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Hunting GUIDE

2017-18

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Ours! County big game prospects Elk

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Elk populations typically do not fluctuate dramatically from year to year, but periodic severe winters can trigger substantial die-offs. The 2016-17 winter was severe, however no die-offs were detected and populations available for harvest are expected to be similar in size compared to the 2015 and 2016 seasons. The total hunter harvest of elk in District 1, of which Pend Oreille County is part, is low compared to other Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife districts, hovering around 200-300 animals per year since 2009.

When hunting elk in District 1, hunters should research areas and spend plenty of time scouting before the season opener, because it is often difficult to predict elk location, especially after hunting pressure increases. Elk within District 1 are scattered in small groups throughout the District, but some drainages hold more elk than others. Many, if not most, hunters spend great amounts of their time focusing on forest clear-cuts, which makes a lot of sense because elk often forage in clear-cuts and are highly visible when they do. However, there are many elk (especially bulls) that do not frequent clear-cuts during daylight hours. Instead, they spend most of their time during the day in closed canopy forests, swamps, or young forest “reprod.”

Moreover, those highly visible elk often attract many hunters to open clearcuts, and these areas can get crowded in a hurry. From a landscape perspective, some generalities can be made that will help increase the odds of locating elk.

When going to a new area, hunters will benefit by covering as much ground See ID Prospects page 10

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Idaho Panhandle hunting prospects Big game outlook: Similar numbers of elk and whitetails, fewer mule deer Idaho big game hunters have been on a roll in recent years with a top-10, alltime deer harvest in 2016, an all-time record whitetail harvest in 2015, and a top-five, all-time elk harvest in 2015.

Overall hunting success rates over the last five years have averaged 40 percent for deer and 23 percent for elk. Word has gotten out that big game hunting in Idaho has improved because the nonresident deer tags sold out last year for the first time since 2008, and only 300 nonresident elk tags (out of 10,415 available) remained unsold.

The 2017 tags are selling faster, and at current pace, Fish and Game could sell all the nonresident deer and nonresident elk tags by the end of October to nonresidents, or to residents and nonresidents as second tags.

So what does all that mean for big game hunters taking to the field this fall?

They will see similar numbers of elk and white-tailed deer, but fewer mule deer.

Mule deer Last winter took its toll on mule deer, particularly young bucks, because most of the fawns born last year died during winter, and they would have been twopoints this fall.

The big question in many hunters’ minds is how much that will affect their fall deer hunts. Deer hunters killed 66,925 deer in 2016 (mule deer and whitetails), down slightly from the previous year, but still a respectable 36 percent success See ID Prospects page 5

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ID Prospects from pages 3

rate statewide, including 34 percent in general hunts. Last winter actually tied with 2008-09 winter for second-lowest fawn survival at 30 percent, and in 2009, the deer harvest was 1,380 fewer than the previous year, a drop of 3 percent.

Yearling bucks (two-points) typically account for a significant share of the mule deer buck harvest, but over the last 19 years, annual average survival for fawns was 57 percent. While the 2016-17 winter fawn survival was about half the average, there’s still a large mule deer population remaining, including adult bucks and breeding-age does.

With a normal, upcoming winter, the herds could quickly rebound. To aid that, Fish and Game has reduced doe permits for most hunting units in southern and central Idaho to help more of them survive into breeding season.

Another thing to consider is prior to this year, mule deer populations were trending upward for several years, so while biologists expect a drop in the harvest, there’s a good chance it will fall within the range of the last five years.

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Elk Hunters shouldn’t see a big change in elk populations this year. Elk are hardier than deer and able to withstand the rigors of hard winters, and elk herds have increased in recent years and produced some outstanding hunting seasons.

See ID Prospects page 8

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Pheasants, gray partridge, quail prospects Panhandle Region Pheasants, gray partridge and quail are restricted to the southern portion of the region. Populations of those species appear stable to slightly decreasing relative to previous years.

Pheasant Trend from last year (2016) STABLE 10-Year Trend (2007-2016) DOWN Sparse populations in the southern portion of the region. The hot

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Gray Partridge (Hun) Trend from last year (2016) STABLE 10-Year Trend (2007-2016) STABLE Sparse populations in the southern portion of the region. The hot dry summer has birds concentrated around reliable water sources.

California Quail Trend from last year (2016) STABLE 10-Year Trend (2007-2016) STABLE Sparse populations in the south-

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Forest Grouse (Dusky, Ruffed, Spruce) Trend from last year (2016) DOWN 10-Year Trend (2007-2016) STABLE Production was below average this year. The wet spring likely affected brood survival. Late spring forage conditions were good and helped the survival of the broods that made it through the wet spring. The hot dry summer has birds concentrated around reliable water sources. Forest grouse numbers are expected to be lower than previous years.

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ID Prospects from pages 5

Hunters killed 22,557 elk in 2016, which was down 1,670 animals from 2015, but still the second highest in 20 years. (For more perspective, 2015 was the fourth-highest, all-time harvest dating back to 1935.)

