Opinions on Washington

[teej89]

Hey guys,

Don’t know much at all about hunting or fishing Washington however with a recent job relocation that’s about to take place Washington is a likely location. There’s options for Seattle, Spokane, pasco, Yakima, and maybe a couple others but Seattle is more than likely out of those. I really like the idea of washing ton but the unknown of its hunting quality scares me, that’s where I come to you guys.

I guess I’m lacking in information about hunting in WA and I never thought of it as a “hunting state”. Excuse my ignorance if I’m wrong.

Anywho, i love upland bird hunting with my dog, anything rifle or archery, and enjoy chasing turkeys. I’d love to get into waterfowl but PA doesn’t have many decent public lands for it and the birds flock to the private fields and ponds.

As far as fishing, fly fishing for trout is my bread and butter, granted the natives in PA are 6-9” tops and the streams are no bigger than a bathtub at times ha!

Essentially, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep all of the talk about the city itself out of it, that’s another conversation. I would just really like to know the quality of hunting in WA. I define quality as access to lands, good lands. Here in PA the public land seems to be the leftover crappy rocky mountainous land that’s thick as ever. Oh and also my nerves about Washington, I just picture it all being one giant pine tree forest where hunting is basically still hunting or stand hunting. I have a more aggressive hunting tactic of moving and glassing to make something happen rather than just sitting back waiting, that drives me bananas. Again, I bet I’m way off with my assumption that it’s all thick timber.

Another key for quality is the ability to hit a trail head and get far away, not just hit the trail head and get far and end up at another trail head or another road.

I’m not concerned about the quality of animals, I’m just curious on the health of the herds. Are animals sparse there? Or if you put in some decent effort and boot leather you there’s some areas worth the sweat.

If we lived on the east side of Seattle say 45min to and hour from downtown. How far would I be traveling to hunt?

And finally my last question... are tags there draw? Could I hunt elk or deer every year? Is there a turkey population there? How is the upland bird hunting?

Sorry guys, TONS of questions, you don’t have to answer them all. If you have an answer to just one question then I’d love to hear it!! I’m going to read up more on the regs tomorrow but this just came up tonight and I’m about to wake up in 4hrs to go chase turkeys and wanted to post it prior to bed haha!

Thanks so much for your input guys! You’ve always been really helpful!

T.J.

 

[ShootsManyBullets]

Go to Spokane out of all those choices. Closer to Idaho and Montana
Bird hunting can be good in eastern Washington, deer and elk hunting is generally crap compared to neighboring states. Lots of tags and lots of hunters = shitty hunting. There are guys who do well there but the unlimited OTC tags are a joke.
You can find fish all over the state with a lot of diversity.

 

[LopeHunter]

Washington is not much for trophy hunts. Fishing is the focus of the F&G. Several of my co-workers hunt Montana yearly rather than spend much time on resident tags in Washington. There are Roosevelt elk so that is worth considering while you live in Washington. Decent spring turkey hunting and three species (Easterns, Merriam's and Rios). As a resident, is not too pricey to toss your chances in the draw for moose, sheep and goat though points are squared and a lot of total points in the bucket though you have a chance. Washington also does a raffle with a lot of choices and combos that you have to buy in person rather than online though can buy in person for other people, too

Idaho has some hunt opportunities. Oregon is a screw job for non-residents with only a handful of tags for non-residents and have to buy the annual license at over $100 so not something I would suggest. Montana sort of wins by default if want to hunt elk yearly. Wyoming, Nevada and Utah are hard to draw though Wyoming has better odds for a non-resident wanting to hunt elk or deer in a limited draw unit.

All in all, you can get out and hunt if living in Seattle though might consider applying in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as more expensive options but offering higher quality hunts.

 

[Deleted member 16014]

My brother spent his 20's in WA after growing up in MT and found the transition challenging from a hunting perspective. If I moved to western WA today I would really try to dial in some ocean fishing, hit the high country muley hunt, enjoy rambling around the N. Cascades just for the sights, and save up to go hunting big game in other states. Maybe an annual trip or two to the east side for birds if that's your thing. You should pm JLS.

