HUNTING
NORTHWEST DEER PROSPECTS
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isease impacts and wildfire access restrictions may play big roles in some fall rifle deer seasons. At press time, key areas of Okanogan and Chelan Counties, Oregon’s Cascades and the Blues were still shut down due to summer 2020 and ’21 fires. And bluetongue and epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD, were killing whitetails near Spokane, Colfax, Lewiston, even parts of Central Oregon. In Washington’s whitetail heartland, Colville, there were concerns this year’s outbreak could be as bad as 2015’s. Before that EHD outbreak, hunting prospects were looking decent for Pend Oreille, Stevens and Ferry Counties, where harvest has been stable to rising slightly in most units, with popular Huckleberry and 49 Degrees North Units seeing more of an uptick than others. Only whitetail bucks can be harvested, but a bid to reimplement antler restrictions was denied. Note that after a fall without any game stations, additional stops will be set up in Colville, Ione and Usk to increase monitoring for chronic wasting disease. It’s not known to occur here, but has been detected in Northwest Montana. Please stop and have your deer sampled. Where whitetails west and south of Spokane will also likely be impacted by bluetongue, the somewhat overlooked and large mule deer herd in these mostly private parts is reported at near long-term averages. Fires on the Blues’ northeast side may impact hunting in the national forest, but overall prospects are good, thanks to recent easy winters. “The district saw improvements in both total whitetail and mule deer harvests in 2020, beyond our expectations, and we expect this trend to continue into the 2021 season, especially for whitetail deer bucks that have a shorter lag time to become legal three-points than mule deer,” report biologists Paul Wik and Mark Vekasy. “Depending on the effects of the drought this season, we are still expecting mule deer harvest to improve through the 2022 hunting season.” In the Columbia Basin’s big Beezley and Ritzville units, good posthunt buck and fawn:doe ratios last year have biologists
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expecting an average year for muleys. The Okanogan is home to “improving postseason fawn:doe ratios and higherthan-average estimated fawn recruitment over the last two years,” and that could boost the number of 2½-year-old bucks available, per biologist Scott Fitkin. Heat and drought may keep them well up in the heights until forced down by snow. Of note, while several fires burned in Fitkin’s district – Cedar, Cub, Walker, Muckamuck – he notes collar data from recent studies show just “modest short-term displacement from fire or little displacement at all; fidelity of individual deer to their summer range is high.” Mild winters and rebounding herds has Chelan and Douglas Counties “2021 mule deer season ... shaping up to be as good or better than that of 2020,” which was also the best back through 2016. Along with pointing out migratory corridors north and south of the Wenatchee River, bios suggest hunting the edges of 2020’s Pearl Hill Fire. In the Klickitat, rising deer harvests and fawn survival back to average are good signs. In Southwest Washington, deer hunting “should again be good,” with Coweeman, Lincoln and Winston Units all yielding a regional-best buck a square mile for rifle hunters in recent falls. Harvest has been rising in the Mason Unit and generally steadyish elsewhere, but San Juans deer are suffering from a big disease outbreak, though it may better align islands’ herds with habitat. In Northwest Oregon, biologists say blacktail densities are “favorable” in Saddle Mountain, while they’re increasing in Wilson and stable to increasing in Stott Mountain, western Alsea and north Siuslaw. Best ops, they say, will typically be in the middle to east sides of the units. In the Willamette Valley, the general trend has deer numbers maintaining at or higher than buck:doe ratio goals, while biologists say recent research in Southwest Oregon units shows “the local deer population is stable or slightly higher than previously projected.” They say Tioga, Sixes and Powers deer numbers are “fairly high” compared to the start of the millennium. In the Roseburg area, fawn ratios have
been stable or increasing and biologists are forecasting “fair to good” deer hunting in the Cascades and Umpqua watershed this year and, essentially, coming years, thanks to wildfires refreshing forage. Note that there is no longer a break in Cascade blacktail season for elk hunting; it runs continuously October 2 through November 5. Buck ratios are “well above benchmark” in the Applegate, Chetco, Evans Creek, Rogue and nearby units. These are generally migratory animals that push out of the heights starting in mid-October, and last year some saw a big jump in hunter success, though that might have been related to the rule change allowing spikes to be harvested. West Biggs and Maupin mule deer ratios are above goal at 22 and 23 bucks per 100 does. Using trail cams, biologists last year estimated the Hood Unit outside its main valley had 1,295 deer and they expect a similar number there this year. Buck ratios are at or above benchmarks in Central Oregon’s Maury, Ochoco and Grizzly, but fawn survival dipped due to late snows, meaning fewer young bucks this fall. Things are even less rosy around Bend, where buck ratios are decent but fawn recruitment issues, poaching and other factors are keeping the herd below goal. Indeed, generally speaking, mule deer are below goals for much of the rest of Eastern Oregon, but a bright spot is the whitetail bounce-back in Umatilla County from 2019’s huge bluetongue outbreak, while flagtail buck hunting is expected to be “fair” in northern Wallowa County units. In Idaho, biologists say hunters will see “the usual healthy herds of whitetails” in the northern Panhandle, thanks to good fawn recruitment and winter survival. But EHD turned up there late, and given the situation near Lewiston, where several hundred deer died, Clearwater Region prospects were on hold. They were also encouraging hunters with either-sex tags to exercise that option for productive Unit 39 east of Boise, where deer numbers are increasing and overwinter survival is typically high, but fawn production and body size is decreasing, pointing to looming carrying capacity issues. –NWS
