Blue Tongue

[jrebel]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity. 

[hunter399]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

Well this is the third year I believe that there hasn't been any antlerless harvest in NE Washington. 124 is not a NE unit.
NE Washington youth seasons are and have been gone for awhile. WT where not in great shape before bluetongue.
I'll debate the youth season a little more later.
But hunters need to figure out what's important.
For me as an example.
Traditional seasons
OTC tags with traditional seasons.
Sustainable deer and elk population with the first two above.

You may want your youth to have a doe tag now,but it won't do any good for the "future" of hunting. When he/she has to wait 5-10 years to draw a permit to hunt some struggling deer population of the future.

I'll lay more down later,but yes no one wants to lose opportunity ,and yes youth should be last on the list,but WDFW always cut youth first. It's always been that way don't ask me why,or if it's right .

[Jingles]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

So leave youth tags alone? OK at what age do they learn that sometimes you don't always get what you want?
Seems like maybe that should of been  impressed in the minds of those that occupied city blocks of Seattle and trashed Portland to name but 2 of the many cities
Not saying take their youth away from them but you want to participate as an adult here are the rules adults go by. And if you do take a youth deer hunting don't you shoot the deer for the youth, if you're going to do that both youth and adult stay home and out of the woods, at least quit driving the roads saying you are hunting.

[callturner]

So if 124 isn't a NE unit what is it? Defiantly east as it borders Idaho. And north of the river.  Until this year whitetails were thick here. the 5 or so tags given out this year for does, youth, seniors, etc could have been taken out of my property. I do still have mule deer, 7 yesterday morning. 5 does and 2 bucks. Give the kids and seniors the opportunity . I would much rather see  young people learning to shoot, and hunt and fish than sitting home playing video games and learning CRT. The blue tongue has surly affected our wt population around here, but it will bounce back. At least we all hope so. It has before. My question is how did wdfw know to cut the doe seasons before the blue tongue was here? This state has the poorest game management in most of the country. Take a kid or senior hunting, I do! My rant is done

[hunter399]

So if 124 isn't a NE unit what is it? Defiantly east as it borders Idaho. And north of the river.  Until this year whitetails were thick here. the 5 or so tags given out this year for does, youth, seniors, etc could have been taken out of my property. I do still have mule deer, 7 yesterday morning. 5 does and 2 bucks. Give the kids and seniors the opportunity . I would much rather see  young people learning to shoot, and hunt and fish than sitting home playing video games and learning CRT. The blue tongue has surly affected our wt population around here, but it will bounce back. At least we all hope so. It has before. My question is how did wdfw know to cut the doe seasons before the blue tongue was here? This state has the poorest game management in most of the country. Take a kid or senior hunting, I do! My rant is done

You could call it NE Washington if you want. But each area is a different biologists,ect,ect.
They didn't know bluetongue was gonna hit ,NE WA was not doing great before.
Just like your above statement ,you can't do deer counts on private land and call it hunter opportunity,but that what WDFW does.

[Ridgeratt]

So if 124 isn't a NE unit what is it? Defiantly east as it borders Idaho. And north of the river.  Until this year whitetails were thick here. the 5 or so tags given out this year for does, youth, seniors, etc could have been taken out of my property. I do still have mule deer, 7 yesterday morning. 5 does and 2 bucks. Give the kids and seniors the opportunity . I would much rather see  young people learning to shoot, and hunt and fish than sitting home playing video games and learning CRT. The blue tongue has surly affected our wt population around here, but it will bounce back. At least we all hope so. It has before. My question is how did wdfw know to cut the doe seasons before the blue tongue was here? This state has the poorest game management in most of the country. Take a kid or senior hunting, I do! My rant is done

If you go by everyone from the area west of Pacific Crest trail everything that is east of the summit is Eastern Washington..   

Have the family group of 4 does in the back pasture right now.

[buckfvr]

While wdfw talks out of one side of its mouth saying deer numbers are fine, they then pull the doe tags to indicate otherwise.  It also could be they pulled the doe tags so there would be a few more deer for the wolves to have hopefully for the short term, alleviating wolf
-cattle conflict, and dont think thats a stretch as thats exactly what their plan was when the took cow (elk) harvest away from bowhunters, even though they said it was to grow the herds for more hunter opportunity.  If that was the case they wouldnt be giving out depredation tags to everyone with alfalfa fields.

WDFW is a mystery, NEVER EVER telling the truth.  Dont rely on them to do the right thing and dont depend on them to make changes that will help ungulates.   