 

[teej89]

Awesome thanks for the input guys, I was hoping someone would have some better input but I'm not too disheartened since I already foresaw it as not being the best hunting. Spokane would be great being so close to ID, I would assume it's probably even possible to live in ID and work in Spokane.

Seems like if it turned up to be Seattle I could entertain myself with the local deer population, I'll definitely read into these high country hunts more. Also on a brighter note, I'm 32hrs currently to where I hunt elk in MT and in seattle I'd only be 11hrs. Saving 38hrs of driving round trip is nice!

I'd definitely poke around in ID and do some hunting too.

Can anyone comment on the type of country I'd be in? Is it all mostly dark timbered forests?

 

[Tiredofthebickering]

There are definitely a couple different sides to hunting in Washington, primarily the east side of the mountains and the west side. Hunting on the west side you'll be chasing blacktails and elk through some of the thickest country you'll ever hunt. Over on the east side you can get into more open, rolling hills with some glassing opportunity while chasing mule deer, whitetail, and elk. Of course, there are certainly exceptions and you'll find some areas you can glass on the west side and thick timber on the east side, but the prior statements reflect the predominant hunting area.

The high country mule deer hunts are tough but a lot of fun. Another poster commented on the unlimited OTC deer tags. While that's true, you only allowed to harvest one deer per hunter per season and I don't remember seeing a lot of guys out in field after opening weekend. I grew up about an hour south of Seattle but moved away about 13 years ago when I was 19 and I'm sure other people have more recent information.

All that being said, the hunting was always enjoyable and there is a lot of opportunity throughout the state. Driving over the east side is about a 4.5 hour trip if my memory serves correct which makes it easy to drive over and spend a long weekend hunting. Oh, and if you enjoy fly fishing for trout, you're going to have a blast over there.

 

[Irrelevant]

teej89,
It's interesting to read people take on WA who don't actually live in the trenches. I'll try to answer your questions, and question-like comments below.

Hey guys,

Don’t know much at all about hunting or fishing Washington however with a recent job relocation that’s about to take place Washington is a likely location. There’s options for Seattle, Spokane, pasco, Yakima, and maybe a couple others but Seattle is more than likely out of those. I really like the idea of washing ton but the unknown of its hunting quality scares me, that’s where I come to you guys.

There is public land hunting within a short distance of all of those, but you get the benefit of being near the ocean/sound with Seattle, that's a rather huge plus in my book. Think of all of that water as public land. Even when the salmon aren't running there's always something to fish for.

I guess I’m lacking in information about hunting in WA and I never thought of it as a “hunting state”. Excuse my ignorance if I’m wrong.

Anywho, i love upland bird hunting with my dog, anything rifle or archery, and enjoy chasing turkeys. I’d love to get into waterfowl but PA doesn’t have many decent public lands for it and the birds flock to the private fields and ponds.

We have decent upland with regard to california quail and chukar, forest grouse are hit and miss. The rest is relatively low or release site birds (pheasant).

As far as fishing, fly fishing for trout is my bread and butter, granted the natives in PA are 6-9” tops and the streams are no bigger than a bathtub at times ha!

Not a ton of trout options. We have great and highly underrated warm water fisheries, plus to occasional salmon and steelhead runs (dwindles every year). Almost all the alpine lakes have trout and like I said earlier the ocean is always an option for something.

Essentially, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep all of the talk about the city itself out of it, that’s another conversation. I would just really like to know the quality of hunting in WA. I define quality as access to lands, good lands. Here in PA the public land seems to be the leftover crappy rocky mountainous land that’s thick as ever. Oh and also my nerves about Washington, I just picture it all being one giant pine tree forest where hunting is basically still hunting or stand hunting. I have a more aggressive hunting tactic of moving and glassing to make something happen rather than just sitting back waiting, that drives me bananas. Again, I bet I’m way off with my assumption that it’s all thick timber.

