WA deer season, what to expect...

[grade-creek-rd]

Here is a short blog about the WDFW "prospects" on the upcoming Washington deer season...basically a "cliff notes" version of the "Hunting Prospects" the bio's put out...and just remember, don't kill the messenger!

Grade

http://www.theoutdoorline.com/blog/post/2018/09/25/washington-deer-season-preview.aspx

[cbond3318]

The only thing useful in that article is the pic of the Mule Deer in the burn. 

[bigmacc]

With all due respect to you grade-creek, I have not taken seriously much of anything that WDFW "bios" say when it comes to projections, herd numbers etc., especially when it concerns deer populations/forcasts. They hold zero credibility with me after seeing some of their past inflated forecasts of ungulate numbers and misinformation of predator numbers. I pretty much depend on our own scouting or talking to people who actually spend a lot of time out in the woods of the areas we hunt, I really don't know how much time and effort the WDFW bios put into our deer herds anymore, I certainly know that its not as much as it used to be, they have slid way down the pecking order with "other" critters moving ahead.....

[grade-creek-rd]

You will notice in the article that it's not all roses...in fact, it pretty much states the units that are not doing well, and why...and just remember...Don't kill the messenger!

Grade

PS. Ya, that photo of the buck in the burn...one of my favorites!

[heavyhorned]

good info brother. great pics too. i have a feeling its going to be a tough year again in central wa. seeing deer but seeing legal deer on privet land or in some really remote country. i am starting to think predators are playing a huge roll in the decline of the deer heard's.  seeing lots of cougar sighting and hearing of hunters finding quite a few kills.

[bigmacc]

You will notice in the article that it's not all roses...in fact, it pretty much states the units that are not doing well, and why...and just remember...Don't kill the messenger!

Grade

PS. Ya, that photo of the buck in the burn...one of my favorites!

 ...Not shooting the messenger Grade, thats why my first words were due respect to you. My thoughts are that it has gotten so bad(deer numbers)in some areas(especially mule deer in some of our traditionally good mule deer turf)that they may loose even more credibility by putting out one of their "above average" or "optimistic" rubber stamp forecasts that we have seen so many of in the past years. I have known some real good bios in the past that worked the Methow for instance(30-40 years ago)that actually came to our camps, asked questions about what we were seeing, forwarded info that they observed etc. etc. You would see them on hillsides with bino,s and spotting scopes in November and December in 2 feet of snow and 10 below temps counting deer and observing migrations first hand, then you would see them in areas doing the same thing in March and April during the spring migration moving back up, they spent hundreds of hours in planes, choppers and on the ground counting, observing, tagging, collaring and tracking our elk and deer. I remember one year sitting on a ridge line watching a hunter working his way up to a saddle a couple hundred yards out from me, I put my bio,s on him to see it was our bio friend with his rifle on his back 4 miles in from the nearest road. I talked to him a couple days later and he said he took a couple days off to hunt because the "time was ripe", it had snowed a couple days prior and the temps had dropped to single digits and he had those 2 days to hit it hard. Point being most of the older generation of Game guys and bio,s actually got their boots dirty, the department had our deer and elk as their top priorities and most really cared about our elk and deer and actually enjoyed hunting them(at least the many I and my family have known going back 100 years). Just my opinion here, but the new generation, the new WDFW has new priorities or maybe its safer to say to MANY priorities now days and I just don't think our deer and elk are getting the same attention and effort put into them as they did 20 or so years ago and before and because of that a lot of folks including myself have seen the discrepancies of some of their past "forecasts"....Just my opinion and 

[singleshot12]

There's no need to give attention or study our deer and elk herds now. They know what's happening to them now that the predators are back in full force.
If they said the herds were suffering from it license sale would dramatically decline. Can't have that!

[grade-creek-rd]

I agree with all of you...and bigmac, I totally agree and appreciate your insight (I hunt just over the hill from the Methow..to the south:) ) but will add in that maybe "some" of it isn't being driven by the bio's but instead by their bosses...I know a few bios and they would rather lace up the boots and do field surveys and observations but instead are being ordered to do "field work" from their desk. Also, keep in mind that we now have technologies that replace some of the field work, like GPS collars. I talked to a bio recently that is involved in the blacktail study (mentioned in the article) and it is all via GPS collars and google earth. They can track the deer in "real time" and hope to learn more about what happens this coming hunting season as they have 50 bucks collared right now. As the bucks die they will put the collar on another buck, keeping the research at 50 and review the data. Kinda cool...but yes, I agree that a lot of the statements are propaganda, either to sell licenses or to say there' a balance with the predators...that is one reason why the article focused on the negative and not the "positive" as it paints a little more realistic truth. Like the "buck to doe" ratio's for mule deer...honestly it needs to be a "mature buck to doe ratio" as it does hunters no good to read in a "hunting prospects" report that there are 19 bucks per 100 does if 15 of those bucks aren't legal anyway...

Grade

[cbond3318]

Grade , I didn’t mean any disrespect either, hopefully it didn’t come across that way. I take those type articles with a grain of salt as well. I will say I was surprised it did shine some light on the “not so good” side of the picture. 

