Huge reduction of special permits

[Karl Blanchard]

hahah the multi season deer tag, antlerless tags, and the second deer tag  just cracks me up. id rather not fill my buck tag than give the state the moeny for a doe permit or the multi season permit. the thing people dont realize is "if you quit buying it, you dip into their slush fund" thus forces a change. but people dont view it that way, they will love to take your $6 antlerless permit fee,  and the $111 multiseason deer. dont get me started on the $70 "second deer tag"  what a joke.  all because "i get to hunt all three weapons or all 3 seasons"  i understand that logic a littel bit. but there are lots of things to hunt here, hunt deer with your bow and coyotes with your muzzy, or rifle, hunt birds with your shotgun etc.  lots of opprtuniies, but unitl people stand together, the state will continue to love your donations

multi season deer is $140 and second deer is $44 fyi.

[Tbar]

hahah the multi season deer tag, antlerless tags, and the second deer tag  just cracks me up. id rather not fill my buck tag than give the state the moeny for a doe permit or the multi season permit. the thing people dont realize is "if you quit buying it, you dip into their slush fund" thus forces a change. but people dont view it that way, they will love to take your $6 antlerless permit fee,  and the $111 multiseason deer. dont get me started on the $70 "second deer tag"  what a joke.  all because "i get to hunt all three weapons or all 3 seasons"  i understand that logic a littel bit. but there are lots of things to hunt here, hunt deer with your bow and coyotes with your muzzy, or rifle, hunt birds with your shotgun etc.  lots of opprtuniies, but unitl people stand together, the state will continue to love your donations

multi season deer is $140 and second deer is $44 fyi.

Don't forget the pending increase of $173.64 (hunting)  or 245.20(sportsman).

[Stein]

Stein, to answer your questions I do believe they will rebound because they have in the past, and even in the last few years have increased.

I'd have to pull regs but our previous three year season cycle wdfw gave out literally thousands of cow permits along with general antlerless early and late cow seasons. They did this because our elk herds were bursting at the seams. Literally the largest they have ever been.  This isnt 20 years ago, this was like 4 years ago.  So we go to bang town on our resident elk populations, tribal guys double down on the jerky sales and then here comes winter of 2016/17. Winter kill was well above average and a metric crap ton of damage tags got filled.  Congdons alone thumped probably a hundo out of their orchards alone. 

But since then we have had mild winters. Habit has improved in some pretty key areas due to fires and some active logging going on up in bethel and bumping.  Cow numbers are on the climb and almost back to objectives. 

I still believe piss poor counting is to blame for the missing bulls.  They either counted too early when the snow wasnt hear or they didnt go high enough because I know for a fact a lot of bachelor groups were too fat and happy to push down when the snow did hit.  I was still seeing groups in those middle elevations where you dont normally see elk until April. 

Some of that is just guestimation based off of what I am personally seeing but I do not believe it's all doom and gloom.  Herds rise and fall and believe it or not I feel we are on the rise. 

And for the record, I spend less time actually hunting deer and elk in washington than the fast majority of you. I hunt almost exclusively out of state.  I still archery elk hunt because there is lots of them and it's a relatively easy freezer filler but I havent even hunted deer in a few years. I'm done depleting our mule deer populations.  I still apply for a few hunts though because like I said previously, it's a darts at the wall game. If you wanna get one to stick you need all the darts you can come up with.

Hope all that rambling made sense

That makes sense, but the tag numbers don't seem to reflect any positive notes.  Here are the numbers for tags offered for the Peaches archery tag I would have applied for this year:

2016   134
2017   104
2018   58
2019   10

So, we are at the point where we have 7% of the tags available as we did in 2016.  There was a year by year reduction for 4 years now and 93% of the tags went away.

Even if you look at the pace of reductions, that is accelerating, double the loss over the previous year for the last three years as a percentage:

2016 - 2017  -22%
2017 - 2018  -44%
2018 - 2019  -82%

I get that fire may have something to do with 2019, but it didn't have anything to do with 2016, 2017 or 2018.  You could also argue there will be a s-ton of super high quality feed in the burn area this year.  I also checked the other area I apply for, Dayton, and it's a similar story although less tags to start with.  Same timeframe was 7, 7, 4, 3, less than half the tags available.

I certainly hope the trend reverses, but am worried that WDFW controlled hunting is the only lever they are using.