[hunter399]

While wdfw talks out of one side of its mouth saying deer numbers are fine, they then pull the doe tags to indicate otherwise.  It also could be they pulled the doe tags so there would be a few more deer for the wolves to have hopefully for the short term, alleviating wolf
-cattle conflict, and dont think thats a stretch as thats exactly what their plan was when the took cow (elk) harvest away from bowhunters, even though they said it was to grow the herds for more hunter opportunity.  If that was the case they wouldnt be giving out depredation tags to everyone with alfalfa fields.

WDFW is a mystery, NEVER EVER telling the truth.  Dont rely on them to do the right thing and dont depend on them to make changes that will help ungulates.   

I Agree with all that.
I can't remember the years it was,I wanna say 2015-2016 . WDFW gave all muzzleloader,all bow hunters OTC antlerless opportunity,on top of that a couple hundred modern firearm antlerless permits.
I just googled and looked 2015 was antlerless for everybody but modern,2016 the regs came out saying antlerless for archery and muzzleloader,they tryed to send out those correction saying any buck.

Basically what I'm trying to say is WDFW got greedy gave out antlerless opportunity to a huge amount of hunters in one year. Harvest rates started to decline along with a massive amount of complaints to bring back 4pt min and predators. WDFW gave away all youth opportunities in the NE Washington in one year,2015. So there solution to up the population was to take away all antlerless.  Don't quote me but 2014 was 4pt min,2015 was a blood bath,2014-2017 are highest harvest for NE Washington with a declining harvest since 2017 ,and a HUGE decline in 4 and 5 points since the 4pt min. Mature bucks mate many does,young bucks that are more likely to get shot mate less  does. You can have a 100 Doe but if only 10 breed population stays the same.
I'm not a biologist,but this is common since stuff.

[Stein]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

   The way WDFW has slashed youth tags is incredibly sad.  They are also pretty hostile to third party groups trying to put youth hunts together with depredation tags.  If a guy didn't know better, it would look like they are doing what they can to trim future hunter numbers.

From my anecdotal experience of 2 kids, getting them on a hunt where they have plenty of time to get in position, line up and take a nice, easy, relaxed shot is incredibly helpful for at least their first deer.

There used to be really great youth tags but between the state and whatever reason for the private draws, it's a shell of it's former self.  It was the one part of the draw system that actually worked and that's quickly going to heck along with the rest of it.

[jrebel]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

So leave youth tags alone? OK at what age do they learn that sometimes you don't always get what you want?
Seems like maybe that should of been  impressed in the minds of those that occupied city blocks of Seattle and trashed Portland to name but 2 of the many cities
Not saying take their youth away from them but you want to participate as an adult here are the rules adults go by. And if you do take a youth deer hunting don't you shoot the deer for the youth, if you're going to do that both youth and adult stay home and out of the woods, at least quit driving the roads saying you are hunting.

I'm not sure what youth doe tags and participation trophies have in common???  Just because a youth can kill a doe doesn't necessarily mean they will.  Maybe I am skewed because I have private property and we have plenty of does running around.  When we bought it, the kids could shoot does and now they cannot.  My daughter is is 14 shot her first deer this year and it was a young buck....so not all youth hunters will shoot does.  I think it is easy to make the assumption that because it is an option, all kids / youth exercise that option.  Taking opportunity away from our youth is going in the wrong direction. 

I'm tired of the state taking away our hunting opportunity and heritage if you will.  The more they take from our youth, the less youth will participate......thus leading to the demise of hunting.  That is what our state wants and it makes me sick that others will play right into their hands. 

Kill a predator or two and save our deer, elk and / or moose herds. 

I will repeat....the youth harvest on does is not the problem!! 

[hunter399]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

So leave youth tags alone? OK at what age do they learn that sometimes you don't always get what you want?
Seems like maybe that should of been  impressed in the minds of those that occupied city blocks of Seattle and trashed Portland to name but 2 of the many cities
Not saying take their youth away from them but you want to participate as an adult here are the rules adults go by. And if you do take a youth deer hunting don't you shoot the deer for the youth, if you're going to do that both youth and adult stay home and out of the woods, at least quit driving the roads saying you are hunting.

I'm not sure what youth doe tags and participation trophies have in common???  Just because a youth can kill a doe doesn't necessarily mean they will.  Maybe I am skewed because I have private property and we have plenty of does running around.  When we bought it, the kids could shoot does and now they cannot.  My daughter is is 14 shot her first deer this year and it was a young buck....so not all youth hunters will shoot does.  I think it is easy to make the assumption that because it is an option, all kids / youth exercise that option.  Taking opportunity away from our youth is going in the wrong direction. 

