stupid!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[EastWaViking]

My success with a rifle has been much better than with a bow, but my heart goes out for a more challenge - archery!

I have been way more successful with a bow than with a rifle.  When I rifle hunted (the first 25 years I hunted) I shot the first buck I saw, some times it was the only buck I saw all season.  I also ate my tag a few years.   With a bow (the last 10 years) I pass up bucks daily and have gotten a deer every year.  No, not over a bait, spot and stalk and sitting fence lines of alfalfa fields.  I hope I can continue the streak even with the messed up late season.

[fishunt247]

Viking, you will be fine. None of those methods are even rut specific, like rattling and calling are. Spot and stalk can be done any time of the year, and with the rut you have more eyes to compete with as the bucks will have does. Granted you will see more deer moving during the rut because they are up more, but deer don't have to be moving for spot and stalk. It may suck for you and other archers, but it isn't like anyone else has a better season, late archery deer is still the best time of the year; besides permit hunts, but we are talking general season here so that point is mute.

[wolfbait]

Few more years, your only complant may be about who's turn it is to buy the targets,,Wolves are goin to take over all your huntin WDFW&DFW are goin to make sure of that.

[RUTNBULL1]

"Do they realize those 6 days are the absolute best 6 days of the whole year... peak rut???  I tell you the department is messed up."

the department is not messed up..........it is actually one of their better decisions as one of the earlier posters said.   In the late 80's and early 90's you used to be able to hunt the Okanogan units up until the first week of November;  you used to be able to the Grayback unit until the 2nd week of November, all on general tags.........why not bring that back also?

Somebody has to step up and be the adult and take the candy away from the kids........

  this state has very few deer herds that can support general season November hunts, and that goes for archery seasons also.  So many rifle hunters have switched to archery seasons just so they can hunt in the rut it is ridiculus, many of these guys are "weekend warrior" archery guys and end up "sticking" 3 does and 2 bucks during their week of hunting and not recovering any of them.   And, before the archery guys get on my case, I realize there are some very dedicated archery folks out there who are diligent about the sport.  I am not talking about you;  but, the fact remains that hundreds if not thousands of deer are "stuck" during archery season and never found.  So, while harvest levels appear to be low, that is not really the full story.

This state has the biggest population base relative to its land mass of any of the Western states, and it is only getting worse.  Deer in this state are extremely vulnerable to November hunts, and it has to be managed very closely.

So you think you know the Greyback unit on it's late General season, yes they used to have it run as late as the day before general rifle Elk season, but that has not existed for almost twenty years and the deer numbers in the area didn't start declining dramatically until the last 6 to 7 years due to increased cougar populations, increased hair loss disease, and a up swing in poaching, and it is a small percentage of large mature BT bucks taken during the late archery compared to the late draw season of rifle tag holders, and as of late they have even lenghtened that season as well. If they were really concerned with the well being of the deer population they should have reduced the days of the late rifle draw or elimaneted completely. It won't be long and unit 388 will become probably a complete draw unit for all weapon users, and unfortunately this my be the only saving grace for the local deer herd.

[fishunt247]

Actually mossback, some of that info is false. 38 bucks were killed by archers in 388, 29 by rifle special permit. I would venture to guess that over half of those archery bucks are late season, if not most of them. So a small percentage compared to the late rifle??? I'm no math major, but that doesn't seem to add up. I fully agree that cougars and hair loss have resulted in a somewhat smaller deer herd, but that isn't at all what is being talked about on this thread.

[muleyguy]

"So you think you know the Greyback unit on it's late General season, yes they used to have it run as late as the day before general rifle Elk season, but that has not existed for almost twenty years and the deer numbers in the area didn't start declining dramatically until the last 6 to 7 years due"

yes, I do know the Grayback unit, very well in fact.  And, the deer numbers started to decline dramatically in the early 1990's, specifically the winter of 1992/1993.  The numbers of deer, and quality of bucks has never recovered from that winter.   For many years (60's/70's) Grayback had a general opener in mid october that went to approximately the end of october;  BUT it also had a general late season from approximately nov 18 to 22 in those years completely open to general tag holders;   eventually(late 70's, early 80's), this was scrapped due to overharvest levels.  In an effort to appease hunters, the department scrapped the late hunt and went to a season that started in mid october and lasted until approximately Nov 8 to the 12 of each year (can't remember exact, but in this range);  this season lasted until the early to mid 1990's and was scrapped due to the extreme winter kill in 92/93 and they then went to its current season structure of open in mid october and close end of october.   Greyback also suffered a bad winter kill in the 96 winter.  Can't remember the exact year, I believe late 1990's/ early 2000's, they added the late season draw only tags;  and yes, I have been drawn for that and hunted it.   

Greyback's heyday, in our lifetime was 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992;  season was open late into the first week of of Nov, and mature buck numbers were awesome.  Heyday before that was in the 50's and 60's.  What killed Grayback was a too liberal hunting season immediately preceeding a horrible winter kill; a lack of agressiveness on the dept to restrict hunting, and another bad winter in 1996;  it has never recovered from that.

The bottom line is this, and this is lifted straight from the departments harvest reports for 2008, is that over almost all of the units that have a general rifle season and a general archery season during november, archery hunters take larger bucks on average then rifle hunters, and even worse, they take a large number of antlerless animals due to the regulations allowing that in certain units.    Archery hunters, as a percentage of their harvest, harvest the two most vulnerable parts of the deer population (does and mature bucks) more so then rifle hunters.  Rifle hunters as a percentage of their harvest, shoot smaller bucks and much fewer does then archery hunters.

So, if you have department policy that causes a shift in the hunter population from rifle hunters to archery hunters (which is exactly what is happening) without a corresponding decrease in hunter season length, and timing, you are going to see those two areas of the population suffer.