Maybe I just need to trust the system and have a longer time horizon.   If WDFW had a recovery plan I would probably be more of a glass half full guy.

[BULLBLASTER]

hahah the multi season deer tag, antlerless tags, and the second deer tag  just cracks me up. id rather not fill my buck tag than give the state the moeny for a doe permit or the multi season permit. the thing people dont realize is "if you quit buying it, you dip into their slush fund" thus forces a change. but people dont view it that way, they will love to take your $6 antlerless permit fee,  and the $111 multiseason deer. dont get me started on the $70 "second deer tag"  what a joke.  all because "i get to hunt all three weapons or all 3 seasons"  i understand that logic a littel bit. but there are lots of things to hunt here, hunt deer with your bow and coyotes with your muzzy, or rifle, hunt birds with your shotgun etc.  lots of opprtuniies, but unitl people stand together, the state will continue to love your donations

multi season deer is $140 and second deer is $44 fyi.

Don't forget the pending increase of $173.64 (hunting)  or 245.20(sportsman).

Am Increase of $173 dollars for hunting? I think you have some details messed up there... that would be near a %200 increase in cost

The only proposals I’ve seen are a %12-15 increase. And haven’t seen if leg has moved to enact it.

[Pegasus]

Stein, to answer your questions I do believe they will rebound because they have in the past, and even in the last few years have increased.

I'd have to pull regs but our previous three year season cycle wdfw gave out literally thousands of cow permits along with general antlerless early and late cow seasons. They did this because our elk herds were bursting at the seams. Literally the largest they have ever been.  This isnt 20 years ago, this was like 4 years ago.  So we go to bang town on our resident elk populations, tribal guys double down on the jerky sales and then here comes winter of 2016/17. Winter kill was well above average and a metric crap ton of damage tags got filled.  Congdons alone thumped probably a hundo out of their orchards alone. 

But since then we have had mild winters. Habit has improved in some pretty key areas due to fires and some active logging going on up in bethel and bumping.  Cow numbers are on the climb and almost back to objectives. 

I still believe piss poor counting is to blame for the missing bulls.  They either counted too early when the snow wasnt hear or they didnt go high enough because I know for a fact a lot of bachelor groups were too fat and happy to push down when the snow did hit.  I was still seeing groups in those middle elevations where you dont normally see elk until April. 

Some of that is just guestimation based off of what I am personally seeing but I do not believe it's all doom and gloom.  Herds rise and fall and believe it or not I feel we are on the rise. 

And for the record, I spend less time actually hunting deer and elk in washington than the fast majority of you. I hunt almost exclusively out of state.  I still archery elk hunt because there is lots of them and it's a relatively easy freezer filler but I havent even hunted deer in a few years. I'm done depleting our mule deer populations.  I still apply for a few hunts though because like I said previously, it's a darts at the wall game. If you wanna get one to stick you need all the darts you can come up with.

Hope all that rambling made sense

That makes sense, but the tag numbers don't seem to reflect any positive notes.  Here are the numbers for tags offered for the Peaches archery tag I would have applied for this year:

2016   134
2017   104
2018   58
2019   10

So, we are at the point where we have 7% of the tags available as we did in 2016.  There was a year by year reduction for 4 years now and 93% of the tags went away.

Even if you look at the pace of reductions, that is accelerating, double the loss over the previous year for the last three years as a percentage:

2016 - 2017  -22%
2017 - 2018  -44%
2018 - 2019  -82%

I get that fire may have something to do with 2019, but it didn't have anything to do with 2016, 2017 or 2018.  You could also argue there will be a s-ton of super high quality feed in the burn area this year.  I also checked the other area I apply for, Dayton, and it's a similar story although less tags to start with.  Same timeframe was 7, 7, 4, 3, less than half the tags available.

I certainly hope the trend reverses, but am worried that WDFW controlled hunting is the only lever they are using.

Maybe I just need to trust the system and have a longer time horizon.   If WDFW had a recovery plan I would probably be more of a glass half full guy.

Here is where the lunacy comes in. Archery permits for bulls in Peaches Ridge this year is 10 permits. Kill ratio for permits for bulls is about 10-20 percent so about ONE to TWO of the bull tags will fill. This has little to nothing to do with proper elk management in this huge permit area. You have predators including wolves, poachers and tribal hunters. The one time I ran into poachers in that unit was a night where they drove down the road shooting anything in sight and only stopped to retrieve  animals that fell close to the road. The two times that I ran into tribal hunters it was during the day with one vehicle driving a trailer and another vehicle filled with shooters. When they spotted elk it turned into World War III. Shots fired endlessly and everywhere. I never saw them retrieve an elk. I suspect any elk killed had to be next to the road to be recovered. A year or two later I observed the exact same behavior in the same area.