I'm tired of the state taking away our hunting opportunity and heritage if you will.  The more they take from our youth, the less youth will participate......thus leading to the demise of hunting.  That is what our state wants and it makes me sick that others will play right into their hands. 

Kill a predator or two and save our deer, elk and / or moose herds. 

I will repeat....the youth harvest on does is not the problem!!

I Agree ,I like to see youth harvest something.
But look at 124 it's had a few years of youth,disabled,senior.
Just youth this year.
WDFW already reduced the youth season this year. And who knows about next year.
They say 124 has declining deer population.
So the question,regardless of predators is how far down the rabbit hole do you go before you back out.

[jrebel]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

So leave youth tags alone? OK at what age do they learn that sometimes you don't always get what you want?
Seems like maybe that should of been  impressed in the minds of those that occupied city blocks of Seattle and trashed Portland to name but 2 of the many cities
Not saying take their youth away from them but you want to participate as an adult here are the rules adults go by. And if you do take a youth deer hunting don't you shoot the deer for the youth, if you're going to do that both youth and adult stay home and out of the woods, at least quit driving the roads saying you are hunting.

I'm not sure what youth doe tags and participation trophies have in common???  Just because a youth can kill a doe doesn't necessarily mean they will.  Maybe I am skewed because I have private property and we have plenty of does running around.  When we bought it, the kids could shoot does and now they cannot.  My daughter is is 14 shot her first deer this year and it was a young buck....so not all youth hunters will shoot does.  I think it is easy to make the assumption that because it is an option, all kids / youth exercise that option.  Taking opportunity away from our youth is going in the wrong direction. 

I'm tired of the state taking away our hunting opportunity and heritage if you will.  The more they take from our youth, the less youth will participate......thus leading to the demise of hunting.  That is what our state wants and it makes me sick that others will play right into their hands. 

Kill a predator or two and save our deer, elk and / or moose herds. 

I will repeat....the youth harvest on does is not the problem!!

I Agree ,I like to see youth harvest something.
But look at 124 it's had a few years of youth,disabled,senior.
Just youth this year.
WDFW already reduced the youth season this year. And who knows about next year.
They say 124 has declining deer population.
So the question,regardless of predators is how far down the rabbit hole do you go before you back out.

124 wouldn't be in the situation it's in had they not taken away youth opportunity in every other GMU in the state (At least the NE corner).  WDFW has no clue what they are doing.  No different than only allowing one or two open GMU's in the North Central area for late archery mule deer.  When you shut down all but one or two GMU's...you congregate all hunter to that GMU and see a disproportionate affect of hunters killing deer.  Keep GMU's open and allow the dispersal of hunters.  Success rate will remain the same regardless, this is shown in harvest states over many years.  10% of you hunters kill 90% of the deer annually.  90% of hunters like to camp and hike with their rifles.  Both are OK....and neither should be restricted by WDFW piss poor management. 

Again....maybe I am skewed based on my experience with private land deer.  I have seen no major decline and even a increase in deer numbers based on my management practices of my land.  It's not a lot...but it is also not public land.  We pulled trail cams last week and on our way home (before it got dark) we counted over 100 deer just driving.  A lot of this is private.....so again, that is not a good / great way to base my experiences.   

[Emptyhanded]

Leave youth hunting alone.  Youth killing a "doe" or "any buck" is not going to hurt the population one bit.  There are not enough youth hunters to make that big an impact.  In my opinion the more we let WDFW.....TAKE....opportunity away, the more we cut our own throats.  Youth hunters need success or they will lose interest....period!! 

If you want to make an impact on the deer population in the NE corner....go kill a bear, cougar or yote.  Until a person does one of those three things (preferably all) then they shouldn't have a say in how to manage the deer in the area.  My son killed two bear this year (he is 12) so him shooting a doe / smaller buck still has a net positive on the deer population.  Don't advocate for taking away youth opportunity.

So leave youth tags alone? OK at what age do they learn that sometimes you don't always get what you want?
Seems like maybe that should of been  impressed in the minds of those that occupied city blocks of Seattle and trashed Portland to name but 2 of the many cities
Not saying take their youth away from them but you want to participate as an adult here are the rules adults go by. And if you do take a youth deer hunting don't you shoot the deer for the youth, if you're going to do that both youth and adult stay home and out of the woods, at least quit driving the roads saying you are hunting.

