Free: Contests & Raffles.
mulehunter, your family deserves to come first, I think everyone can understand that. Keep up your posts about your hunt during pursuit season too. Threads like this are good for the sport, for people to see what hound hunting really is all about. Machias, I liked the way the Stevens/Pend Orielle hunt went. It is my opinion that boot hunters should be allowed to take out whatever adult cat they are lucky enough to have a chance at, and with some simple training, hound hunters can easily identify a tom, and with a tom-only hound hunt the hound season stays open longer.In any healthy animal population it is arguable that both males and females need to be harvested. Boot hunters obviously will get females harvested, and with a tom-only season the toms will get harvested. The politics of having any hound season are complicated in Washington. Remember, seasons are based on public safety, not on sport hunting or the best wildlife management principles. It will be interesting to see how the legislature reacts to the tom-only season which was a last minute decision by WDFW. I personally think it's probably a good idea to harvest the old mature toms who push younger toms into new territories where they get in trouble and these older toms can cause problems themselves when they get too old to hunt wild game and start looking for easier prey like pets, livestock, and kids. I think if the WDFW explains this well enough to the legislature they can justify the tom-only season. We will see what happens, at some point legislators will have to approve a renewal of the cougar hound hunting program or it will end.
Hound Pursuit SeasonI have talked to some people in WDFW in the past about the idea of an over the counter license for a hound pursuit season. I think there are people in WDFW who would support this idea. I have also mentioned this to the Wildlife Commission and to a few legislators, I don't think they are all opposed to the idea.To get traction, we need letters and phone calls of support to the WDFW, the Wildlife Commission, and to legislators on the right committee. We also need sporting groups and law enforcement endorsement of the idea. How many people are willing to help?