[sagerat]

It’s a good feeling knowing we’re the ones getting saddled with higher license fees to manage the herd we don’t hardly even get to hunt anymore. Meanwhile those hunting under the treaty carry on basically with unlimited “governor tags” in their pocket. We’re really taking on the chin here.

[Karl Blanchard]

That makes sense, but the tag numbers don't seem to reflect any positive notes.  Here are the numbers for tags offered for the Peaches archery tag I would have applied for this year:

2016   134
2017   104
2018   58
2019   10

So, we are at the point where we have 7% of the tags available as we did in 2016.  There was a year by year reduction for 4 years now and 93% of the tags went away.

Even if you look at the pace of reductions, that is accelerating, double the loss over the previous year for the last three years as a percentage:

2016 - 2017  -22%
2017 - 2018  -44%
2018 - 2019  -82%

I get that fire may have something to do with 2019, but it didn't have anything to do with 2016, 2017 or 2018.  You could also argue there will be a s-ton of super high quality feed in the burn area this year.  I also checked the other area I apply for, Dayton, and it's a similar story although less tags to start with.  Same timeframe was 7, 7, 4, 3, less than half the tags available.

I certainly hope the trend reverses, but am worried that WDFW controlled hunting is the only lever they are using.

Maybe I just need to trust the system and have a longer time horizon.   If WDFW had a recovery plan I would probably be more of a glass half full guy.
[/quote]

Have a bit more faith.  If wdfw is all revenue based like everyone screams (I believe they are as well) cutting tags is not what they want to do. That results in lost revenue.  Wildlife management is a long game, not an overnight failure or success.  I cant remember exact numbers but between 2014 and 2017 we went from 13k(ish) to 8(iish) elk.  That warrants cut backs in my opinion.  Skim back, let them grow and then reevaluate tag allotments.  We have the habitat to sustain more elk and it'll happen but not over night.  We need a few septembers worth of lovin first.

[Karl Blanchard]

It’s a good feeling knowing we’re the ones getting saddled with higher license fees to manage the herd we don’t hardly even get to hunt anymore. Meanwhile those hunting under the treaty carry on basically with unlimited “governor tags” in their pocket. We’re really taking on the chin here.

you can hunt them every single year. It's still an otc system.

Tribal thing is as frustrating as it gets but a treaty is a treaty. State cant touch it and the feds cant touch it.  It's the one piece of the puzzle we can't control. We can dwell on what we can't change or we can engage in stuff we can

[Alchase]

That makes sense, but the tag numbers don't seem to reflect any positive notes.  Here are the numbers for tags offered for the Peaches archery tag I would have applied for this year:

2016   134
2017   104
2018   58
2019   10

So, we are at the point where we have 7% of the tags available as we did in 2016.  There was a year by year reduction for 4 years now and 93% of the tags went away.

Even if you look at the pace of reductions, that is accelerating, double the loss over the previous year for the last three years as a percentage:

2016 - 2017  -22%
2017 - 2018  -44%
2018 - 2019  -82%

I get that fire may have something to do with 2019, but it didn't have anything to do with 2016, 2017 or 2018.  You could also argue there will be a s-ton of super high quality feed in the burn area this year.  I also checked the other area I apply for, Dayton, and it's a similar story although less tags to start with.  Same timeframe was 7, 7, 4, 3, less than half the tags available.

I certainly hope the trend reverses, but am worried that WDFW controlled hunting is the only lever they are using.

Maybe I just need to trust the system and have a longer time horizon.   If WDFW had a recovery plan I would probably be more of a glass half full guy.

Have a bit more faith.  If wdfw is all revenue based like everyone screams (I believe they are as well) cutting tags is not what they want to do. That results in lost revenue.  Wildlife management is a long game, not an overnight failure or success.  I cant remember exact numbers but between 2014 and 2017 we went from 13k(ish) to 8(iish) elk.  That warrants cut backs in my opinion.  Skim back, let them grow and then reevaluate tag allotments.  We have the habitat to sustain more elk and it'll happen but not over night.  We need a few septembers worth of lovin first.
[/quote]

I agree with your bolded statement, but, if they do nothing about the predator situation those numbers will continue to decline at a rapid rate regardless of the decrees in tags.

