Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 04, 2015, 01:43:07 PM
Post by: Tbob on May 04, 2015, 01:48:29 PM
Post by: skidynastar33 on May 04, 2015, 02:00:21 PM
Post by: luvmystang67 on May 04, 2015, 02:50:55 PM
Post by: RadSav on May 04, 2015, 03:38:49 PM
Still issues of trying to get out of Weyco and on to land that is not theirs. Often making it very difficult to get to your second or third spots without back tracking for an hour. But, all-in-all we didn't mind it too bad once we learned our limitations and planned each day better. We will buy it again this year.
Post by: WRKG4GD on May 04, 2015, 06:01:56 PM
We hunted public land last year and were still able to get into elk pretty regularly. I guess it'll come down to a debate with my hunting partner(s) if I'm the only one that wants to stay on public land.
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on May 04, 2015, 06:10:39 PM
Post by: RadSav on May 04, 2015, 06:16:02 PM
Post by: bobcat on May 04, 2015, 06:18:26 PM
Post by: jeffitz on May 04, 2015, 06:49:29 PM
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 04, 2015, 08:42:21 PM
Post by: kodiak 907 on May 04, 2015, 08:50:24 PM
Post by: Bigshooter on May 04, 2015, 08:51:38 PM
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 04, 2015, 08:51:51 PM
Post by: kodiak 907 on May 04, 2015, 08:56:42 PM
Post by: biggfish on May 04, 2015, 11:55:17 PM
Post by: RadSav on May 05, 2015, 02:50:09 AM
Here are my thoughts. I'm going to hopefully buy a Vail permit (If they don't sell out in less than 2mins.) I am going to buy a st. helens permit. I am going to MT to hunt deer. And if I draw another out of state tag I will be going on that hunt also and if I don't draw I might still go to ID on a deer hunt. I am not rich but I know it costs money to hunt so I save all year long so that when hunting season is here I can hunt. If you wait until "you have the money" you will never hunt like you want to.
Amen!
The year I killed my big 7X7 bull my buddy Bone and I had completely run out of money. I had a $10 bill stashed away in my ash tray that I knew would get me from Sumpter, Oregon to the next Exxon station where I could use a gas card to get me home. We took an afternoon off from hunting to walk a few roads picking up beer cans and pop bottles. That gave us enough money to put one more tank of gas in the Datsun, buy a large bag of frozen peas, some mayo and a loaf of bread. I then shot a small buck for camp meat and that was enough to get us through the last week of the season. That last week of the season produced one heck of a glory ride home! Two bulls, a 350# bear and 1.3 deer made the ride home in the back of the truck.
I've been lucky enough to have hunted all over the United States and Canada. Taken record book sheep, caribou, elk, deer and bear. Been at the top of the world for sunrise and watched the sun set on the beaches of the gulf. Hunted with Hall of Fame members, culled pigs for the government and made nearly every hunting and fishing dream I'd had as a child come true. But that one week we spent in the hills of eastern Oregon, dang near penniless, eating the same thing three times a day for six days will forever be the greatest hunting trip of my life.
If you wait until you have the money you likely will be too old to do the things you've dreamed of once you get it. You are only young once! Sacrifice what you can now before those creeping hands of time beat you down. I can live with the things I failed at and the mistakes I made. But the things I never did are the things that haunt me now. Sometimes picking up cans and bottles for the chance to get just one more opportunity, one more shot or one more week in the woods can take you to places you've never been before. For me it resulted in one good arrow, that arrow resulted in a national award, that national award got me an invite to the S.H.O.T. show, that show is where I met the right people, those people launched a career, and that career has given me one heck of a good life! :chuckle: :chuckle: :chuckle:
Post by: Eli346 on May 05, 2015, 04:44:34 AM
Post by: grundy53 on May 05, 2015, 04:49:21 AM
Great post Rad!:yeah: excellent write up.
Post by: fireweed on May 05, 2015, 08:02:49 AM
Post by: TheHunt on May 05, 2015, 08:28:15 AM
Post by: Little Fish on May 05, 2015, 02:20:57 PM
Post by: RadSav on May 05, 2015, 02:39:33 PM
I bought a Weyerhaeuser St Helens Tree Farm permit last year for archery elk. I saw a fraction of the animals that I have seen historically in the same areas. Not sure if it was the increased traffic on the logging roads, the thinned out herd or the hoof rot killing the animals off, but at the end of the day my partner and I didn't have a single opportunity to launch an arrow. The area I hunt has been getting worse each year, but with the permit system allowing vehicle access the way I hunt is far more difficult than before. With that said I won't be buying the permit again and won't even be hunting the same area until things improve substantially.
