Yakima Elk Herd article in the yakima paper today- Link

[Killmore]

Has anyone ever added up how many elk show up to the feed stations?  Then the next question is, do we know what percentage don't show up? But 10,550 head!!!

[frostman]

Would it be wrong to suggest that a social animal like elk realize that the crazy MF's who come to the woods every breeding season are mostly trying to kill the male yearlings and are "teaching" them earlier to take deep daylight cover in inpenetrable places and stay low?

It sounds like very many of the permit applicants decided too much work to drive around in a warm pick up truck and see no elk.

[Alchase]

That paper will not post comments on that article 
I guess second amendment does not cover comments about the article.

[rosscrazyelk]

Wow. You hear that hunting will be better in the yakima this year. I think everyone should hunt there..

[Elkaholic daWg]

 Actually that was just the hunters reporting "on time " and  the wording was "hunted their permit", not success rate, so the actual animals harvested (Legally) might be even lower.

[Killmore]

Beings the herd is 1000 over there ideal number, maybe they should keep cutting back on the permits so they can feed the wolfs when they start to show up at the feed station every winter. Correct me if I'm wrong but the department feeds like 3000 head at all the feed stations so they are saying that about 7500 head don't show. That is hard for me to believe. How could they possible count those numbers outside the feed stations? I would guess that permit holders success is so low that they only will tell us there's more elk so they can keep the permit sells up..

[dreamingbig]

All this talk of the herd over management goals has led to an additional 450 cow permits for modern firearm.  Sadly Bumping is still spike only for archery (ridiculous if you ask me).  See link.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2011/03/mar0511_17a_deer_elk.pdf

[Moose Master]

Greeting everyone,  How would someone go about talking with the state employee that was quoted in the article?  If someone could help me in this I would greatly appreciate it.

[bobcat]

I've talked to him a couple times on the phone, and corresponded through email as well. He was really helpful to me and seemed more than willing to share his knowledge.

Try this:  http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/contact/edirectory/?f=&l=bernatowicz

By the way, he goes by "Bernie"

[rjn cajun]

Here`s an idea why don`t they push the season back to where it used to be. It used to open on the 5th of November no matter what day of the week it was. I`ve hunted there for 24 years. Every year you get a local herd that stays behind the migratory the rest go up. Those are the spikes and cows takin on opening days. Harvest rate there depends on the snow and ya`ll know as well as I do that rarely happens. Some years it`s 10 degrees and no snow and others it`s 70 and no snow. That one week makes a huge difference. Just my 

[colockumelk]

Bernie is a really great Guy. When I wrote my paper on the Colockum he was a huge help. @Cajun. They have the season. Early to keep the success rate around 10%. This is how they regulate the harvest and keep the elk at their levels. If they pushed the season later then success rates would go up and the herd would see a rapid decline.

Like I tell people. The WDFW has only two options for management. Either regulate hunting number's ( ie permit only) or have short crappy seasons. Washington has too many hunters nd not enough elk and land. We can't have a general season and quality hunting too.

[norsepeak]

we used to have very high quality elk hunting around here during the general season and at that time there where way more hunters than there are today....the difference?  Back then the biologists were hunters, you could actually hunt predators (read hounds), and everything wasn't so driven by the almighty dollar (read general fund  )

[coachcw]

From What I saw more of the low land elk where higher last year . maybe this was a good reason why the harvest was lowwer . The number of big bulls I saw this year was down from last and the number of rag horns where up. I'd like to see the bull tags lowwerd and the cow tags stay the same for a couple of years and possibly move the cow season a week or two later to bump the harvest up. 

[rjn cajun]

Clockum Elk I understand and know why they do it but it still drives me nuts. Up there I and most of the long time camps feel they don`t want any sucess rates. Remember when the road washed out. Instead of spending our money on it they just close it down. Make up an excuse that it`s a fish berring stream. It`s dry 9 months out of the year. The holes in the fence same thing they used to fix them. We fix them now. Sorry for the venting just seems like it get`s worse every year. I better find a new place to hunt this year if they raise any of the tag #. I can`t imagine how many hunters will be in there. There were more last year opening weekend then I have ever seen. Maybe the blues. Wait no elk there.

[colockumelk]

rjn cajun don't worry about venting i do it all the time. i just misinterpreted your post as you didn't know why they set the seasons like they do.  Alot of people don't know why.  So sorry about that.

Norsepeak I couldn't agree more.  I think the rapid increase in predators has a direct impact on herd numbers.  And anyone that doesn't agree is "naive" at best.  Also I think road access in alot of areas has a HUGE impact as well.  Every single study done on road access impact on elk herds has shown that road access has a HUGE impact as well.  I think the biggest impact in this regards is it gives poachers etc more access at bulls when they are wintering.  I also think that poaching has gone up, not down.