Why out of state?!

[bobcat]

the primary problem in WA is it has the highest hunter numbers relative to the smallest land base of any of the Western state's;  antler pt restrictions can be useful IF used in the right situation;  but, most of the time are being used by our Wildlife department to try and solve a much bigger problem, and they are not capable of solving the bigger issue;  

rules like 3 pt or better provide a short term public relations boost for the wildlife department because all they do is shift the harvest from 1.5 yr old deer to 2.5 yr old deer;  and now, the avg hunter in this state is shooting a basket racked 19" 3 pt instead of a spike or little 2 pt;  and, for many hunters this is the biggest deer they have ever harvested (swiftkid) so they are "happy" and think things are great.......  

BUT, antler pt restrictions will not solve the bigger problem of too many hunters relative to the amount of land base  in the state;  blacktails and whitetails are the exception, as their habitat choices, behavior patterns, and high tolerance of living near humans results in good numbers of animals with decent buck to doe ratio's and decent buck population dynamics (nice mix of all age classes).

so, the discussion is not really about them, it is about mule deer;  the "answer" is not to go back to longer seasons and do away with all the restrictions;

the answer, is more restrictions on hunter tag numbers and very tight and targeted antlerless opporutnities, if any at all;  if you reduced the hunter numbers by 33% and got rid of all the antlerless opportunities (except maybe in some ag areas), you could increase the season length, get rid of the stupid 3 pt minimum rule, provide more trophy opportunities, reduce the number of hunters in the field, and basically, provide a "quality experience" in the field;

the price to this would be simply that 1 out of 3 yrs you wouldn't get to hunt;  right now, the dept has these very strict season length restrictions and provide a precious few "trophy tags";  but, realistically, you are only going to get drawn 1 or 2 in your lifetime;  if the dept went the other way as described above, you would miss one season out three, but, 66% of time, you are going to have a quality hunt.

the only thing that will solve WA state's issue's is to go to a limited draw system for all deer that restricts the number of hunters in the field every year;  BUT nobody is willing to give up their yearly trip, so we are going to slowly, but surely, destroy the hunting in this state because none of us want to give one inch.

are there decent opportunities in this state still???  sure, but, how many of us have the time (or want to stay married......) to spend 60 days a year in the field scouting for that perfect spot each year???  Every year it gets worse and worse;  more people in the areas that you thought you had to yourself;  

going back to 3 week seasons that extend into early november and overlap with elk hunting etc, is a relic of the past........in our lifetimes, WA will either take the drastic step like OR and NV has done and go to draw only mule deer seasons;  or by the time our kids grow up, quality, public land hunting opportunities in this state will be non-existent.

 
 
MULEY GUY FOR GOVERNOR

[halflife65]

Double J - I'm sure that some would come back but there are a couple of things:

1.  You can't stop native hunting
2.  You might lose a lot of hunters - young kids wouldn't start hunting (the ones about 10 or 12 that are just about to get going) making them 15 to 17 when they get the opportunity unless their parents can afford to take them out of state.  You might lose them if you don't have them out before that time.
3.  It will be hard to kickstart it again once it's gone - you let a few wolves in and then all the states get sued until there's 5 times (or more) the original stated goals.  How is hunting to come back if you were to shut it down in an environment like this?  Everyone might have the good intentions, and see the need to, bring hunting back but *censored* lawsuits causing judges to make decisions about things that they are unqualified to make decisions about cause things to happen differently than they should...(not unqualified judges but they are most likely not qualified biologists.)
4.  Not sure how much of the percentage of the overall budget is license/tag fees, but a lot of that would be gone (you might get some for turkeys, bird hunters, etc. but a great percentage would be missing)
5.  Probably like many people, I would find a place out of state to hunt and might not ever come back, even if they opened it again.

I like out of the box thinking, so I'm certainly not attacking you.  I just don't think it would work as intended.

