Hunting 2012

ATVs can drive public land managers crazy during hunting season. “We are most concerned with instances where a hunter drives off trail to scout for game or retrieve game,” said Andy Brunelle, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service. “One set of tracks through the brush or in a meadow can invite others to do the same, and the impacts add up, damaging vegetation and causing soil erosion into streams.”

Diversified sportsmen can be conflicted during fall hunting season, since it’s also one of the best times for fishing. Tuna are migrating past the Washington Coast. Salmon are streaming into Columbia and Snake River tributaries. Steelhead are high-tailing over dams to wintering areas. Crowds have left the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe rivers even though the cutthroat fishing is as supreme.

An Asotin County ranch purchased by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife last winter is open to public walk-in access this year with the exception of some big-game hunters. Deer and elk hunters are allowed on the newly-acquired addition to the Chief Joseph Wildlife Area only if they drew a “4-O Ranch” special hunting permit.

Here’s a wake-up call for upland bird hunters, not a day too soon: “It takes six to eight weeks to get your dog into shape for hunting season,” said gun dog expert Jim Closson of Boise.

Wild fires have blackened the prospects for hunting this season in specific areas of Washington and Idaho. Weeks of rainless hot weather in August and September forced state and federal land managers to issue numerous restrictions.

While duck and goose populations are in good shape for Inland Northwest hunters this season, Idaho Panhandle waterfowlers will have to wait an extra week for opening day. Both the youth hunt and the general duck and goose seasons will open later than in the past based on Idaho surveys indicating hunters preferred late-season hunting.