[bobcat]

Have a bit more faith.  If wdfw is all revenue based like everyone screams (I believe they are as well) cutting tags is not what they want to do. That results in lost revenue. 

But they're not cutting tags, and they won't. They cut special permits, but that doesn't affect revenue. People still buy the applications, just not as many draw a permit. You have to buy a tag just to apply for a permit. Yeah, it's pretty much a scam.

[Stein]

Cutting tags doesn't result in lost revenue directly.  You pay your $13 and if you draw they mail you the tag, they get no extra money if the double the number of tags issued (talking quality deer/elk here).  It would only result in lost revenue if people stop applying, which doesn't seem to be the case at least through last year.  Thus, their revenue is tied ONLY to how many people apply, not how many draw. 

In fact, the number of people applying has increased while the tags have decreased.  Thus, they make more money while issuing less tags.  Hence, little to no pressure to do anything other than hope next year is better.

For Peaches last year, here is what happened compared to 2017

Tags were reduced from 104 to 58.
Applications increased from 1282 to 1692

That's just one unit, but I bet if you pull statewide numbers, applications do not track with numbers of permits available.  I bet they increase by an almost predictable amount every year.

I believe this is one major cause of the problem, there is no tie between their performance on managing the herd and the money they receive.  You can take it a step further and argue the increases in permit applications shows more and more people think it is working.

So, there is zero financial incentive to do anything as the revenue won't move one way or another.  On top of that, it's easy to delete a few e-mails from us while it is much harder to ignore lawsuits and calls from Olympia.

Add that all up and my theory is that nothing will change until we stop sending checks in.  I don't buy the argument their hands are tied.  Yes, there are treaties, disease, development, winters and stuff like that - just like they exist in other states that do a much better job.  Wyoming and Montana have tribes and wolves, yet they have a huge amount of elk and their tags haven't dropped up to 93% in the last several years.  In fact, they have more wolves, more grizzlies, far worse winter temperatures and they make it work.

For Montana, here are the tag numbers for my application (380):

2014 - 94
2015 - 98
2016 - 100
2017 - 110
2018 - 110
2019 - 135

While ours went down 93%, theirs went up 43%!

The difference is that hunters have a much larger voice in MT and they aren't under constant pressure from Helena to spend resources on pet projects or ignore science (at least to the same level and direction, pet projects always exist).  We see them suing, fighting lawsuits, and in general, doing what their mandate requires.

If we all send our money in faithfully every year, expect what is going on now and the trends to continue.  The plan is to do the same thing and expect different results.

[bigmacc]

It’s a good feeling knowing we’re the ones getting saddled with higher license fees to manage the herd we don’t hardly even get to hunt anymore. Meanwhile those hunting under the treaty carry on basically with unlimited “governor tags” in their pocket. We’re really taking on the chin here.

you can hunt them every single year. It's still an otc system.

Tribal thing is as frustrating as it gets but a treaty is a treaty. State cant touch it and the feds cant touch it.  It's the one piece of the puzzle we can't control. We can dwell on what we can't change or we can engage in stuff we can

I agree with the tribal situation, as much as most of us don't like it, it aint gonna change anytime soon. On the other hand, the explosion of the other big 3(cougar, bear, wolf) which are picking off hundreds of deer, elk and moose every week across this state is what we should be engaging. The population of all 3 are growing rapidly and kill year round, 24/7, 365, in turn our ungulate populations have been and continue to tank. As Karl said "We can dwell on what we can't change or we can engage in stuff we can". Things will never return to what they once were, I myself accepted that long ago, but at the rate our herds AND predators are being mis-managed, IMHO, what will be left for my grandkids at the rate it is going now, heck just look what has happened in the last 30 years. The track record of the WDFW since their inception is not encouraging as far as our herds go moving forward. We (my group)are becoming bear and cougar hunters, never have been before, it used to be a rarity and actually kind of neat to see them while out elk or deer hunting, now between 6 of us we have seen over 25 or so bears and around 20 or so cats in the last 25 years(not to mention increasing numbers of kill sites),  before that going back to the 1950,s all the way into the 90,s you could count on 2 hands how many bear and cougar combined we seen while out hunting, hiking, scouting etc., thats seeing 10 or less in 40 years compared to around 45 in the last 25 years! Yes I truly believe predator numbers are growing AND I believe over the last 30 years they are killing more and more elk , deer and moose and I believe this is the number 1 threat to the future of hunting in this state, not the ONLY issue but THE NUMBER 1 issue(IMHO), this is an issue that I choose to engage in, buy tags for, write into politicians about, talk and bitch about on forums and gripe about every chance I get(respectfully) to the WDFW.....