[kramman]

I SECOND MULEY GUY FOR GOVENOR!This state needs to go to permit only for mule deer NOW.We are one hard winter away from this happening anyways.

[BlackRidge]

Its a good mix of a few things others here have mentioned, for me

The adventure of going somewhere new, differing season lengths, having access to game you wouldnt normally in your home state, aaaaaaand decent hunting seasons.

I'd hunt WA for the rest of my life BUT, we all know you stand a better chance of tagging something pretty much anywhere BUT here. The seasons arent exactly ideal (rut-wise/rule-wise), theres so much private property its a hunt in itself just finding a decent (legal) spot, and the sheer population here makes it a party in most places.

I'm definitely looking to go out of state next year to see how things go, the experience alone should be well worth the money 

[mulehunter]

Sorry if I change Subject....  People didnt look other way..... about population....

I hope I am wrong... if there ALMOST 7 Million People in Washington ALONE today.  How much room for all Animals to hide in Wood. Only 1/4 of size in Washington are Public.

 

Yes I have went out of state a lot. Its WORTH IT! But spend money OUCH!  Idaho is pretty BIGGEST area for me to run hounds MILES MILES place and lots room for dogs to chase.. I love it there. I caught some NICE Bears and Cats myself over there on my Permits..  People afraid to hunt there due too many Wolves but I went there for my passion and no one will not STOP me doing what I love to do.



Mulehunter  

[Ryan]

Go out of state and you will see why its worth it.   
 

[boneaddict]

If I can shoot a 160 deer every year and there is a good chance my kid can get a deer, the buy in to say you can hunt every three years is hard to swallow.  So when she is 12 she can hunt with me, when she is 15 she can, and when she is 18 she can.  Oh boy where do I sign up.  By the time she is 18 she gets to hunt three times.  I indeed will be out of state.  Since that was the original question in the first place.
ESPECIALLY since the natives can shoot as many deer as they'd like in a year.  The wolves will prey on any influx of population.  The balance will be more predators and less hunting.  YIPPEE, lets sign up and give away more rights.

[muleyguy]

the buy in to say you can hunt every three years is hard to swallow

a 1/3 cut in the buck harvest would only result in not being able to hunt 1 out of 3 yrs;  you would get to hunt 2 out every 3 yrs;

and, some simple rule changes along the lines of letting a youth hunter be able to "party hunt" could take care of the concerns.

the issue isn't about youth hunters, that issue can easily be overcome;  allocate more youth tags for whitetail for example or the party tag example

the real problem is that us adults want to hunt every year;  youths don't kill enough deer in a year to amount to much;

what it really boils down to is us adults giving up one year out of three for hunting;  that simple change would solve it;

personally, I would rather have 2 really great quality hunts (with my kids) and one year off vs 3 terrible hunts with them that sours them on the sport;

as I said in the earlier example, bone, you are the exception because you can get your kid into a quality hunting experience because of the thousands of hrs you have spent in the field;

you can't fix it with antler pt restrictions, longer seasons, blah, blah, blah....the only thing that "fixes" it is the hard medicine of shooting fewer deer per year!!

[Dave Workman]

so, the discussion is not really about them, it is about mule deer;  the "answer" is not to go back to longer seasons and do away with all the restrictions;

the answer, is more restrictions on hunter tag numbers and very tight and targeted antlerless opporutnities, if any at all;  if you reduced the hunter numbers by 33% and got rid of all the antlerless opportunities (except maybe in some ag areas), you could increase the season length, get rid of the stupid 3 pt minimum rule, provide more trophy opportunities, reduce the number of hunters in the field, and basically, provide a "quality experience" in the field;

the price to this would be simply that 1 out of 3 yrs you wouldn't get to hunt;  right now, the dept has these very strict season length restrictions and provide a precious few "trophy tags";  but, realistically, you are only going to get drawn 1 or 2 in your lifetime;  if the dept went the other way as described above, you would miss one season out three, but, 66% of time, you are going to have a quality hunt.

