North Chelan Mountain Goat

[Fletch]

Was on the this hunt 2 years prior to it going away. There was a very good number of goats. Rumor has it the next year a Wdfw employee had the tag and apparently didn’t even see a goat. We went on two trips. The first trip we saw lots of goats but most were high in inaccessible areas. The second trip later in November the goats by no means were low but obtainable. It’s all weather dependent on when and where there going to be. I truly believe the raffle and governor tags are what caused the downfall in goat numbers.

My brother had the tag the year before the WDFW guy did and got a billy.  He talked to the WDFW before and after the hunt and the guy mentioned seeing goats on the north side but had the south side tag.  As the season moved along the fog settled in and couldnt see anything from the lake and ended up eating it.  Definitely weather depedent not just on snow but fog as well.  We were lucky and didnt have much fog.

[fishngamereaper]

If you look back through harvest stats the Chelan tags on average have fewer females killed than other units
Not saying that it's  not a problem..it's just not a profound problem in the Chelan units ...it's also actually really disappointing to see on average half the goats killed in WA are females
I was also a little shocked to see allot of tags go unfilled and to see the hunter average days in the single digits.
Like who gets an oil tag and spends 2 days trying to fill it...your either in or your out...

I'm not sure how much I trust the published harvest statistics. I killed my goat in 2019 (a billy). In 2021, the published harvest stats for my goat unit in 2019 recorded my goat as a nanny (it was the only tag in the unit). I emailed the bio about this (he and I had been in frequent contact before, during, and after my hunt) and he said he had no idea why it was recorded as a nanny in the published harvest stats, but not to worry because he and the other bios have a different data source they use for their work, and in that database - it's recorded as a billy 

The tagholder the year before me (2018) had also killed a billy (again, only tag in the unit)...and that goat was also mis-recorded in the published stats as a nanny.

Anyway, that experience rocked my faith in the published reports' reliability, especially for goats.

Sure builds confidence in an agency when they can't even get first grade level data entry correct..
Be interesting to PDR the bios "database" .
I find it hard to believe there's a difference
So does that mean all harvest data on DFWs website is inaccurately entered...and the bios have different data....
Why can't they just admit they like manipulating the data...at least that doesn't make em look like complete idiots...