Here is the 2008 data for several units that have general season archery hunts during the rut and general season 9 day rifle hunts in mid october; on the right is the percentage of bucks harvested that are 4 and 5 points during archery seasons;  on the left is the percentage of bucks harvested that are 4 and 5 pts during rifle seasons;  I am excluding the permit seasons because my point is simply that department policy is causing a shift in hunter populations away from general modern firearm hunters to general archery hunters, since this is the bulk of all hunters.  I certainly might agree with you that some late season permit only hunts should be curtailed.

59%   Unit 209    75%
45%   Unit 215    69%
43%   Unit 233    63%
52%   Unit 243    100%
49%   Unit 250    63%
41%   Unit 352    66%
43%   Unit 388    47%

Right side = percentage of harvest of 4 and 5 pts killed by archers during their season
Left side = percentage of harvest of 4 and 5 pts killed by modern rifle during their season

I am also very confident that archers, on average, wound a higher percentage of animals, per hunter, then their rifle counterpoints.  Although I will concede that this is hard to quantify, but, experience in the field demonstrates this.

So, department policy is shifting the population of hunters  from one group (rifle hunters) who, statistically, shoot very few does, mostly 2.5 yr old three points, and wound fewer animals per hunter, into a group that statistically shoots more does, older bucks and wounds more animals per hunter.

At some point, a massive restructuring of season lengths, season timings, and tag availabiltiy is going to have to occur in the archery seasons in this state.

[longstevo]

WDFW doesn't care if you shoot a deer or not.  All they care about is that you buy the tag. 

They screwed up the late muzzleloader seasons down here in SW Washington, as well and shifting boundaries around.  So now the chances of getting a quality buck during late muzzle are a lot harder than they used to be. 

Example:  Late muzzle used to be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day and would go for two weeks.  Awesome time of the year, great weather and in the middle of the rut. 

About four years ago they pushed it back to December 1st.  Why?  Because there were too many bucks getting killed, so what do they do but scale us hunters back.  Never mind the exploding cougar population. 

[bobcat]

The WDFW's job is to control hunter numbers and to manage the state's wildlife. When they shorten seasons they are doing so for a reason. They really have no way to control cougar numbers, but they do have control over the number of hunters in particular units. I don't like having shorter seasons but I sure won't complain about it. I do agree archery seasons are too long in many cases. Personally I would like to see them do away with general seasons altogether and go to permit only for all deer and elk hunting.

[EastWaViking]

Personally I would like to see them do away with general seasons altogether and go to permit only for all deer and elk hunting.

Is someone sniffing glue?   

[Curly]

 





 

[LBhunter]

  Maybe....just maybe....the deer, and Elk are getting smarter, or someone has notified them its that season....just a thought. Same problem for me every year. I see Elk in deer season, and deer in Elk season....go figure.

[Axle]

I am also very confident that archers, on average, wound a higher percentage of animals, per hunter, then their rifle counterpoints.  Although I will concede that this is hard to quantify, but, experience in the field demonstrates this.

Muleyguy
You say this and then admit you have no proof. How can you be confident without proof? I have read articles in hunting magazines where there were studies done on wounded archery deer. All the studies done have concluded a very small number of wounded deer that went un-recovered. So why keep saying it as if it is gospel? Again, I hunt rifle and bow and see far more rifle deer un-recovered by rifle kills but that is due to no followup from the hunter.

What killed Grayback was a too liberal hunting season immediately preceding a horrible winter kill; a lack of agressiveness on the dept to restrict hunting, and another bad winter in 1996;  it has never recovered from that.

You make some very good points too; however, deer herds will recover when predator numbers are low. Predators take far more than all hunters combined. I've seen this while hunting. Dead animals all over from cougars that eat only about 10 lbs of meat and then go after another one. They can't recover from this. Hunters are taking a back seat to these predators. This causes strife among the hunters and they start blaming each other and saying things against certain groups.

Archers aren't the problem, rifle hunters aren't the problem, and winter kill - as bad as it can be - isn't the problem either.

[Broken Arrow]

"In 2008, there were 21,000 archery Hunters in this state and 107,259 rifle hunters"

I dont claim to be a rocket scientist...but lets apply some simple math. Lets say for sake of argument that 3% of each party shoots animals and never recover them. That comes out to 3,217 rifle hunters and 420 bow hunters. Given these numbers I would conclude its pretty ridiculous to state with out the other side of the story that "the fact remains that hundreds if not thousands of deer are "stuck" during archery season and never found", hundreds maybe....rifle hunters may be in the thousands for sure! The other thing rifle hunters forget to notice is that in archery, unlike if you shoot with a rifle...we do what? Yes we go and search for our arrow. And what does that tell us? A. Clean miss, or B. Blood on the arrow and we hit. If its B, I can honestly say I have never came across an archery hunter who has not followed up. I hate these kind of threads....yes, were all struggling to keep our favorite seasons durring our favorite times....but at some point the mud slinging needs to be put to rest.

[Dipsnort]

Personally I would like to see them do away with general seasons altogether and go to permit only for all deer and elk hunting.

Not a chance that will happen unless the herds statewide are in dire straights due to some exceptional series of events that cause game numbers to be drastically reduced.

As was alluded to earlier, clearly the core mission of the WDFW is to maximize revenue.  It does that by selling licenses/tags to as many people as possible.  And to do that they have to provide the illusion of maximum opportunity.  I say "illusion" because, with the exception of a few really good special permits (dangling carrots) seasons are structured to protect animals when they are at their most vulnerable.

Someone mentioned seeing deer during elk season and visa versa.  That is no mistake, that is the game regulations at work.

[Bob33]

I hunt with both archery and modern.

Here is an interesting study: http://tradgang.com/ashby/Arrow%20Lethality%201.htm