We have tons of public land. We're one of the few states that has more now than at statehood. There are also quite a few private timber lands in western wa, some allow access, some don't. Often they block access to public lands. The east side is easier for access. It is not all crappy/rocky lands, we have some absolutely beautiful public lands and rivers. Google Methow Valley for an example, there's lots of others.

Another key for quality is the ability to hit a trail head and get far away, not just hit the trail head and get far and end up at another trail head or another road.

You can get days deep, but the difficult part is getting off trail, there a trail up almost every drainage, though in the last few decades the maintenance has dropped off and some are started to melt back into the wilds.

I’m not concerned about the quality of animals, I’m just curious on the health of the herds. Are animals sparse there? Or if you put in some decent effort and boot leather you there’s some areas worth the sweat.

We have stable deer populations almost statewide, like a lot of western states out Mule deer herds are down, whitetail are growing, and blacktail are constantly having to adapt to a suburban lifestyle. It is easy to find deer, it can be difficult to find legal bucks; deeper doesn't not equal better. Elk can be pretty tough to find, or if they're easy to find the regs are probably really strict (true-spike only).

If we lived on the east side of Seattle say 45min to and hour from downtown. How far would I be traveling to hunt?

A little as 10 minutes depending on where you pick. Good hunting will likely be 1-2 hrs or more if you factor in gravel road travel. I've shot a grouse less than 25 minutes from down town.

And finally my last question... are tags there draw? Could I hunt elk or deer every year? Is there a turkey population there? How is the upland bird hunting?

You can buy elk and deer OTC. Deer you have to pick a weapon type. Elk you have to pick a weapon type and a side of the cascades (west vs east). Mt goat, sheep, and moose are lotto tags based on bonus points. You might as well put in for them, but the odds are generally less than 0.01% We have good turkey populations is some counties (NE above Spokane, and Klickitat Co down along the OR border). Upland is great if you like chukars. I personally think we live in the most underrated state for waterfowl, with one of THE BEST public land waterfowl areas around Moses Lake/Potholes.

Sorry guys, TONS of questions, you don’t have to answer them all. If you have an answer to just one question then I’d love to hear it!! I’m going to read up more on the regs tomorrow but this just came up tonight and I’m about to wake up in 4hrs to go chase turkeys and wanted to post it prior to bed haha!

Thanks so much for your input guys! You’ve always been really helpful!

T.J.

If you have more questions feel free to PM me.

 

[belshawelk]

Seattle is the third biggest crap hole in the west coast. I grew up north of that. The homeless and politics are horrible. All hunting is east of mountains. Wenatchee would be my first choice followed by Spokane. Wenatchee has elk, deer, upland birds all close by. Great fishing all over. If you move to Seattle don’t be tempted to post back what a crap hole it is.

 

[LopeHunter]

Seattle is the third biggest crap hole in the west coast. I grew up north of that. The homeless and politics are horrible. All hunting is east of mountains. Wenatchee would be my first choice followed by Spokane. Wenatchee has elk, deer, upland birds all close by. Great fishing all over. If you move to Seattle don’t be tempted to post back what a crap hole it is.

Portland says, "Hold my beer."

 

[Fire_9]

I grew up there and miss it sometimes. I live in MT now and there is no doubt that the hunting is better but WA still has a lot to offer. Of the places you listed, I’d probably pick the Spokane area but any of them would be decent. Yakima gets labeled as kind of a shithole but I spent two years there going to tech school and enjoyed my time there. You couldn’t pay me enough to live in Yakima itself but the surrounding areas are pretty nice.

 

[corndog1]

A sleeper waterfowl state east end side.TONS of grenheads late season

 

[teej89]

Thanks for all the responses guys! It makes me feel a little reassured I'm not getting myself into an area where I'll be hunting a ghost constantly. Seems that way sometimes here in NE PA hunting deer on public land... ha!

I appreciate everyone's time and thoughts!

