Thumbs up or down?

[elkrack]

What are your guys thoughts on the holding off the cows hunts for the last five days of the archery season? Personally I kinda liked it, though I only got to hunt for a grand total of 10 hours, the traffic was way down and for the first time in some years the bulls were talking around camp again. Which ended as soon as the drove of cow hunters strolled in. For the bull tag holders I would have thought this change would have definitely been a benefit?

[NOCK NOCK]

Still lots of folks all season in my area. Actually saw less people after cow opened.
Just wish they would truly make the Colockum Quality archery truly quality, lets the permitted guys hunt for a few days when they don’t have to compete with the general tag guys.

[elkrack]

Can’t remember the year exactly but the wdfw shut down cows in the colockum and we had a noticeably more amount of hunters in our area. Couldn’t drive the roads without have to pull over every couple hundred yards.

[NOCK NOCK]

The last 3 years have really put a dent in the elk population up there. I would prefer to see it go back to spike only until the herd populates again, then a more controlled antlerless opportunity. The Colockum is a huge area, it can support more elk than the WDFW leads folks to believe

[Apples]

I have been a archery hunter since 1988 and my area showed increased pressure every year that it was a free for all for cows, we felt the hunting was better and more fun when it was a draw only for cows, this year we waited till the second weekend and only saw a couple elk, more big bulls then anything. I also believe that having the cows open the second weekend brought hunters in from other areas who may not have seen much in there traditional hunting spots, say in the Yakima areas. This is just my opinion.

[DeerSkin]

Still lots of folks all season in my area. Actually saw less people after cow opened.
Just wish they would truly make the Colockum Quality archery truly quality, lets the permitted guys hunt for a few days when they don’t have to compete with the general tag guys.

   Every other quality colockum tag gets a few days with no competition from general season hunters. If it was back to true spike only it wouldn’t be bad for the archery bull tag holders, I can remember hunting for days and not seeing anyone. It’s amazing how Wdfw has such huge swinging heard plans. We bring the bull to cow ratio back up after the deviation the Tribal hunters put on the heard 10 years ago. And then they open it to a free for all and wipe the elk numbers back out again.