Rough Winter Not Only Reason For Decline In Okanogan

Okanogan County has lost its claim as the premier trophy mule deer hunting area in central Washington.

The devastating winter three years ago is only one factor.

Other reasons include:

The possibility that hunters are taking too many bucks in the Okanogan.

The trend for other areas to step into the forefront of mule deer production because of private land management that’s allowing muleys to multiply.

The 10,000-acre Private Lands Management Area created around the David Stevens farm in Grant County has combined with other Conservation Reserve Program success stories to bring a deer bonanza to the sage country in Adams, Grant, and Douglas counties.

The Stevens farm has converted hundreds of farm acres into food plots left specifically for mule deer. Even in bad winters, deer have flourished there and spread out to boost populations for a hundred miles beyond the farm, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department studies show.

Restricted access in these areas is allowing a few bucks to grow into their potential.

But at least one biologist is concerned about mule deer buck ratios in the Okanogan.

While the general nine-day season adopted for most mule deer areas in 1997 was a reduction from previous seasons, it was an increase in many of the scabland areas, including the Okanogan area.

“For quite a few years, we had a seven-day season that seemed to be working very well to prevent hunters from taking too many of the older deer,” said Mark Quinn, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department regional wildlife manager in Ephrata.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission enacted a general nine-day season to simplify the regulations.

“Seven days is sufficient hunting pressure in this open country,” Quinn said. “It’s that limitation that produced the few big deer that hunters killed last year.”

“My gut feeling is that going to nine days is not good for this area. The goal is to simplify regulations by makings seasons the same, but this is different topography and different deer herds.”

The season in the Okanogan ends before most of the migratory herd is anywhere close to winter range. Quinn expects there to be more three pointers in the herd this fall, but the number of larger bucks is likely to be reduced from last year.

The best opportunities for finding big mule deer are the permits for late-season hunts in Okanogan and Chelan counties, and the desert hunts near Moses Lake.

The number of permits for the Desert Unit has been increased to 15 this year. That still leaves long odds for the thousand or more applicants to draw a tag for this coveted trophy mule deer hunt. The herd has prospering there, where the desert is graced with irrigated cropland. The state offered antlerless tags there for the first time last year. Fifty permits were allotted this season.

Muleys in the Beezley Unit, decimated by winter storms three years ago, are doing well enough for the state to offer 300 antlerless permits this fall. No antlerless hunting has been allowed there in the past few years, but buck hunters last year did twice as well as hunters in neighboring Lincoln County.