Weyerhauser Permits

[biggfish]

I'm still not buying one, first I'm not sure I can even afford tags this year at all, second I have enough private land access that is connected to state land to choose from.

[RadSav]

Here are my thoughts.  I'm going to hopefully buy a Vail permit (If they don't sell out in less than 2mins.)  I am going to buy a st. helens permit.  I am going to MT to hunt deer.  And if I draw another out of state tag I will be going on that hunt also and if I don't draw I might still go to ID on a deer hunt.  I am not rich but I know it costs money to hunt so I save all year long so that when hunting season is here I can hunt.  If you wait until "you have the money" you will never hunt like you want to.

Amen!

The year I killed my big 7X7 bull my buddy Bone and I had completely run out of money.  I had a $10 bill stashed away in my ash tray that I knew would get me from Sumpter, Oregon to the next Exxon station where I could use a gas card to get me home.  We took an afternoon off from hunting to walk a few roads picking up beer cans and pop bottles.  That gave us enough money to put one more tank of gas in the Datsun, buy a large bag of frozen peas, some mayo and a loaf of bread.  I then shot a small buck for camp meat and that was enough to get us through the last week of the season.  That last week of the season produced one heck of a glory ride home!  Two bulls, a 350# bear and 1.3 deer made the ride home in the back of the truck. 

I've been lucky enough to have hunted all over the United States and Canada.  Taken record book sheep, caribou, elk, deer and bear.  Been at the top of the world for sunrise and watched the sun set on the beaches of the gulf.  Hunted with Hall of Fame members, culled pigs for the government and made nearly every hunting and fishing dream I'd had as a child come true.  But that one week we spent in the hills of eastern Oregon, dang near penniless, eating the same thing three times a day for six days will forever be the greatest hunting trip of my life.

If you wait until you have the money you likely will be too old to do the things you've dreamed of once you get it.  You are only young once!  Sacrifice what you can now before those creeping hands of time beat you down.  I can live with the things I failed at and the mistakes I made.  But the things I never did are the things that haunt me now.  Sometimes picking up cans and bottles for the chance to get just one more opportunity, one more shot or one more week in the woods can take you to places you've never been before.  For me it resulted in one good arrow, that arrow resulted in a national award, that national award got me an invite to the S.H.O.T. show, that show is where I met the right people, those people launched a career, and that career has given me one heck of a good life!

[Eli346]

Great post Rad!

[grundy53]

Great post Rad!

excellent write up.

[fireweed]

I refuse to double-subsidize Weyerhaeuser with my property taxes (which I pay about $40 more so they get a big tax break) then turn around and pay them $360 to access the 50% of Cowlitz County that they have as their kingdom.  (St. Helens permit $160 plus Columbia timberlands $200).  Toutle is basically an island within the St. Helens tree farm, this means far more than no hunting here.  It means no walks with my children in the woods or to the creek or to pick berries or ride bicycles or horses.  It is easy for Puget Sounders to consider the fees as the "cost of hunting" but for residents it is a loss of a way of life.  BUT if I cave, and pay, I am rewarding bad behavior and condoning this loss of heritage.

[TheHunt]

I purchased on last year because I drew a Toutle tag.  I was done in a day with my elk.  I am considering picking up another because my brother will be buying one and for me to be with him since he is a disabled hunter. 

[Little Fish]

I bought a Weyerhaeuser St Helens Tree Farm permit last year for archery elk. I saw a fraction of the animals that I have seen historically in the same areas. Not sure if it was the increased traffic on the logging roads, the thinned out herd or the hoof rot killing the animals off, but at the end of the day my partner and I didn't have a single opportunity to launch an arrow. The area I hunt has been getting worse each year, but with the permit system allowing vehicle access the way I hunt is far more difficult than before. With that said I won't be buying the permit again and won't even be hunting the same area until things improve substantially.

[RadSav]

I bought a Weyerhaeuser St Helens Tree Farm permit last year for archery elk. I saw a fraction of the animals that I have seen historically in the same areas. Not sure if it was the increased traffic on the logging roads, the thinned out herd or the hoof rot killing the animals off, but at the end of the day my partner and I didn't have a single opportunity to launch an arrow. The area I hunt has been getting worse each year, but with the permit system allowing vehicle access the way I hunt is far more difficult than before. With that said I won't be buying the permit again and won't even be hunting the same area until things improve substantially.

They say the St Helens herd has been dropping at a rate of 50% per year the past three years.  I would say it has been close to that for five.  IMO you can't have hoof rot and that number of early cow tags and keep a strong herd number.  Good news from last year was that the number of cows we saw with bad rot was down significantly.  Too bad that could not be said for the bulls.  I think it was 9 out of 11 mature branch bulls we saw that no way in heck were going to make it through winter.  And since WDFW would not let us shoot them I expect they will further help spread the disease.  Makes absolutely no sense to have Winston cows only in the late season.  We need to bust all those rotten apples out if we want to save the basket.

Hunting pressure was very light while we were in there.  So even if the numbers were down it was enjoyable.  And we saw plenty of animals.  Just not as many as in years past.  And not 1/10th of what you would see 15 years ago before they started to slaughter cows.

[pianoman9701]

Pay them to go out after reduced herds of limping elk? I don't think so. I hope the elk wreak havoc on their farms. Bears, too.

[RadSav]

Encouraging us to shoot healthy cows and refusing to let us kill suffering bulls that will infect the healthy.  Really makes person sick to their stomach!

But, not many places on the westside where you can hunt with such little pressure as we had in Weyco last year.  If you can forget about watching all the sick and dying bulls without being able to end their suffering it's a great place to be.  Some real dandy bucks in there too!  More bear than there has been in a while.  Wonder if that is from all the elk they have been feeding on resulting in better cub survival

[jpharcher]

I bought one then shot my 5x5 on public land opening day of early season,guess I don't get to take that fee to the grave with me.
hunting Colorado this year so no permit for me

[Pete112288]

I think it made a big dent last year. The year before the harvest they showed on the WDFW website for the Coweeman unit for elk was like double what it was last year. I assumed the biggest factor there was the expensive permits. I have so much history in my core area that I may cave in this year, I tried other places I just know my core area so well that it makes it hard not to pay.

[Eli346]

 

[bobcat]

The cost to access Coweeman is only $160 so that seems like a no brainer to me. 

Plus they're offering 5,000 permits this year so it's not like you you won't get a permit if you want one. Like was the case with other areas which only had around 500 permits and sold out in 3 minutes. 

[KDB]

Sounds like over here in Klickitat County they are going to the lease program this year.  I'm certainly not interested in a Lease, but their gates and lease program will prevent others access to other industrial land owners properties behind the gates