There is no way, NONE, ZERO, ZIP, NADA that hunters in this state should ever advocate cutting opportunities for other hunters.

I keep hearing that stuff about the "most hunters for the smallest land mass" and then I look around and see a gazillion acres of public land that is loaded with habitat that nobody does anything with. I hunted all over this season, and last year and the year before that, and all the years before that, and in far too many places where there should be deer and elk tracks all over there was nothing but cow crap.

I've hunted in other states and been able to count a hundred deer in a day on habitat no better than ours.

Twenty Five years ago, during elk season that lasted two weeks and three full weekends, the Little Naches and Nile, and the Rattlesnake, and Crow Creek would look like small cities, and people hunted and you saw elk hanging in camps.

There are tens of thousands less hunters today than there were then, so why on earth can they not have a decent hunting opportunity?

Giving this Department the chance to further limit that opportunity by surrendering to some drawing permit plan is not an option.

I do not believe that overlapping elk and deer opportunities are "a relic of the past."  All we need to do is change the calendar dates, and maybe some personnel down in Oly.

We can have trophy areas, and we can have general buck opportunities that help in recruitment and retention of the next generation of hunters, because like it or not, we're not going to be here forever, and if we don't pass on this tradition, we're a pretty miserable, selfish lot; a bunch that will be remembered as "those guys who wanted fewer hunters so they could have the seasons to themselves."

We've tried it with the 3-point restriction on deer and the spike-only restriction on elk and what has that accomplished? A handful of people get nice bucks and there are some people who draw permits for nice bulls, and a few others who get to pack into the wilderness areas and enjoy those storybook hunts they see on television, and think this is just peachy. Everyone else may or may not see deer or elk and it's not good for them at all. You're just camping with guns.

I've suggested a different approach...move all non-game responsibilities to the DNR or DOE and leave GAME management to game managers; people who actually have their hearts and souls in the enhancement of GAME herds and opportunities.

Get rid of "Resource Allocation" because not only did it, by design, reduce the number of hunters, it pits the remaining hunting interests against one another, also by design. So long as we compete with one another for whatever POS seasons the agency and their rubber stamp commissioners give us, we will not be united to hold them accountable.

I've spoken to bowhunters and black powder guys, all of whom lament that when this system started, they had decent opportunities and a fair number of areas to hunt. But they've lost that over the years. My black powder hunting areas don't even exist anymore.

The shortened seasons reduce the harvest, and at the end of that season, there are lots of animals the tourists can look at and convince themselves that the state is doing a swell job. Then along comes a tough winter and die-off, and the cycle begins all over again with the agency telling the commission that "Gee, whiz, we need to keep the seasons tight because of last winter's mortality." It's a self-perpetuating prophecy kind of thing.

Into the mix we toss a growing coyote, bear and particularly cougar population. And now come the wolves, all with what appears to be an all-too-open invite from the state. Mark my words, somewhere over the horizon the state will start considering hunters to be competition to the wolves for the available deer and elk, and guess whose side the agency will come down on.

If you allow the state to start apportioning out tags now, they will keep reducing the number of tags every couple of years for this or that reason, or a combination of reasons...or maybe for no reason at all.

And then we'll be hearing from people within our own ranks who say "Well, shucks, we've got to learn to get along with less."

I don't buy that, not now, not ever.

But until I round up enough dead people in King County to vote for me, I'll never be able to do much about it.
    

[muleyguy]

dave,

you have obviously thought long and hard about what needs to happen to restore our deer herds to where they should be, so I commend you for that;  good honest discourse on the subject will eventually lead to solutions.

but, the problem is not going to be solved by increasing the opportunities to harvest MORE deer, which seems to be your thesis; nor, is the problem going to be solved by "all of us getting along".  It would be nice if that was the case, but unfortunately, it isn't.   the truth is, there is a secular decline in mule deer across all western states, not just WA;  the cause of this is unknown for the most part, but, it probably has to do with increasing predators, increasing human populations, changing precipitation patterns, changing fire regulations, changing grazing patterns, increasing elk populations, etc.