Elk hunters in 2016 had 21 percent success statewide, including 39 percent for controlled hunts and 17 percent for general hunts, but general hunts accounted for 62 percent of the harvest.

“This is the good-old days of elk hunting,” said Craig White, F&G’s Magic Valley regional supervisor. “There was only one period when Idaho hunters were harvesting as many elk as they are now.”

However, elk herds didn’t survive winter completely unscathed. There was higher calf mortality due to the harsh winter, which means some zones will have a “blip in the recruitment of young bulls,” White said, adding that it will likely be short-term.

Adult winter survival, particularly breeding-age cows, was “bulletproof,” he said, so any decline in herds will likely be replaced next year, barring another extreme winter.

While Idaho is reliving some of its glory years for elk hunting, the location of the animals has changed. During record harvests in the 1990s, Central Idaho’s backcountry and wilderness areas

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were major contributors. They are less so these days, but other areas have picked up the slack.

“We grow more elk in what I like to call the front country,” White said.

Harvest results support this. The Panhandle is currently the top elk zone in the state, and the top 10 zones include the Weiser River, McCall, Tex Creek, Palouse, Boise River and Pioneer, all of which have major highways running through them.

Those zones provide accessible opportunities for many hunters, but also have unique challenges because there’s often a mix of public and private lands where the elk roam.

Elk herds are doing so well in some zones, such as the Weiser and Pioneer zones, those herds are over objectives and Fish and Game has increased cow hunting opportunities to thin the herds.

But elk hunters in some areas will have to navigate a mix of public and private lands, such as large sections of commercial timberlands in Central Idaho that used to be open to the public, but are now closed.

For new elk hunters, or experienced hunters looking for a new place to hunt, White recommends taking a longer view than this season. Elk populations are likely to remain healthy in the foreseeable future, so now’s a good time to learn a zone where there are abundant herds.

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“Be patient,” White advises. “Make it a multiyear commitment, and get to know the area.”

Idaho offers a variety of over-the-counter tags for elk hunters. Out of 28 elk hunting zones, only two are limited to only controlled hunts. Hunters should research each zone and look beyond the general, any-weapon seasons to find additional opportunity. Many archery and muzzleloader hunts provide antlerless, or either-sex hunting, and also early and late hunts.

White-tailed deer Idaho’s whitetail deer are about as reliable as you can ask for in a big-game animal. Over the last five years, Idaho’s mule deer harvest has swung by nearly 20,000 animals, but during that same period, whitetail harvest varied by only about 10,000 animals, which included an all-time record of 30,578 whitetails harvested in 2015.

Whitetail harvest dropped about 2,700 animals in 2016, but it was still in the top-10, all-time, and hunters can expect to similar numbers, or more, of whitetails this year.

“We feel we’re in pretty good shape, and it’s going to be a normal year,” said Clay Hickey, wildlife See ID Prospects page 8

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ID Prospects from pages 7

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Winter in prime whitetail country in the Panhandle and north/central Idaho was closer to average than southern Idaho, although Hickey pointed out there was more snow than usual at lower elevations. Fish and Game doesn’t monitor whitetails the same as it does mule deer, but Hickey said there’s no indication of an above-average winter kill.

It’s also been two years since Fish and Game has detected outbreaks of the lethal hemorrhagic disease that hit some local herds hard in recent years.

Hickey noted many of those herds have “rebounded as you would expect,” and Fish and Game is starting to get complaints from landowners about too many deer in areas where herds were thinned by the disease.

Whitetail hunters have lengthy seasons and lots of either-sex hunting opportunities, and hunters will see a good mix of age classes, and plenty of mature bucks. Hickey said Fish and Game’s white-tailed deer plan calls for 15 percent of the harvest to be bucks with five points or more (on one side), but it’s currently higher.

“We’re averaging over 20 percent of the bucks in the harvest are fivepoints or more in almost all our whitetail units, and lots of units are over 25 percent,” he said.

While the areas north of the Salmon River have the highest densities of white-tailed deer, the animals are widely distributed throughout the state and provide hunting opportunities in most places, but typically at lower densities.

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WA Prospects from pages 2

as possible and making note of areas where they see sign along roads and log “landings.” Log landings from past timber harvest operations are an especially good place to look for sign because they are often not graveled, which makes it easier to see fresh tracks. This scouting approach will give hunters a good idea of what areas hold elk and where to focus their more intensive scouting efforts.

After those areas with abundant elk sign have been identified, hunters should focus in on higher elevation stands that provide cover and are adjacent to open hillsides and/or clear-cuts. During early seasons when it is warm, these areas often include creek bottoms, river bottoms, or any place that is near water. Once the season progresses and temperatures cool, typically by late October, elk are not as attracted to water and the challenge of finding them becomes more difficult. Hunting pressure also has an effect and will force elk to use areas that provide thicker cover or are more inaccessible to hunters because of topographical features. Later in the season, it is a good idea to consult a topographic map and find “benches” located in steep terrain and thick cover, because elk often use these areas to bed down during the day. Any snow cover generally enhances the ability to find elk tracks. Hunting right after a fresh snow usually presents a particularly good advantage in tracking down an individual or group of elk.