They say the St Helens herd has been dropping at a rate of 50% per year the past three years. I would say it has been close to that for five. IMO you can't have hoof rot and that number of early cow tags and keep a strong herd number. Good news from last year was that the number of cows we saw with bad rot was down significantly. Too bad that could not be said for the bulls. I think it was 9 out of 11 mature branch bulls we saw that no way in heck were going to make it through winter. And since WDFW would not let us shoot them I expect they will further help spread the disease. Makes absolutely no sense to have Winston cows only in the late season. We need to bust all those rotten apples out if we want to save the basket.
Hunting pressure was very light while we were in there. So even if the numbers were down it was enjoyable. And we saw plenty of animals. Just not as many as in years past. And not 1/10th of what you would see 15 years ago before they started to slaughter cows.
Post by: pianoman9701 on May 05, 2015, 02:43:37 PM
Post by: RadSav on May 06, 2015, 06:40:45 PM
But, not many places on the westside where you can hunt with such little pressure as we had in Weyco last year. If you can forget about watching all the sick and dying bulls without being able to end their suffering it's a great place to be. Some real dandy bucks in there too! More bear than there has been in a while. Wonder if that is from all the elk they have been feeding on resulting in better cub survival :dunno:
Post by: jpharcher on May 06, 2015, 07:16:58 PM
hunting Colorado this year so no permit for me
Post by: Pete112288 on May 06, 2015, 08:57:06 PM
Post by: Eli346 on May 07, 2015, 04:38:02 AM
Post by: bobcat on May 07, 2015, 05:16:52 AM
Plus they're offering 5,000 permits this year so it's not like you you won't get a permit if you want one. Like was the case with other areas which only had around 500 permits and sold out in 3 minutes. :o
Post by: KDB on May 08, 2015, 11:16:26 AM
Post by: RB on May 08, 2015, 11:37:34 AM
Post by: kodiak 907 on May 08, 2015, 12:05:02 PM
Post by: bobcat on May 08, 2015, 01:01:03 PM
So I put in for a couple permits, mudflow and toutle. If I happen to draw, are these two areas all Weyco property?
No, they're not all Weyerhaeuser. You could hunt state land. The Weyerhaeuser permit would just give you more area to hunt.
Post by: Nice Racks on May 08, 2015, 02:24:05 PM
So I put in for a couple permits, mudflow and toutle. If I happen to draw, are these two areas all Weyco property?
No, they're not all Weyerhaeuser. You could hunt state land. The Weyerhaeuser permit would just give you more area to hunt.
If you have to travel through Weyco land to get to the state land, will you need a permit then?
Post by: RadSav on May 08, 2015, 02:44:38 PM
Even if you do have the pass you can not get to the non-Weyco property by traveling through the Weyco access roads. You still have to back track and go through the small corridor. That is my biggest gripe with the pass!!! Key should be good for all gates that are not walk-in only gates. We used three times the fuel we normally would as most of our spots are split equally between Weyco and non-Weyco, but most are rather close to one another. Too far to walk to each, but close enough we have to travel nearly ten miles back just to go two miles forward. So that is 20 miles of driving to get to a spot 2 miles from the Weyco gate.
We offset this, even though it is not the best way to hunt, by starting the day all the way in. We hunt spot #1, then maybe spot #5, then spot #3, then spot #8 working our way back toward the entrance gate before working our way around. By the time we drive all the way around to spot #2 it is usually late in the day and not as good as it could have been or as good as it usually is. But...it is what the new system is. The frustration is offset by the lack of hunters we run into.
Post by: kodiak 907 on May 08, 2015, 05:14:58 PM
Post by: millerwheeler on May 14, 2015, 09:08:19 PM
Post by: bobcat on May 14, 2015, 09:12:48 PM
so they really said you couldn't shoot the bulls with hoof rot ?
The late archery season is only open for antlerless elk.
Post by: RadSav on May 14, 2015, 10:13:11 PM
Post by: kentrek on May 14, 2015, 10:17:37 PM
Yep, after years of being "Bulls Only" during the last week of the season they changed it to cows only for the whole season. Made no sense then and makes even less sense now.
