Wandered on over to the Eastside this weekend, mostly to get a little fresh air but also to have a look at the birds. As others have already said, birds are still very much in the winter mode up that way. All or nothing propostiion - when you saw one you saw at least 50 (or more in most cases) and Toms not showing any interest in the hens yet. Going up Hwy 25 snow is gone until you get a couple miles past Fort Spokane and from there up it's still winter! Fort Spokane Campground is snowfree, Hunters campground still has a lot of patchy snow and the hills east of the hwy. are still pretty covered about a mile east of the road. Nothing is greening up much and I usally don't see the birds break up and move much until that happens. Obviously side roads are still pretty much muddy messes and anything up higher is impassable. Couple of farmers I know over there said they wintered about the same amount of birds as last year, but had a lot of fall hunters over (one told me they took 16 hens from his place) Overall the flocks looked pretty heatlhy and I did see a lot of mature toms. Surprisinly gas is cheaper over there than on the west side. Anywhere from 3.65 (conoco in Wilbur) to 3.83, lots of places still 3.75. I'm guessing it's going to take a good week of warm weather to green things up to get the flocks to really break up and chances are that won't happen for the youth hunt-I would'nt plan on any high country camping for that hunt, that's for sure. Might warn you the last little stretch of Miles/Creston road as you go down to Hwy 25 is unpaved and the gravel is pretty well worn off-i.e. kind of a slippery mud -be carful when you go down it. I'm heading back over the end of the month and should have a better feel for the actual hunt then.
