Meetings will cover more hunting issues

Hunters spend small fortunes on camouflage and much of their creative genius on perfecting stealth.

Tonight, however, is the time for Spokane-area hunters to break out of character and be heard.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is holding the last in a statewide series of public meetings on proposals for the 2006-2008 hunting seasons starting at 7 p.m. in the Airport Ramada Inn.

Last week, we covered some of the proposals geared primarily toward Eastern Washington. I emphasize “some” because readers called wondering why I didn’t go into the archery proposals or this or that, or why I didn’t go into more depth about the three-point whitetail proposals for Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties.

The reason is that there are simply too many proposals to cover in detail without writing a book. Perhaps that alone is an issue sportsmen ought to raise with Fish and Wildlife Department officials.

Today, as promised, we’ll touch on some of the many proposals that could affect hunters statewide, with insight gleaned from interviews with state wildlife managers. These proposals would:

Expand turkey hunting opportunity in both the spring and the fall.

“We’re virtually overrun with turkeys,” explained Kevin Robinette, regional wildlife manager in Spokane.

One proposal calls for a youth turkey hunt on the first weekend in April followed by an extended general season from April 15 to May 31. In recent years, the youth hunt is the weekend prior to the April 15 opener for the general season, which runs through May 15.

Proponents say the kids would be more successful with a hunt earlier in the mating season and the gobblers would be more settled with a longer period between the youth hunt and the general season opener.

“Some suggest opening the general spring season earlier in April, but we’d need more study on the biology before we’d do that,” said Mick Cope, state game bird manager in Olympia.

Fall season proposals include adding turkey permits for late November, increasing the fall bag limit to two turkeys and allowing archers and muzzleloader deer hunters to take turkeys during their late seasons, Nov. 20-Dec. 15 to help increase the incidental harvest.

Ban electronic calls and decoys for all hunting, except for predators.

Currently Washington prohibits the use of electronic calls and decoys for waterfowl hunting, but allows them to be used in turkey hunting.

Organized turkey hunters favor a ban on electronic calls to keep the sport in the realm of the more serious sportsmen, which helps reduce road-hunting and shooting judgment incidents.

For perspective, electronic calls are prohibited for turkey hunting in at least 30 states, including Idaho. The only Western states that allow electronic calls for spring turkey hunting are Arizona and Washington.

Ban baiting for deer hunting.

Some hunters have violated the sensibilities of others by using animal feed to lure deer from suburban areas or parks and into areas where they can be hunted.

While baiting deer and elk might seem objectionable, wildlife managers aren’t stumping for the proposal.

“Actually, that can be a good thing in some limited cases where we need to manage overpopulations of deer,” said Dave Ware, department big-game manager in Olympia, hinting he’d prefer to avoid such a ban. “In most cases, it doesn’t work on free-ranging deer, so there’s no biological reason to ban it.”

Allow muzzleloaders to use closed ignitions.

Currently, Washington requires muzzleloader ignitions to be “exposed to the elements” to keep with the spirit of primitive weapons seasons that occur during the rut or late in the year when big-game animals tend to be easier to hunt.

Muzzleloaders would be more successful if they could eliminate the effect weather might have in whether their guns will shoot when the triggers are pulled. However, if they become too successful, their coveted seasons are likely to be shortened or rescheduled.

Improve odds for drawing permits to hunt mountain goat, bighorn sheep and moose by increasing the cost of permit applications from $5 to $10 or $25.

The current point system apparently is not having the desired effect, so some hunters favor letting market forces weed out some of the competition. The department supports this idea because it would raise money for special species management.

Give youth hunters the first shot at deer with a hunt the weekend before the general opener.

Good arguments can be made against this, but most of them are selfish.