I'm not sure what youth doe tags and participation trophies have in common???  Just because a youth can kill a doe doesn't necessarily mean they will.  Maybe I am skewed because I have private property and we have plenty of does running around.  When we bought it, the kids could shoot does and now they cannot.  My daughter is is 14 shot her first deer this year and it was a young buck....so not all youth hunters will shoot does.  I think it is easy to make the assumption that because it is an option, all kids / youth exercise that option.  Taking opportunity away from our youth is going in the wrong direction. 

I'm tired of the state taking away our hunting opportunity and heritage if you will.  The more they take from our youth, the less youth will participate......thus leading to the demise of hunting.  That is what our state wants and it makes me sick that others will play right into their hands. 

Kill a predator or two and save our deer, elk and / or moose herds. 

I will repeat....the youth harvest on does is not the problem!!

I Agree ,I like to see youth harvest something.
But look at 124 it's had a few years of youth,disabled,senior.
Just youth this year.
WDFW already reduced the youth season this year. And who knows about next year.
They say 124 has declining deer population.
So the question,regardless of predators is how far down the rabbit hole do you go before you back out.

124 wouldn't be in the situation it's in had they not taken away youth opportunity in every other GMU in the state (At least the NE corner).  WDFW has no clue what they are doing.  No different than only allowing one or two open GMU's in the North Central area for late archery mule deer.  When you shut down all but one or two GMU's...you congregate all hunter to that GMU and see a disproportionate affect of hunters killing deer.  Keep GMU's open and allow the dispersal of hunters.  Success rate will remain the same regardless, this is shown in harvest states over many years.  10% of you hunters kill 90% of the deer annually.  90% of hunters like to camp and hike with their rifles.  Both are OK....and neither should be restricted by WDFW piss poor management. 

Again....maybe I am skewed based on my experience with private land deer.  I have seen no major decline and even a increase in deer numbers based on my management practices of my land.  It's not a lot...but it is also not public land.  We pulled trail cams last week and on our way home (before it got dark) we counted over 100 deer just driving.  A lot of this is private.....so again, that is not a good / great way to base my experiences.   

This is spot on from what I’ve seen hunting 124. Having 124 as the only unit with “any deer” for youth and seniors drew an insane amount of pressure to the public lands and private timber land that are open to the public. Between that increased pressure and increasing predator populations my typical hunting area have been hammered. Almost every Hunter I talked to last year and the year before said they were “looking for does”. It is pretty sad to see the state our whitetail populations are currently in.


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[buckfvr]

I Agree with all that.
I can't remember the years it was,I wanna say 2015-2016 . WDFW gave all muzzleloader,all bow hunters OTC antlerless opportunity,on top of that a couple hundred modern firearm antlerless permits.
I just googled and looked 2015 was antlerless for everybody but modern,2016 the regs came out saying antlerless for archery and muzzleloader,they tryed to send out those correction saying any buck.

Basically what I'm trying to say is WDFW got greedy gave out antlerless opportunity to a huge amount of hunters in one year. Harvest rates started to decline along with a massive amount of complaints to bring back 4pt min and predators. WDFW gave away all youth opportunities in the NE Washington in one year,2015. So there solution to up the population was to take away all antlerless.  Don't quote me but 2014 was 4pt min,2015 was a blood bath,2014-2017 are highest harvest for NE Washington with a declining harvest since 2017 ,and a HUGE decline in 4 and 5 points since the 4pt min. Mature bucks mate many does,young bucks that are more likely to get shot mate less  does. You can have a 100 Doe but if only 10 breed population stays the same.
I'm not a biologist,but this is common since stuff.

If you go in to QDMA, National deer assoc., etc, you will find newest scientific studies show most bucks are not the prolific breeders they once thought.  Several does yes, many many, no.

I have to think all wdfw management changes and strategies are 100% because of wolves.  More deer, elk, less cattle/livestock problems.  Predators are their focus, ungulates are the sacrifice period. No matter what other maybes and perhaps we can come up with, nothing matters but wolves/predators NATURAL food source being abundant enough for them AND if theres some left to hunt so be it until there isnt. 

[nwwanderer]

Much more than the NE corner.  The rains we have had are giving decent feed for winter survival but after the blue tongue clean up the predator pressure is going to be off the charts.  Any critters of yours making a home outside probably need to be in the living room.  PS, goats, sheep, hogs and calves can make quite a racket, the big ones, horses, sows, cows need room on the porch, sleep will