In Some Areas, Deer Permits Will Be Dear

No one should be surprised at this week’s call for stunning cutbacks in fall deer hunting permits.

Despite the wildflowers beginning to bloom along the river valleys, the winter’s unrelenting snowpack continues to hobble deer in northeastern Washington and along the east slope of the Cascades.

The news isn’t all bleak. Some deer herds have fared much better, and proposed tag quotas for hunting units from roughly Mount Spokane south to the Blue Mountains are not much different than last year.

As you look at hunts farther north, the quotas will be less than in 1996.

Tag quotas along the east slope of the Cascades are zilch.

This week, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department recommended that no special permits be given for 20 traditional modern firearm buck hunts in central Washington, six modern firearms antlerless deer hunts, 21 muzzleloader deer hunts and 13 archery deer hunts.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission will vote on the proposals, some of which are still being assembled, April 18-19 in Longview.

Smart hunters will wait until April 24 to determine which units have decent odds for drawing a tag. That’s when the final quotas will be available as a supplement to the already-published 1997 hunting regulations.

Silver lining: Silver Mountain has rolled out the welcome mat for Mount Spokane season-pass holders who feel they’ve been jilted by the public-be-damned attitude of concessionaire Gregg Sowder.

Sowder closed Mount Spokane ski area last weekend with more than 180 inches of snow and spring break just around the corner.

Silver Mountain officials announced Wednesday that they will honor Mount Spokane season passes.

The skiing, by the way, has been terrific.

Pacific fishing revived: Water is standing in portions of Lincoln County that have been dry for nearly 10 years.

That’s good news for waterfowl and for anglers in this, the third year after the break of a 10-year drought.

Most notable is Pacific Lake, which went dry in 1989.

Last year, enough water flowed to fill a number of lakes linked by Lake Creek, which begins as a trickle northwest of Davenport before feeding lakes of enormous importance to the region’s ducks, geese, fish and other wildlife.

This winter, heavy flows finally reached Pacific Lake, which hadn’t been fed by Lake Creek since about 1985.

In the early ‘80s, Pacific Lake was a sensational trout fishery. When the traditional access was closed by a landowner, the state stopped planting trout. The remaining fish provided a king’s experience for the select few anglers who could get on the lake.

During the drought, however, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management purchased a chapped 4,000 acres of scabland and sagebrush called Lakeview Ranch. This acquisition provides public access to the west end of the lake.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department plans to stock 10,000 catchable-size rainbows and 50,000 fry later this spring - the first fish to be planted in the lake since 1983.

“They’ll grow like mad out there,” said Ray Duff, the department’s regional fisheries manager. “That’s always the case in a newly flooded lake. There’s lots of nutrients.”

But the best fishing, he said, is a year away when the 50,000 fry become keepers.

Plan for salmon: Bern Shanks, Washington Fish and Wildlife director, is scheduled to be at the north end of the Howard Street bridge, east of the Flour Mill, today at 4:45 p.m., to announce a tough new state policy for restoring the state’s troubled wild salmon runs.

Perfect shooting:A squad of trapshooters Sunday fired what appears to be a first for Idaho.

Each of the five shooters in a squad at the Camas Prairie Trapshoot hit perfect 100s, the Lewiston Tribune reports.

The shooters were Nolan Hildreth of Lewiston, Ron Christensen of Utah, Scott Levengood of Kalispell, Mont., Stu Welton of Meridian, Idaho, and Danny Kirkland of Valleyford, Wash.

Not one of the 500 targets was missed.

Do you suppose there was any pressure on the man who fired the last shot?

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review