Given those restraints, harvesting bucks and does at levels of 15 or 20 yrs ago is simply not sustainable;  there is not a surplus of mule deer in 90% of the units in washington POST hunting season;  most mule deer population units are well below biological carrying levels.  Too many mule deer going into winter is not the problem in this state;  the problem is not enough mule deer at any time of the season.

There is a simple analysis that confirms this:  take a like habitat area in WA state where it is dissected in half by public ground and private ground, and look at the deer population, and buck makeup, of the private ground vs the public ground.  Habitat is the same on both, precipitation, predators, etc are all the same.  And look at the differences;  it is pretty obvious what is going on.

The cold hard reality of it all, is that man is the apex predator for mule deer;  we are really no different then the coyotes, the wolves, or the bears;  man is the primary predator of mule deer.

go look at the antlerless permits;  there are literally 1000's of anterless permits and opportunities for deer in this state;  are you kidding me?  there is almost nowhere in this state where there are too many deer;  AND, if there are, then the right way is to have targeted antlerless permits, such as good only on private ground, etc.

so, we can all bitch and moan about this and that, but, the problem is that we are harvesting too many deer given what is the reality of todays world;  if precipation factors, poaching, tribal hunting, and increasing elk populations are knocking down deer populations that really sucks........but, the solution is not to give MORE opportunities to harvest an ALREADY stressed population.  The solution is to try and solve those problems the best we can, and to limit the harvest of deer to what the current conditions are while we get there.

look at NV, they are draw only, and have massive amounts of people apply for their tags because they provide a quality product;  this idea that if we limit tags it is going to destroy hunting is foolish; what is going to destroy hunting is hunting that slowly gets worse an worse every year with more and more pumpkins on each ridge each year;  you want to get a kid interested in hunting??  I can tell you that a good experience where they see deer and bucks on public ground without somebody around every corner will do the trick faster then the  current WA experiecne, even if they only get to go every other year.

[AKBowman]

Because WDFW SUCKS!!!!!

[CountryslickR]

I think Baldo really hit the nail on the head with regards to state wildlife agencies trying to please both ends of the spectrum...from animal rights wackos to us hunters.  

When they took the word "GAME" out and replaced it with Dept of Fish & WILDLIFE that's when we lost WA.  Now game and those who care about it (HUNTERS) are just one of the many "user groups" they serve.  I liked Dave Workman's idea:  abolish WDFW, put wildlife management in DNR and DOE's hands and bring back the GAME DEPT!  This guy should run for Governor!

The GAME DEPT would be charged with GAME MANAGEMENT and nothing else...no frogs, no dicky birds, no wolf 'recovery' studies, no Seafair patrols, no marijuana task forces, etc!  I bet we could pay for a GAME Dept with licensing revenue if game was all they were in charge of.  The Game Dept Director's salary and bonus plan should be tied directly to the overall statewide deer hunter success rate.

Hunters would be allowed and encouraged to purchase hunt multiple weapon season tags and the limits would remain one deer/ one elk / year.  "Choose your weapon" only served to fracture and divide the state's hunting community and greatly reduced the overall amount hunters contributed to the rural economies by hunting multiple seasons.

I don't buy the "quality" hunt BS.  Back in the 80's and earlier there were twice as many hunters... we were spread out and and had modern firearm elk seasons that lasted two weeks and were in mid November...any bull on the Eastside. That was quality hunting.

Now we have 3pt buck and spike bull blanket regs....and now lots of meat standing on the hoof at the feeding stations, AKA "Watchable Wildlife Viewing Opportunities".  (Look at all these big bulls and bucks; see what a good job we're doing )I'm betting this year's winter kill will be horrendous.  Literally tons of meat (the 3pt bucks and 6pt bulls) are going to feed the yotes, wolves, and magpies this winter.  That meat should have gone to feeding people.  

