Margaret changes

[BABackcountryBwhntr]

After hunting the Margeret last year with the bow and hearing reports from this year I don't think ill ever apply for it again. the hoof rot is getting TOO bad. they should have made it general a few years ago to get rid of the hoof rot elk spreading it around. The numbers of elk from this year and even comparing it to 5 years ago are crazy!!! the area has potential which its shown but it needs to start over.

weird, my buddy had the tag, killed a 250 class bull and saw 19 other bulls in a week? sounds like it was still pretty good to me?

[trophyhunt]

$500,$800,$1000 haha
I bet margeret gets its own area from weyerhouser. The whole thing smells fishy

EXACTLY--Margaret gets divided off for I bet $400 to $500, but Weyco has already sold the best parts of that unit (Agnew/Noble farms and Erickson). 

The USFS is still trying to purchase the part in Skamania county (High Lakes) but has not been able to get rated highly enough on the grant process.  They are not giving up yet, but the process is long and needs support.

Are you talking about the 4,000 acres with elk lake? 

[Bullkllr]

After hunting the Margeret last year with the bow and hearing reports from this year I don't think ill ever apply for it again. the hoof rot is getting TOO bad. they should have made it general a few years ago to get rid of the hoof rot elk spreading it around. The numbers of elk from this year and even comparing it to 5 years ago are crazy!!! the area has potential which its shown but it needs to start over.

weird, my buddy had the tag, killed a 250 class bull and saw 19 other bulls in a week? sounds like it was still pretty good to me?

Glad your buddy got a good bull. Results the last few years have been pretty mixed. Lots of tags unfilled, others doing quite well.

Not too long ago, seeing 19 bulls in a week in the Margaret would have been dismal.
Saw 19 bulls per herd maybe...or 19 bulls answered your call at the same time...or almost ran over 19 bulls with the truck...or saw 19 bulls poke their heads in the tent door, or 19 bulls actually tried to mate with a Montana decoy maybe...that's more like the way it was.

[HntnFsh]

After hunting the Margeret last year with the bow and hearing reports from this year I don't think ill ever apply for it again. the hoof rot is getting TOO bad. they should have made it general a few years ago to get rid of the hoof rot elk spreading it around. The numbers of elk from this year and even comparing it to 5 years ago are crazy!!! the area has potential which its shown but it needs to start over.

weird, my buddy had the tag, killed a 250 class bull and saw 19 other bulls in a week? sounds like it was still pretty good to me?

Glad your buddy got a good bull. Results the last few years have been pretty mixed. Lots of tags unfilled, others doing quite well.

Not too long ago, seeing 19 bulls in a week in the Margaret would have been dismal.
Saw 19 bulls per herd maybe...or 19 bulls answered your call at the same time...or almost ran over 19 bulls with the truck...or saw 19 bulls poke their heads in the tent door, or 19 bulls actually tried to mate with a Montana decoy maybe...that's more like the way it was.

Thats a heck of a funny way of putting it.    But man it was insane about 7 or 8 years ago when my son and I had our muzzy tags. Seeing 30 branch bulls a day was pretty common. If half a dozen decent bulls went into a hell hole you just shrugged your shoulder and went and found some others! No big deal!

[Bullkllr]

I have a picture somewhere (not a very good one) of a herd with around 300 animals, about 1/2 of which are branch bulls, taken during the season. The ground literally shook when they spooked.

[fireweed]

$500,$800,$1000 haha
I bet margeret gets its own area from weyerhouser. The whole thing smells fishy

EXACTLY--Margaret gets divided off for I bet $400 to $500, but Weyco has already sold the best parts of that unit (Agnew/Noble farms and Erickson). 

The USFS is still trying to purchase the part in Skamania county (High Lakes) but has not been able to get rated highly enough on the grant process.  They are not giving up yet, but the process is long and needs support.

Are you talking about the 4,000 acres with elk lake?

Yes, but I think what the USFS is going for isn't quite that large.  Elk Forest Hanaford (Fawn is just on the Cowlitz Co. Side so it isn't included)  The Gifford Pinchot boundary is the Cowlitz/Skamania line so technically these properties are "inholdings" withing the nat. Forest that is how the USFS can justify acquisition, and old trails to the Mt. Margaret used to go there.

[Alan K]

Agnew must be greasing palms at the WDFW.  He can just buy governor's tags out of state now and have a premium hunt on his own land every year, not to mention sell a handful of hunts for 10-15k+. . . This makes me want to puke.   

The thought when they moved Margaret to the Bull category was to drum up application dollars since there aren't very many good options there, so however much he's paying them off with must cover years of lost applications fees.   

I don't buy that Weyerhaeuser would be doing much behind the scenes on this, even if they were to bump sales of their Longview permit by 1k to a total of roughly 3500 5000, and increase the price by $200, that's still less than a just over $1M over last year's sales.  Their revenues are in the billions, I doubt that 'chump change' would be worth the risk of the black eye of being caught bribing a government agency.  Not to mention what that publicity would do to their stock price, which is all that really seems to matter to them.

Who knows though.  Big money has a lot of power behind the scenes. . .

EDIT: Just reading back I saw someone mentioned that 4k permits had sold.  Last I had checked it was 2500 but I didn't really check once late summer came around.

[bobcat]

I wasn't sure about the 4,000 permits being sold. I was thinking they had sold around 3,000 before the deadline at the end of September, and then they offered another 1,000 for sale, but I don't remember how many of those actually sold.

The total number must have been somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand.

Here's a newspaper article I just found:

http://tdn.com/lifestyles/modern-rifle-deer-season-seeing-fewer-hunters-in-weyerhaeuser-s/article_fc9afc86-5018-11e4-b08e-bf91c524f8d8.html

[BABackcountryBwhntr]

The st helens permit was 15000.... I bought one and used in 2 days the entire year.. once in the margret and once in the winston.

[higunner]

What GMU will all of the private property around the lakes be considered?

[Bullkllr]

What GMU will all of the private property around the lakes be considered?

It's in the general season 524 part. Finally got what they wanted.