Winston Unit

[funkster]

Have you guys that want the gates closed ever thought that Weyco opens the gates because it pushes the elk out of the area?

If they plan on  road traffic as an elk pusher, all that is doing is pushing the elk out of the winston and on to another chunk of land that wey. co owns. Wey. co. owns most of the winston, margaret ,toutle and coweeman. Its not really solving the problem just making one somewhere else.

 I think we all can agree that wey.co wants the elk numbers down on their farm due to tree damage. That is why they are working so hard with the wdfw. That is why they are giving out so many cow tags and January hunts when most of the cows are pregnant.

 I can tell you from my personal experience last season during the muzzleloader antlerless season in the winston.  I was selected for antlerless deer and elk. I hunted for 4 days before the elk season for deer and had multiple elk within 25 yards everyday and all the gates where closed. I thought it was going to be an easy tag to fill  First day of  muzzy antlerless elk season they opened up all the gates( I mean every single gate in the unit) and the elk where nowhere to be found. Finally on the last evening I kicked out a large herd in some reprod. The point I am trying to make is if wey. co and the wdfw really wants the elk herd thinned,  why not keep the gates closed and let us help you do that. All road hunting does is stress out and scare the elk, a scared elk runs,  it is way harder to harvest a stressed out scared running elk then an naturally relaxed elk that doesn't even know I am there

[pianoman9701]

Kind of a funny thread. Weyerhouser opens or closes the gates on their private land to make best use of hunters to control damage to their investment. If they leave the gates open, it's because it's better for their trees. If they close 'em, it's because it's better for their trees.

This is private land that a private company could well charge $300 or more a year for a hunter to access (think Hancock). If you hunt Winston, whether the gates, the bulls, or the people are or are not the way you like them, you should be sending Weyerhouser a thank you note every year you use it for allowing you a free place to hunt.

[Arteman]

Kind of a funny thread. Weyerhouser opens or closes the gates on their private land to make best use of hunters to control damage to their investment. If they leave the gates open, it's because it's better for their trees. If they close 'em, it's because it's better for their trees.

This is private land that a private company could well charge $300 or more a year for a hunter to access (think Hancock). If you hunt Winston, whether the gates, the bulls, or the people are or are not the way you like them, you should be sending Weyerhouser a thank you note every year you use it for allowing you a free place to hunt.

  a multi billion dollar company isn't going to make decisions based off or in favor of any hunters interest.  It's all about protecting their investment, property, equipment, etc, or if your a liability to them keeping you out.  I thank god Weco has been the major land owner in my area, others are not so generous.  I just hope they dont pick up on some of these other major land owners bad habits.

[MADMAX]

I was told a few years back by a WEYCO equipment operator that the gates were locked due to trash dumping , meth labs and damage to some big dollar processor equipment that had sand poured in the hydraulics by some *censored*

[funkster]

Kind of a funny thread. Weyerhouser opens or closes the gates on their private land to make best use of hunters to control damage to their investment. If they leave the gates open, it's because it's better for their trees. If they close 'em, it's because it's better for their trees.

I totally agree that we should thank them for letting us use their private land, I already stated that in this thread. It is an awesome privilege.

Leaving the gates closed would make it easier for us as hunters to help wey. co. protect their trees by hunting naturally relax animals being animals. Leaving the gates open does nothing to help protect their trees, it only makes it harder to harvest the thing that is ruining their trees. Plus now you have to account for trash dumping, road deterioration, people actually setting up camps right in front of no camping signs(seen it with my own eyes) and a list of other thing I care not to mention. People talk about Hancock charging an access fee as it is a bad thing. Have you ever been on their land? Was it not some of the cleanest forestland and nicest maintained roads? I never saw multiple piles of human wasted in the middle of the road covered up with half a roll of TP like I did during late season archery in the winston(gates open). In my opinion they are managing elk better than the state does. Where else can you spend $300 and have a chance at a 300 plus bull on thousands of acres of land with just a few people on it? None of this matters to anyone at the wdfw or wey.co. but the guy that started this thread was asking for opinions and this is a message board.

[furbearer365]

Its funny how people in this area that grow up with logging roads everywhere rely on them so much.  How on gods green earth could someone in the midwest hunt at all with no logging roads to travel on.  I am just glad to see the overall census agrees that locked gates are a good thing.  It makes me happy that there are still those out there that would rather HUNT as opposed to CHASE.  I know that the thread was originally started regarding the Winston but has taken a turn to locked gates in general, but i still feel that if you want to hunt from a truck, find a unit that has what you wish for.  LOCK EM

[tbuck6568]

I'm seeing a few posts on here about being able to get a hold of somebody who knows what the status of the gates will be. I did get a number to call so I could access my bull for retrieval (2 years ago), but when I called the same number last year, it just had a general message listing open gates and then a statement about "if the gate is not mentioned assume it's closed" (paraphrasing of course). I'd like to have more specific info on gate status if I could get it. Any help?

[johnnymac]

Any locals know if the gates are currently open? I am planning on scouting/ camping on state land in that unit up near winters. 

[cwuwildcat]

I was in there last weekend, up camp 9 and the 550.  Any gate that a weyerhaueser sign by it was closed.  about half of the purple ones were open.  Your milage may vary.