[bigmacc]

Have a bit more faith.  If wdfw is all revenue based like everyone screams (I believe they are as well) cutting tags is not what they want to do. That results in lost revenue. 

But they're not cutting tags, and they won't. They cut special permits, but that doesn't affect revenue. People still buy the applications, just not as many draw a permit. You have to buy a tag just to apply for a permit. Yeah, it's pretty much a scam.

Bingo.

[NOCK NOCK]

Have a bit more faith.  If wdfw is all revenue based like everyone screams (I believe they are as well) cutting tags is not what they want to do. That results in lost revenue.  Wildlife management is a long game, not an overnight failure or success.  I cant remember exact numbers but between 2014 and 2017 we went from 13k(ish) to 8(iish) elk.  That warrants cut backs in my opinion.  Skim back, let them grow and then reevaluate tag allotments.  We have the habitat to sustain more elk and it'll happen but not over night.  We need a few septembers worth of lovin first.
[/quote]



Although I mostly agree with this..... let’s not forget that the issuing of hundreds of cow permits played a big part in the herds condition today. That was not a long game.
Why does it seem that WDFW is either feast or famine on permit allotment? Should not be that hard to keep allotments from massive up and downs. 

[Karl Blanchard]

Cutting tags doesn't result in lost revenue directly.  You pay your $13 and if you draw they mail you the tag, they get no extra money if the double the number of tags issued (talking quality deer/elk here).  It would only result in lost revenue if people stop applying, which doesn't seem to be the case at least through last year.  Thus, their revenue is tied ONLY to how many people apply, not how many draw. 

In fact, the number of people applying has increased while the tags have decreased.  Thus, they make more money while issuing less tags.  Hence, little to no pressure to do anything other than hope next year is better.

For Peaches last year, here is what happened compared to 2017

Tags were reduced from 104 to 58.
Applications increased from 1282 to 1692

That's just one unit, but I bet if you pull statewide numbers, applications do not track with numbers of permits available.  I bet they increase by an almost predictable amount every year.

I believe this is one major cause of the problem, there is no tie between their performance on managing the herd and the money they receive.  You can take it a step further and argue the increases in permit applications shows more and more people think it is working.

So, there is zero financial incentive to do anything as the revenue won't move one way or another.  On top of that, it's easy to delete a few e-mails from us while it is much harder to ignore lawsuits and calls from Olympia.

Add that all up and my theory is that nothing will change until we stop sending checks in.  I don't buy the argument their hands are tied.  Yes, there are treaties, disease, development, winters and stuff like that - just like they exist in other states that do a much better job.  Wyoming and Montana have tribes and wolves, yet they have a huge amount of elk and their tags haven't dropped up to 93% in the last several years.  In fact, they have more wolves, more grizzlies, far worse winter temperatures and they make it work.

For Montana, here are the tag numbers for my application (380):

2014 - 94
2015 - 98
2016 - 100
2017 - 110
2018 - 110
2019 - 135

While ours went down 93%, theirs went up 43%!

The difference is that hunters have a much larger voice in MT and they aren't under constant pressure from Helena to spend resources on pet projects or ignore science (at least to the same level and direction, pet projects always exist).  We see them suing, fighting lawsuits, and in general, doing what their mandate requires.

If we all send our money in faithfully every year, expect what is going on now and the trends to continue.  The plan is to do the same thing and expect different results.

Didnt you yourself say you were gonna dip out of WA because of the permit cutting and mismanagement? Is that not lost revenue?


MT is a different beast all together.  Larger state with far fewer residents so it supports more game.  Also NR license sales makes up something like 90%+ of their revenue.


To Alchases comment on predators I'll argue again that in my THOUSANDS of miles of boot travel in yakima county I see no more predators and or sign as I did 15 years ago so if there is more bear and cat around they must have gotten smarter and also only kill bulls now because cows are already back up to almost herd objective.