 

[Pucky Freak]

Check out the SE portion of the state Google earth - it's about the closest thing to a moonscape within the US

 

[marshman]

Thanks for all the responses guys! It makes me feel a little reassured I'm not getting myself into an area where I'll be hunting a ghost constantly. Seems that way sometimes here in NE PA hunting deer on public land... ha!

I appreciate everyone's time and thoughts!

Like it has been mentioned above, break out your waterfowl gear and go...lots of public land opportunities both east and west side with good hunting. I go big game hunting in Idaho and Montana, too much private timberland and the large fees that they charge to hunt mostly thick reprod.

 

[Guy]

Ol' neffa 3 and I live in the same area and have much the same opinions.

Fishing can be excellent in Washington! Mostly I fly fish. Right now our steelhead & salmon returns are kinda bleak, but they're predicted to improve. Our lakes have good fly fishing. Our rivers have some good fly fishing for trout, sometimes not so good.

Bird hunting can be quite good! The chukar population is amazing, and quail is good too. I seldom hunt waterfowl, but wow, duck and geese hunting can also be excellent!

Big game hasn't been bad. Not terrific, but not bad... I've taken whitetail & mule deer, black bear (big population of them) and elk here in Washington. Freezer is usually nicely stocked.

No - it's not all deep forest! That's the west side of the Cascades. On the east side of the Cascade Mountains... much of the state is basically "high desert" with light precipitation.

Here are a few photos of hunting and fishing in Washington, just to set your mind at ease:

This is central Washington pheasant hunting. Sagebrush, open spaces, and mountains in the distance:

LOTS of chukar!

My son, hunting mule deer in Chelan County:

Me, happy with my 2016 cow elk, taken in Chelan County:

Legal 3x3 mule deer taken on public land, Douglas County. Note the wide open spaces:

A 4x4 mule deer buck, Chelan County public land:

Washington is just fine for sportsmen. Especially anglers & bird hunters.

Guy

 

[Guy]

Okanogan county trout, caught by my niece, fly fishing on the Methow:

Me, with a fly caught steelhead on the Methow river:

Bears... We've got bears. 30,000 or more of them I've been told. Took this one with my Ruger Number One. No bait or dogs allowed. Have to go out and find 'em yourself. A worthy game animal:

Regards, Guy

 

[teej89]

@Guy wow, thanks for the response and the pictures, holy cow! That definitely gets me excited. As the odds worked with us we got washington! Don't know where in the state we're moving to yet but we know for sure we'll be in washington come this october.

The bird hunting and fishing really interests me! I have enough points in other states and some good spots in MT for elk and deer to hold me over plus I can learn what Idaho has in store as well. Thanks again so much for the post, it gets me even more excited for the move!

 

[quarterhorse]

If outdoor opportunity is really important to you look to Eastern Washington. Plenty of public land access from either Spokane or Wenatchee offering a multitude of fishing, hunting and camping opportunities. If I were you it would be a simple decision to choose Spokane and commute to work from Idaho. You'll spend less time daily doing that than almost any commute going into Seattle. A lot of people leave Western Washington and head east for their outdoor pursuits. Good luck with your choice.

 

[teej89]

If outdoor opportunity is really important to you look to Eastern Washington. Plenty of public land access from either Spokane or Wenatchee offering a multitude of fishing, hunting and camping opportunities. If I were you it would be a simple decision to choose Spokane and commute to work from Idaho. You'll spend less time daily doing that than almost any commute going into Seattle. A lot of people leave Western Washington and head east for their outdoor pursuits. Good luck with your choice.

THanks for the great insight! Unfortunately where we end up isn’t our choice whatsoever, we have zero influence but either way it sounds like I can make the most of it and have a blast in Washington. Very excited!

 

[Dunning Kruger]

Spokane would be my choice of the locations mentioned. Northeast washington has excellent turkey hunting, lots of grouse. Our whitetail numbers are rapidly declining, and have been below objective for i think 7 years now. Still some good public land whitetail to be had though. Elk and mulies not so great. We have about a million bears and lions though, if that floats your boat. And bear season runs august 1st through november 15th, with a 2 bear bag limit.