Lastly, provided that non-motorized access is allowed, hunters should not let a locked gate in an otherwise open area keep them from going in on foot, horseback, or bicycle to search for elk. More often than not, these areas hold elk that have not received as much hunting pressure, which can make them less skittish and easier to hunt. A popular approach to hunting these areas is to use mountain bikes or fat-tire bikes, which is not extremely difficult given the network of maintained gravel roads that frequently occur on timber company lands.

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Harvest has gradually increased in District 1 over the past two years, a trend expected to level off. Fall surveys for the past three years yielded stable buck to doe rations, but a declining fawn to doe ratio. District 1 runs voluntary check stations on select weekends during the modern firearm season. The number of deer checked went down in 2016 from the year before, but harvest success remains reasonable, mainly as a result of the cessation of the 4-point antler restriction on white-tailed deer. A good predictor of future harvest during general seasons is recent trends in harvest and catch per unit effort (CPUE) or its inverse, days per kill.

As is the case with most game species, the key to harvesting a white-tailed deer in District 1 is scouting. White-tailed deer occur throughout the district and occur in nearly every present habitat type. White-tailed deer densities are highest on private lands in the valleys and foothill benches bordering the valleys, especially in the farm-forest mosaic within GMUs 105, 108, 117, and 121.

GMUs 101, 111, and 113 also have white-tailed deer, but with more localized distributions, again with the highest densities typically on private lands. The majority of hunting is done in or adjacent to agricultural fields or recent forest timber harvest areas, because when deer are present, they are much more visible than in adjacent habitats. However, deer typically use these more open areas at night, dawn, and dusk, especially once they have been disturbed by human presence.

Therefore, it is advantageous for hunters to seek out areas a short to moderate distance away from these openings, which provide more cover where deer are spending more time.

If a hunter is seeing large amounts of deer sign in an area, then odds are those deer are not far away.

See ID Prospects page 11

Hunting Guide

WA Prospects from pages 10

The traditional approaches to hunting white-tailed deer generally include several methods. The first is still-hunting, where the hunter is moving, but very slowly through a patch of habitat, stopping frequently to scan or glass the vegetative cover ahead with binoculars. The hunter looks for parts of a deer, like legs, an antler, or a portion of the body or head, as opposed to the whole deer, which is usually not visible through the vegetation.

Stand hunting is another technique. This method involves the hunter patiently waiting in a tree stand, on a stump, against a tree trunk, on a ridge rock, etc. in high deer use areas (highly traveled trails, habitat edges, bottlenecks, funnels, etc.) until deer show up.

A third deer hunting approach is conducting drives. This technique involves at least two hunters, but larger groups maximize its effectiveness. The hunters divide into “drivers” and “blockers.” The blockers position themselves in an organized spacing, often downwind of a patch of deer bedding habitat (thick woods, forested swamp, or heavy brush field). The drivers then slowly hike through the habitat patch, alerting the deer and hopefully pushing them to the blockers. Sometimes it’s a good idea to post one blocker at the front of the habitat patch behind the drivers in the event that any deer double back to evade them.

Although each of these approaches is highly effective, there is another technique that is not as well-known or used as much. This includes rattling and grunting to simulate two bucks fighting over a doe. This technique is more common with midwestern and eastern white-tailed deer hunters, but can be effective here as well, especially in the days leading up to the rut (deer breeding season) in mid-November.

A quick internet search on this topic will yield plenty of evidence to illustrate its effectiveness when conditions are right.

Grouse The total number of forest grouse harvested in District 1 gradually declined from 2009-2014. The spring of 2017 received much more precipitation than 2016, but by June most the rain had stopped. So far, 2017 is looking to be a good year for forest grouse recruitment. The average bag limit amongst hunters could fall between 0.4 and 0.6 forest grouse per hunting day.

In general, the most effective way to hunt forest grouse in District 1 is by walking little used forest roads and shooting them as they flush or after they roost in a nearby tree. Forest grouse tend to occur in higher densities along roads that do not receive much motor vehicle traffic. Consequently, hunters should target roads behind locked gates and roads that have been decommissioned by the respective landowner. Some forest grouse hunters use trained bird dogs, a team system that can be extremely effective. To learn more about how to hunt each of Washington’s grouse species, see WDFW’s upland bird hunting webpage.

Turkey During fall and winter, wild turkey priorities are food and roosting areas.

In the fall, food remains critical for growth of poults (juvenile turkeys) and for adults adding fat reserves. Forest edges that offer seeds, nuts, and fruits, as well as some green vegetation, are used the most. At this time of year, turkeys are at their highest population and widest distribution within northeastern Washington, including District 1. As autumn wears on and snowfall comes, the turkeys gradually constrict their range to lower elevations. Where agriculture predominates, a mosaic of short grass fields or cropland and forest is generally the best place to find turkeys.

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