Well, if I were to run for governor, as I said in that message a couple of weeks back, one of the very first things I would do is call for a performance audit of the WDFW.

I grew up in Washington and I have watched the decline in hunting opportunity ever since, and maybe even before, the agency changed from being the Department of GAME to the Department of (No) Fish and (Watchable) WILDLIFE.

The last legal mule deer I shot in Washington was in the early 1990s, the last year prior to the imposition of the 3-point rule.

The biggest bucks I have shot have all been taken OUT OF STATE. And that tells me something.

I shot a nice 2x3 down in southern Utah. Couple of years later, I anchored a really nice 4-pt buck in SE Wyoming, and a few years ago I clobbered a bigger 4-pointer southeast of Terry, MT (moving shot, 250 yards) that I wrote about in GUN WORLD magazine.

Anybody who knows me knows that when I hunt, I hunt hard and at my age, that's a bitch sometimes. But when one can go days without seeing a single animal or a fresh track, in areas that are supposed to be fairly populated with deer, there's something haywire.

Many years ago, when I first started at Fishing & Hunting News, the executive editor reminded me that "If you want to insure the survival of a species, put a hunting season on it. Hunters will make damn sure there are plenty of animals to hunt."

Instead, we have an agency apparently more interested in wolves and watchable wildlife than in putting elk and deer in the cooler where they belong. What good are a dozen, 15 or 20 or a hundred dead deer or elk in late January or early February? If we have a hard winter, and it's beginning to shape up that way with the snow we've already seen, maybe "Glockster" is right. We could have a big winter kill.

A lot of game animals will not survive, and that's a sign that somebody's management scheme is FUBAR.

I remember hunting elk for two weeks and three full weekends. I remember a couple of those seasons when the end of buck season overlapped with the opening day of bull elk, and that was a grand experience. But someone in the department convinced the commission that this was an opportunity for "party hunters" to kill an animal because "somebody had a tag."

That may have happened, no doubt, but it was hardly rampant enough to muck up the hunting opportunity for the vast majority of people who were out there hunting on the straight.

I live out in North Bend and every day almost there are traffic jams between North Bend and Snoqualmie caused by morons stopping on the highway to watch the big elk herd on the Meadowbrook farm. There are a couple of hundred elk in there, and they're a  &$#damn nuisance, not just a danger to traffic but they move over onto the nearby golf course and raise hell. Yes, they are nice to look at but where they are now makes driving simply dangerous.

I attended a meeting of a bunch of concerned citizens and afterward told the WDFW agent..a guy I'd known for some years...that the best solution to this would be to put some bowhunters in there to clobber a few of those elk, and the rest of them would head back north onto the old Weyerhaeuser tree farm where more hunters could take advantage of them. He did not disagree.

As for the mule deer antler restriction, I was hunting in Okanogan this year and down on the Snake, and along the east slope around Teanaway. We saw nothing but a lot of 2-point bucks.

I pose this question: If the regs are set up to allow the harvest of the older mature bucks, that leaves a lot of fork horns to do the breeding. What does that do to the herd gene pool after a few cycles? Give that some thought.

"CountryslickR" essentially accused Glockster of being a crybaby with his little cartoons. Pretty cheap shot. I happen to know that guy and he's a devoted hunter who also grew up around here and he's seen this happen same as me.

There is no sound reason, NONE, for "Resource allocation" management where people are prohibited from extending their opportunity by obtaining an extra stamp or validation that allows them to hunt the general season and, if they don't notch a tag, grab a muzzleloader or bow and keep at it. If they can only take one elk and one deer annually, where's the harm in letting them try and taking in the revenue?

Would that not be preferable to the kind of grotesque circus we saw last year up along Highway 20 IIRC with the archers shooting elk in some guy's roadside pasture in front of a lot of really angry motorists? Everyone recall the video on television?  I opposed Resource Allocation for years. I would have to check the figures, but last time I did, it appeared that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100,000 FEWER hunters in the field than during the 60s and 70s, and yet the seasons are shorter and opportunities are more limited. Why is that?

