a total bummer

[Night goat]

today i got up at 3am and loaded a cranky girlfriend up into the rig and headed out to fir island for some snow goose action

we were planning on spending the whole day out there because of the windstorm hitting this afternoon even though its dead calm right now.

we got to my favorite spot and nobody was there. there also wasnt a wdfg hunt sign or anything saying it was ok to hunt. plan b. went to next spot. and the next and the next before we pulled up the map app, and there was zero quality hunt or public access out on fir island beyond HQ and a few spots on the dike. as a matter of fact, there was zero hunting access spots anywhere beyond the telegraph slough and maybe the samish unit. on the web site there were only 4 state run "hunt by reservation spots" and they werent anything decent.

i dont have a sled or a flat bottom jet drive boat, or even an aluminum boat with a motor, and i dont have a dog (that will retrieve). my vizsla is a couch potato and is franky retarded. i have a small sneak boat strapped to the roof of my rig as a duck getter but its not really comfortable/safe for 2+ gear in some back water in low light

we drove around for a few hours hoping to find somewhere familiar and decent to hunt but gave up and now im sitting at home and im going back to bed

admittedly i havent duck/goose hunted in a number of years, but decided to get back into it this year, but it seems that they even took that away from us this year.

seems like everywhere i go there is a sign up in some place i used to hunt advertising a private hunt club, anybody have any experiance with those?


at this rate im just going to skip waterfowl hunting all together in washington and just book a long weekend out in the midwest with a guided hunt lodge. i simply just dont have the cash to invest into a duck boat



 

[millerwheeler]

That’s the worst trip ever ? Not trying to be an. A hole but you weren’t prepared and didn’t check before hand on the properties , u got out of the house find some positive ness in the process bummer didn’t work out you’ll find somewhere man  .so much crap has gone wrong this year for a lot of people  shoot my included my travel trailer burnt to the ground with almost all my hunting gear in it after I  spent some time with friends on last weekend of bear and there elk season but I’m still trying to find positive ness in getting out with my boys even though I’m sure insurance is gonna bend me over : just saying man you got out that’s the first step and doesn’t always work the way our hunting plans work adapt and overcome maybe knock some doors for next year . Happy hunting sorry the hunt wasn’t what I planned for but heck u got your mrs out a lot of guys would kill for just that

[Night goat]

That’s the worst trip ever ? Not trying to be an. A hole but you weren’t prepared and didn’t check before hand on the properties , u got out of the house find some positive ness in the process bummer didn’t work out you’ll find somewhere man  .so much crap has gone wrong this year for a lot of people  shoot my included my travel trailer burnt to the ground with almost all my hunting gear in it after I  spent some time with friends on last weekend of bear and there elk season but I’m still trying to find positive ness in getting out with my boys even though I’m sure insurance is gonna bend me over : just saying man you got out that’s the first step and doesn’t always work the way our hunting plans work adapt and overcome maybe knock some doors for next year . Happy hunting sorry the hunt wasn’t what I planned for but heck u got your mrs out a lot of guys would kill for just that

yeah well honestly it wasnt really the worst but from a locals standpoint, seeing everything shut down like that is like getting ready to go fishing and showing up at the lake only to find out the lake got filled in. i get out of hunting for a few years, and all of a sudden everything is gone, i mean, i only live 30 minutes or so from most of these spots, they had been there for as long as i can remember,


im not mad.... im just disapointed

[millerwheeler]

That’s the worst trip ever ? Not trying to be an. A hole but you weren’t prepared and didn’t check before hand on the properties , u got out of the house find some positive ness in the process bummer didn’t work out you’ll find somewhere man  .so much crap has gone wrong this year for a lot of people  shoot my included my travel trailer burnt to the ground with almost all my hunting gear in it after I  spent some time with friends on last weekend of bear and there elk season but I’m still trying to find positive ness in getting out with my boys even though I’m sure insurance is gonna bend me over : just saying man you got out that’s the first step and doesn’t always work the way our hunting plans work adapt and overcome maybe knock some doors for next year . Happy hunting sorry the hunt wasn’t what I planned for but heck u got your mrs out a lot of guys would kill for just that

yeah well honestly it wasnt really the worst but from a locals standpoint, seeing everything shut down like that is like getting ready to go fishing and showing up at the lake only to find out the lake got filled in. i get out of hunting for a few years, and all of a sudden everything is gone, i mean, i only live 30 minutes or so from most of these spots, they had been there for as long as i can remember,


im not mad.... im just disapointed

Ya man this year has been quite odd and disappointing to say the least   Hoping things can other get better these shutdowns have long term affects on a lot of things best of luck man hope you can make it a better time next for you and the mrs good luck

[Sandberm]

Hunters are very competitive, even when it comes to having a bad day, weekend. 