Unless you want the elk gone
Post by: MarkyMark on May 14, 2015, 11:26:16 PM
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Post by: CoastalHunter on May 28, 2015, 09:39:02 PM
Post by: grundy53 on May 28, 2015, 09:41:19 PM
whats the website for weyco permits??www.wyrecreationnw.com
Post by: CoastalHunter on May 28, 2015, 10:47:03 PM
whats the website for weyco permits??www.wyrecreationnw.com
Thank You
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 28, 2015, 11:00:44 PM
Post by: RadSav on May 29, 2015, 01:15:14 AM
Post by: bobcat on May 29, 2015, 05:45:07 AM
This year they are offering 5,000 permits and the price went up by $10 to $160. It's hard to say how fast they'll sell this year. I would guess there will be a lot more demand for them with Margaret now being a general season, open for anybody with an archery, muzzleloader, or modem firearm tag. Also, Winston is open for early muzzleloader this year. Coweeman is also open for early muzzleloader, but they did take away the late muzzleloader season in that unit.
With the added opportunities on the St. Helens tree farm, I think the access permits will go a lot quicker than they did last year.
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 29, 2015, 10:55:15 AM
Post by: teegansdad on May 29, 2015, 12:59:01 PM
Post by: bobcat on May 29, 2015, 01:34:07 PM
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 30, 2015, 11:03:45 AM
Post by: PolarBear on May 30, 2015, 11:34:45 AM
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on May 30, 2015, 11:51:34 AM
Post by: PolarBear on May 30, 2015, 12:20:17 PM
Post by: Ddouble on May 30, 2015, 12:33:44 PM
Post by: Bow tech hunter on May 30, 2015, 03:13:22 PM
Post by: PolarBear on May 30, 2015, 04:20:52 PM
I heard PolarBears wolf howl... And managed to always be in the opposite side of the unit when him and his daughter were seeing elk!That last day we got into them less than 1/2 hour after we ran into you. I bet with all 4 of us we could have busted them out of that thick dog hair. Hindsight... I'm hiking in to the same spot during early archery to try for that herd bull.
Post by: Falcon on May 30, 2015, 09:44:44 PM
Here are my thoughts. I'm going to hopefully buy a Vail permit (If they don't sell out in less than 2mins.) I am going to buy a st. helens permit. I am going to MT to hunt deer. And if I draw another out of state tag I will be going on that hunt also and if I don't draw I might still go to ID on a deer hunt. I am not rich but I know it costs money to hunt so I save all year long so that when hunting season is here I can hunt. If you wait until "you have the money" you will never hunt like you want to.
Amen!
The year I killed my big 7X7 bull my buddy Bone and I had completely run out of money. I had a $10 bill stashed away in my ash tray that I knew would get me from Sumpter, Oregon to the next Exxon station where I could use a gas card to get me home. We took an afternoon off from hunting to walk a few roads picking up beer cans and pop bottles. That gave us enough money to put one more tank of gas in the Datsun, buy a large bag of frozen peas, some mayo and a loaf of bread. I then shot a small buck for camp meat and that was enough to get us through the last week of the season. That last week of the season produced one heck of a glory ride home! Two bulls, a 350# bear and 1.3 deer made the ride home in the back of the truck.
I've been lucky enough to have hunted all over the United States and Canada. Taken record book sheep, caribou, elk, deer and bear. Been at the top of the world for sunrise and watched the sun set on the beaches of the gulf. Hunted with Hall of Fame members, culled pigs for the government and made nearly every hunting and fishing dream I'd had as a child come true. But that one week we spent in the hills of eastern Oregon, dang near penniless, eating the same thing three times a day for six days will forever be the greatest hunting trip of my life.
If you wait until you have the money you likely will be too old to do the things you've dreamed of once you get it. You are only young once! Sacrifice what you can now before those creeping hands of time beat you down. I can live with the things I failed at and the mistakes I made. But the things I never did are the things that haunt me now. Sometimes picking up cans and bottles for the chance to get just one more opportunity, one more shot or one more week in the woods can take you to places you've never been before. For me it resulted in one good arrow, that arrow resulted in a national award, that national award got me an invite to the S.H.O.T. show, that show is where I met the right people, those people launched a career, and that career has given me one heck of a good life! :chuckle: :chuckle: :chuckle:
One of the best posts ever!