There's been a dispute over the timing of the elk seasons on the eastside, how they were moved earlier. This may be just swell with horse packers and guides who take clients into the Jackson wilderness, but it doesn't provide much opportunity for guys down on the Little Naches or Crow Creek or the Manastash and Taneum because the weather doesn't set in to move the elk until after the season closes. Are we all supporting a bunch of packers?


If I were governor, I would dearly love to hire a GAME director like the guy who brought in our wild turkey program 20 years ago. That has been the only truly remarkable success story designed specifically to provide a new and productive hunting opportunity.  But Olympia doesn't want guys like that around. They seem more interested in inviting wolves and sitting on the sidelines while the fur huggers outlaw hound hunting.

If I were governor, I'd FIND the money somewhere, or go after grants, to re-establish the EW pheasant release program, to put the hatcheries back in full production, to enhance elk and deer and waterfowl habitat, and to take Washington back to the time when it didn't cost a guy a fortune to buy licenses and tags for himself and his kids, and when they had a genuine opportunity to put fish in the creel and game in the cooler.

Yeah,   if I were governor, I'd turn back the clock, and if some people didn't care for the change, they'd get road maps to California.


But I'm not the governor and probably won't become governor only because I can't find enough dead people to vote for me in King County.
     

First of all...       for your rant about not being able to hike, glass, and find a nice buck nowdays like the rest of the hunters that shoot great bucks every year in ......oh yup, thats it...Washington...   

 And secondly, if you want to do something about it...actually run......

 Also, if you had some actual numbers to back up your case....other than the limited or probable limited numbers of legal bucks that you have expressed, dont call cartoons a cheepshot and maybe you'd have some weight in the topic...the cheepshot is when you said....The dept of no fish or watchable wildlife??? huh.......

[boneaddict]

It took me 5 years to draw Montana general deer.   Thats general.   I tried Oregon for 4 years.   No deal.  Its interesting to think I could draw here 2 out of 3 years.  Montana seems to have lots tags and good drawing odds.

[huntnnw]

u could also get the combo, get a deer tag almost every year. plus you could hunt elk

I to hunt out of state to see other country, adventure, hunt longer. Also the mule deer hunting in this state blows!! U can go to MT in some units and pass on 20 bucks a day that u would give a left nut to see here in WA during the general season, yeah we get a few every year here to drool over, nothing like UT,NV,WY and CO.. Whitetails on the other hand, this state has great whitetails, best in the west imho

[Dave Workman]

u could also get the combo, get a deer tag almost every year. plus you could hunt elk

I to hunt out of state to see other country, adventure, hunt longer. Also the mule deer hunting in this state blows!! U can go to MT in some units and pass on 20 bucks a day that u would give a left nut to see here in WA during the general season, yeah we get a few every year here to drool over, nothing like UT,NV,WY and CO.. Whitetails on the other hand, this state has great whitetails, best in the west imho

Exactly.

There is some good whitetail hunting here, provided the weather cooperates.
There could be better whitetail hunting here if the season ran through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend like it used to.

But be careful talking about it, lest you be accused of  


=========================
Now, for some figures, which were requested:

According to the US FWS, Washington reported 336,652 licensed hunters in 1970
In 1980, prior to the imposition of Resource Allocation and regional elk tags, there were 360,684 licensed hunters
By 1990, after RA and regional tags: The number had dropped to 268,653
In 2000, that had declined to 214,969
In 2003, the last year for which FWS has data listed via the link below, the number was down to 194,308

You can find it all here: http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages/LicenseInfo/HuntingLicCertHistory.pdf

In 2009, FWS says Washington reported 197,260 licensed hunters (see: http://www.fws.gov/news/historic/browse.cfm)

Is that what you were looking for?