Maybe Bangoskank  has a recent submission?
How about the guy who took his family to the mountains in single digit weather, with wolves running through camp and frozen water lines and awning.
How about that guy from last year or the year before that had his pickup roll backwards down the boat ramp into the Walla Walla river?
Cryder stepping over drunks to go fishing?
The guy who tried to hunt 272 with about half the state having the same idea?
How about the guy who got shot hiding in the bushes one early morning while making cougar sounds?

Just off the top of my head... I'm just giving you guys a hard time by the way 

 Loosing hunting spots that used to be open is like losing riding spots when I used to motocross. Used to be lots of options, now, not so much. Gotta have a flag on my bike or pay a bunch to ride somewhere that used to be free.

[Night goat]

yeah maybe i was just bitchin a little
 
losing the driveline in my jeep elk hunting on the peninsula or getting snowed in up on some dirt road mountain pass over in eastern wa in my 2wd truck only to have bags of gear swiped out of the back when we got to town was way worse but hey i was going for dramatic effect. 

[Stein]

WDFW sites change every year, last two years have been quite a few changes.  There are a few new register to hunt sites up north and several decent sites were lost unfortunately.  Some were lost because the landowner was asked by family to hunt it and some were picked off from a certain business offering a few more bucks to transfer the property from free to hunt to pay to hunt.

Like before, they are very hit and miss and need to be scouted but now you need to pay an annual fee and per hunt fee to get at them.  Most of those fields probably only hold birds 10% of the time.  I looked into it when they started and the fees are crazy, from what I saw a guy would be better off going to one of the known and proven guided hunts on the east side for the same money.

There is also the awesome WDFW move to destroy waterfowl habitat on every piece of state land bordering salt in the hopes a fish might find it some day despite any scientific evidence, but that's another story.

[goody31]

Ya this year it's been crappy for fields to hunt.  On fir Island I was talking to a local on the dike one morning and the Big hunt clubs bought up all the rights to hunt on them, so unless you know the land owner or have $$$ to throw at them it sucks.   The fields I like to hunt haven't been producing because of the lack of new ducks around.  And if you don't have a boat it seems to be less and less places to hunt in the skagit/conway area.  I do know they opened the fields down in Stanwood for snow's as a first come first get.  I don't really hunt them so i don't know much about it.  More of a duck guy and will shoot geese if able.

[h2ofowlr]

I haven't hunted one of the QH fields since they started the reservation system.  I tried to get a reservation a few times and they were always booked.  Those fields always hunted better anyways when you had a storm front pushing in new birds or wind anyways.  It's been a good year on birds and I have hunted 90% public so far this year.  That will change here shortly as many of the private spots got a good push of birds about two weekends ago.  Key is to get out and scout and find the birds.  If you go cold turkey your best bet is to start at a public spot and work from their.  Otherwise your success maybe limited, as you don't know the best spots to setup, what setup is working and what to expect.
Lots have changed the past several years as well.  It's called Instagram, FB and Tiktok.  Every 16 - 28 year is trying to get that Pro-Staff status and some manufactures are happy to toss a discount at some for them blowing up their product line on every social media platform.  They are bird killers, but many wouldn't know how to pluck and cook a bird they harvested. If they did, they could probably count on one hand how many birds they have actually plucked vs. breasted out or just given away.

[Night goat]

Thats phucked up.

Yeah if you look on the states site there are only 4 quality hunt sites listed in skagit county. That leaves HQ, the north fork by Blakes, the dike just down the road from there, and the Samish site, and telegraph slough, and dugualla pond (which has every out of state navy puke in the area setting up the night before- called at least 4x in this year)

I dont have a boat im comfortable taking into moving water so that doesnt help either. I got a spot or two up-river I wanna try out.

Bigger boat definitely in the works



 

[BD1]

There are places to be had.....

[Night goat]

There are places to be had.....

Cant be any worse than salmon fishing I suppose

[Special T]

The Guys as the Big Ditch pice seem to be doing OK lately. 

[Stein]

Guys in the parking lot do ok too.