[bigmacc]

I agree with all of you...and bigmac, I totally agree and appreciate your insight (I hunt just over the hill from the Methow..to the south:) ) but will add in that maybe "some" of it isn't being driven by the bio's but instead by their bosses...I know a few bios and they would rather lace up the boots and do field surveys and observations but instead are being ordered to do "field work" from their desk. Also, keep in mind that we now have technologies that replace some of the field work, like GPS collars. I talked to a bio recently that is involved in the blacktail study (mentioned in the article) and it is all via GPS collars and google earth. They can track the deer in "real time" and hope to learn more about what happens this coming hunting season as they have 50 bucks collared right now. As the bucks die they will put the collar on another buck, keeping the research at 50 and review the data. Kinda cool...but yes, I agree that a lot of the statements are propaganda, either to sell licenses or to say there' a balance with the predators...that is one reason why the article focused on the negative and not the "positive" as it paints a little more realistic truth. Like the "buck to doe" ratio's for mule deer...honestly it needs to be a "mature buck to doe ratio" as it does hunters no good to read in a "hunting prospects" report that there are 19 bucks per 100 does if 15 of those bucks aren't legal anyway...

Grade

 ...I agree that there is new technology out there and some of these bio,s are following orders from above, bottom line is like a lot of us agree on is a lot of what comes out in print is propaganda to generate license sales and I think more and more people are picking up on that and what B.S they know they can't get away with they just spin it(like the buck to doe ratio), I totally agree with your idea of a "mature buck to doe ratio) because a lot of folks see 19 per and think thats great, well have all kinds of bucks hanging on the pole within a couple days, but in reality it may only be 4 or 5 legal bucks per(muley) because the rest are spikes and forks. We have always done our own ratio study  ,  we do it with a clipboard and pencil, a hand clicker and we do it in migration routes we know of and in staging areas, in fact I remember many times back in the day the game guys we knew would come to our camp and pick our brains for hours about our observations from the past year as far as our counts.  We would document all bucks per 100 and 3point or better per 100, we have been doing it for over 50 years in spots in the Methow, for what its worth, last November and December(2017) we were at 13 bucks per with 4 of the 13 being legal , this summer(Late august, we were at 7 per with 2 being legal  (late august were mostly local deer, nov. and dec. include migrators). Now I know we arnt in planes and choppers etc. and we arnt sitting at a desk monitoring a collared buck but I would bet that our ratio is a lot closer to reality than the one they will put out, at least for the Methow specifically. Once again I remember times we had counts of 25 per and 15-18 were 3 point or better, I remember(before point restrictions) we actually had counted points, I think it was sometime in the 70,s we had counts of five 4 point or better per 100 does, six or seven 3 point per and 12 spike/2point per for one seasons count, good times  ....good conversation

[bigmacc]

One more thing as far as counts, Yotes-way up,   cougar-way up,   bear-way up,   wolf- who really knows. Predators have knocked the crap out of the Methow herd at least, I don't spend enough time in other areas to make the same call, but I will listen to guys who do spend time in those areas regarding predators before I will lap up the "propaganda" that is put out there by the department, which is really sad because I know there are still some good folks that work there but as been said they are following direction from above.

[ljsommer]

"What to expect": A nice walk out of the woods after a long day of fruitless hunting! Bring a cigar and you'll never be disappointed!

[bigmacc]

Another instance just popped in my head about"the forecasts" put out by WDFW, this time it was reversed  , Once again in the Methow, I don't remember the year but they came out with a ratio that was 8 or 9 per I think(it was really low), and the previous Nov/Dec trip for us was in the mid 20,s and the pre season trip(August) we were in the teens. We were asking ourselves if anyone from the department even put an effort into counting or did they just forget and air mail a count to the paper because we were seeing bucks everywhere during our scouting and a lot of nice bucks hit the ground that season without any kind of weather at all, in fact we have pics of our 5 bucks hanging on the ridge pole(all 4 point or better) and we were in t-shirts and tennis shoes . I remember we gave our game dept buddy a hard time and he just laughed it off and said maybe it was supposed to be 8 or 9 does per 100 bucks . The point being back then they didn't try to inflate numbers and baring some haymakers from Mother Nature or some real brainfarts which happens time to time for all of us, they were usually pretty darn close with their projections and forecasts,  they took care of those herds(especially the cash cow Methow and Entiat herds) and by putting forth quality hunting they would sell their tags. Well, any more its tough to put forth
 "quality hunting" with more and more encroachment and exploding predator numbers so I think some things may be a little exaggerated while other things are a little downplayed and like I,ve said a hundred times when they became WDFW a WHOLE BUNCH more irons got put in the fire and when that happened the deer and elk herd attention slipped down a few rungs on the ladder..... Once again just my opinion and , take it or leave it

[bigmacc]

Looked into some old notes...1978 for the above

[grade-creek-rd]

After this weekend's muzzleloader opener, I can say that for at least some of the North Central Washington units the mule deer numbers are looking good...both of my boys filled their multi-season tags with bucks on opening day and by 8:00 AM we had seen 24 deer, including 5 bucks (and those aren't the ones they killed...by the end of the day we spotted 38 deer, with 8 being bucks, 4 legal).


Good luck to everyone in the upcoming seasons!

Grade