WDFW wants to reduce the Hanford herd by 350.

[buckfvr]

ANother candidate spot for a breading pair............

[gaddy]

send em all to the blues, & not just gmu 175. spread them around. 166 maybe??
get them away from the farms & into the woods. the feet need to eat too.

[Elkaholic daWg]

Colockum,
that issue with the roads is being addressed at the next GMAC meeting (this coming Saturday), here is a cut and paste from the agenda:

9:30   Colockum Elk Herd – Road Management Plan

Did anyone go?

[colockumelk]

Yes NWWABOWHNTR went to the meeting.  I emailed him two letters to the Council.  The first letter detailed my plan for road closures.  Basically it said, WA has little to no money to do road closures.  So to get the most bang for the buck, and to create the most escapement for the most amount of animals and close the least amount of roads; create a 1 mile buffer around the Arthur Coffin Game Preserve.  Just make a 1 mile circle that is roadless around the game preserve. 

The other paper was about the reasons why they should give out cow permits for all three user groups.  I do not know how the meeting went so you will have to ask NWWABOWHNTR. 

[danderson]

Why do the master hunters get all the easy hunts , if there masters then make-em have to work for it like the rest of us, if the WDFW doesnt start spreading opportunity to all the user groups, everyone will be forced to become a master hunter just to fill there freezer.

[colockumelk]

Why do the master hunters get all the easy hunts , if there masters then make-em have to work for it like the rest of us, if the WDFW doesnt start spreading opportunity to all the user groups, everyone will be forced to become a master hunter just to fill there freezer.

Because the WDFW gets free labor out of the master hunters.  So therefore in return they get some easy hunts, basically guaranteed freezer filling hunts. 

[WAcoyotehunter]

and they've passed a shooting proficiency test and more strenuous ethics test- they don't want to open some areas to people that have not been more heavily screened.

[colockumelk]

and they've passed a shooting proficiency test and more strenuous ethics test- they don't want to open some areas to people that have not been more heavily screened.

Yes and that as well.  Personally if I had it my way I think a better way to run the Master-Hunter program would be this. 

For the hunts that go on in the Kittitas Valley where they are damage control hunts, in the hay fields.  I think that Master-Hunters should not get the go ahead for these harvests.  I think that they should go to the Disabled, like the can't walk disabled, not the heart condition or over weight disabled.  After the severely disabled have had their "turn" then let it go to the youth hunters.  So yeah all these damage control hunts on private dirt should go to these two groups. 

The Master-Hunters could still have their extended antlerless seasons in the sage brush. And they should keep their MH special permits. I have no qualms with that.  I just think that for these super easy hunts where you have a 90% probability of kill from the road, that they should go to the people who can ONLY hunt from a road.  And that is the disabled.  Then the youth.   

[jstone]

Master Hunter thing is STUPID

[krism83]

The master hunter tag thing is new to me, I read the Draft Proposal for this plan a week or so ago and it made no mention of it being a "Master Hunter" draw. It simply laid out the ground work of how many per year, hunters per day and such. I did not that it was going to be a modern firearm only permit to "elevate the level of success." I guess I am naive and don't see the problem with 10 hunters a day in selected 1 month groupings going out and trying to harvest 75 head per season. Without trying to rub anyone the wrong way, it would almost appear that some people did no further research then read the newspaper articles and then jump to heavy conclusions...

[PlateauNDN]

The master hunter tag thing is new to me, I read the Draft Proposal for this plan a week or so ago and it made no mention of it being a "Master Hunter" draw. It simply laid out the ground work of how many per year, hunters per day and such. I did not that it was going to be a modern firearm only permit to "elevate the level of success." I guess I am naive and don't see the problem with 10 hunters a day in selected 1 month groupings going out and trying to harvest 75 head per season. Without trying to rub anyone the wrong way, it would almost appear that some people did no further research then read the newspaper articles and then jump to heavy conclusions...

I think they were just giving ideas about how to best approach the plan.   You are correct, in that the plan does not say anything about MH's.

[krism83]

I am not disputing that you heard that at the meeting, I am honestly just shocked at the plan that they had described that they would limit their own efforts to a smaller class of hunters. Maybe it's a conspiracy to get more people to pay for the master hunter program and do free labor to get this hunt

I can see how some were trying to offer a ideas as to the "solution", I was referring to the comments made about the Yakima tribe "raping" this opportunity. Obviously someone didn't do their homework, as the YN is one of the agencies presenting this idea to the state, along with the DOE. The way I read it also seemed like a lot of people on this thread assumed that WDFW was going to just let a bunch of guys out onto a set piece of property and chase the elk around. Again, it may be that I don't understand completely, but I don't see how 10 hunters a day are going to spook 700 elk into the "no go" zone. I think that limiting the type/amount of animals to be harvested per year is going to cull the population without damaging the herds to greatly from year to year. They will still be able to breed and be able raise younger bulls and cows, while slowly "downsizing" its population.

[danderson]

Colockumelk, I compeltly agree, if we dont start getting our youth involved in hunting, theres going to be a whole generation of future hunters lost because of the departments short sightedness. and as far as the disabled and senior hunters in this state I think that most all of them drop out of the hunting tradition because of lack of mobility, lets face it, its hard enough to harvest a deer our elk on public land for the average hunter, theres no question in my mind that the master hunter program is the slippery slope that leads to decline in hunting oppertunity for the average hunter, its already happening, most of my hunting buddies already head out of state to hunt, if they dont draw a specail permit. The Hanford herd belongs to everyone in this state, or does it?

[rotty33]

I agree that there should be a lot of youth opportunity for this hunt! We need to keep them involved.  I can also assure u that master hunters do not get all the easy hunts. I worked my butt off to get it and have yet to even cOme close to getting an elk. It was designed to get free labor out of us without much in return. Wish they would show success rates for us. I'm sure it is very low.

[loper]

Wish they would show success rates for us. I'm sure it is very low.

Here is a summary of the 2010 Game Harvest Reports for Elk - Master Hunter: 

379 permits available
288 hunter reports returned
180 actual hunters
119 elk harvested

Permit Success (# of elk harvested/# of permits available) = 31.4%
Report Success (# of elk harvested/# of reports returned) = 41.3%
Hunter Success (# of elk harvested/# of actual hunters) = 66.1%

Specific permit units might be troublesome; overall, those numbers look pretty good (IMO).