot that we hunted religiously for years. There hadn't been any logging activity in there for quite some time. I pulled 2 nice Bulls out of there and we were always on elk everyday. It was too good to be true though. 2 years ago they started logging and haven't stopped. The whole valley is one ginormous clear cut. We still find elk in there but not the numbers we are used to. Now we hunt the surrounding hills in 20-30 year old timber. Deep and dark. We used to go out and scout and see 40-50 elk every time. One time we went out we saw 17 legal bulls and every single one was a 4 pt. it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Now we are lucky to see 4-5. It sure is disappointing. Oh well. That gives us incentive to find new spots. I'm sure you will find another one Drew.

[steeliedrew]

I've been scouring the Topos and Satelite images the last couple days and have a game plan at least. 

[eldplanko]

I've been scouring the Topos and Satelite images the last couple days and have a game plan at least. 

The "time machine" on google earth is also sometimes helpful... I'm starting to see new satellite imagery from this summer in some places. Find your spot and go back it in time. It's also helpful for estimating how old timber stands are if you can figure out what year they were planted.

[steeliedrew]

Good call on google earth. I just noticed that the new images of my area are up and it shows all the new cutting. I didn't even think to look at google earth before going down there. I do a lot of butt scouting on my iPhone via the google maps app and the pics aren't as updated I guess.

[GregE]

Hunted the snow and the rain late season in Winston.- very few elk seen compared to previous years even with reduced hunters due to the Access fee. 



Met a couple helpful Hunt WA guys. Wave us down if you spot the red Dodge.  Bandaid is my support driver.