Idaho deer tend to be segregated, with the better mule deer hunting in the south two-thirds of the state while whitetails dominate the deer harvest in their core ranges in the Clearwater Region and North Idaho. Virtually the entire state had a mild winter and wet spring, which should bode well for next year, but the overall season is likely to be only modestly better than last year.

The costs could be high for new options in Washington and Montana that allow hunters to submit multiple applications for big-game hunting permits. Savings accounts could take a beating. Ditto for a hunter’s work, marriage and ego.

Big-game hunters who enter Washington’s lottery drawings for 2010 special-hunt permits will have new twists to figure into their application strategies. The Fish and Wildlife Commission last week approved a new drawing structure that allows hunters to apply for separate drawings in up to seven categories for a single species.

Perhaps the day has arrived for the hunting record books to catch up with Major League Baseball. The way trophies are listed needs to be revised. To be fair, the day of the asterisk has arrived. Let’s face it, the likes of Boone, Crockett, Pope, Young and Teddy Roosevelt appear to be gone. Trophy hunting today isn’t what it used to be. Proper recognition for hunters taking trophies isn’t what it used to be either.

Tri-Cities hunters tap years of experience in serving all sorts of game meat in style that's fit for a king.

Hunters have a responsibility to positively identify their target before they pull the trigger. That doesn’t just mean knowing the target is an animal and not a human, or that it’s a game animal and not livestock.

Washington sportsmen who venture out-of-state to hunt big game cannot legally return with certain parts of ungulate species taken in states or provinces where chronic wasting disease has been detected. CWD, a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, is a degenerative brain disease that afflicts North American deer, elk and moose. While fatal to the infected animals, wildlife and health authorities have found no indication that CWD can be transmitted to humans.