Okanogan permit holders

[buzz]

Not trying to start any big s but I don't understand why some of you guys are killing the females.It was less than three weeks that the season was open and then the female qouta was filled.Do peope not understand that when all these females are taken that they are just shooting themselves in the foot. If there are not very many cats there then F&W will not issue very many permits. Everyone has the right to kill a female but next time you kill a female just remember that nobody else including you with have the fun of treeing that cat or its offspring. If everybody left the females we could have some good lion hunting in WA.

[Machias]

100% agree with you. The last two years when the season closed in Stevens/P.O. they still had somethng like 19 lions available for harvest. Run and tree the damn females and let them walk, easy to do.

[northwestcat]

so your tellin me that if i drive eight hours catch sevin or eight cats and choose to end up taken a female the goes about 130 or so that isnt right after treein all the others and the last day i was there it turned in to shitty conditionds its not fair from what i seen this year at least 80 percent of people that recived a permit were from the county the permit was issued in or close by now if you live over there and have the chance to hunt till the end of march was the prob i hunt my ass off to catch a nice cat and being male or female its our right as the tag holder to take what we want

[krk hunting]

Northwestcat,

You must not understand what he is talking about. No matter how far and long you hunt or travel you can not reproduce the offspring you have just eliminated, nor can you allow anyone to continue to hunt the rest of the season. by killing that female you killed the chance of increasing or stabilizing the population.

Kevin

[northwestcat]

this may not be how other areas are but im not new at this whole wildlife mangement but you need to take a certain number of both sexis if you only kill bigger toms then the younger cats will be more plentiful you kill the younger cats and the bigger toms are still there does it make sense only to kill toms then not females guess what im sayin is the number of cats in that portian of the state is more than anywhere ive hunted ive gone over to the east side every year since this has begone and caught over thirty cats and never been more than twice a year and spent any longer than five days so im pretty sure there is no shortage

[PIGLET]

Sorry but i have to give my two cents.. First i live and hunt in those counties, two this is washington not idaho, utah or new mexico. Northwestcat you don't have to defend yourself one bit.. Be proud you killed a female, the quota the game dept. gives houndmen are not even scratching the populations.. Everyone that got drawn starts the same day so its even start. Two of my hunting buddies had tags that didn't fill and thats ok.. You can still pursue so why are people upset about the quota filling.. They want people to pass females up just so they can shoot something, yet they say getting out to hear the dogs is what they live for, if thats true i'll see you in the woods.

[ALS]

Piglet, I'm curious how you can agree with what nwcat said. I'm still trying to understand what he wrote That might be the worlds largest sentence.

[buzz]

Northwest cat, Maybe you missed where I said everyone has the right to kill a female, but what I'm wondering is why are guys killing the females when most of us know that they are the future of our lion hunting in WA. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that when all the females are gone that the population will be far from what it is now. I guess everybody has different ethics, but I have been educated from an outfitter that I have my guides license with, that you just dont kill females unless you have to. I guess some guys are just worried that they might not catch another one and have to kill the first thing they tree. Thats just my opinion and we can still pursue in our home county so no biggy !!!!

[krk hunting]

The thing I dont understand is that nwcat stated:

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:47 am Post subject:

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ive gone over to the east side every year since this has begone and caught over thirty cats and never been more than twice a year and spent any longer than five days so im pretty sure there is no shortage .


If you are catching so many lions you should not have a problem catching a good Tom. Your right you do have the right to harvest a female but think about the long term affect is all I am saying.

Kevin

[buzz]

That was my whole point KRK thank you for the help on this topic, and sorry if I offended anyone.

[Darvin Ecklund]

Still not sure whom set the system up, but the whole system is done very poorly. First of all they draw double the amount of permits to the cats that they want killed creating a "race" type atmosphere similar to muscical chairs. If a person wants to harvest a nice tom, the chances are very slim because of the way the system is set up. Look at the counties that people were drawn for with a 2 female quota and the quota was filled before the hunt even began. Boot hunters could kill 50 females and they would let them continue to hunt but a houndman can only kill 2 and it is shut down. Maybe they need to allow only boot hunters to kill one female and houndmen to kill only one female. I guess the flip side to the female quota getting filled so fast would be that about 19 cougars that could have been harvested are now roaming around for next year And now a person can still run them until March without harvesting. A lot more cougars will be around to run.

I do have a question that someone may be able to answer: Once the quota has been filled, can any person that lives in the county in which the quota was filled run his dogs on cougar even though he or she had not been drawn?

[twispcougarhunter]

Darvin, If the quota is filled by law you can only pursue in that county if you got drawed for a kill permit. If your local and didn't get drawn you can only hunt coyotes and coons so remember that when you get stopped. I agree with Buzz about not shooting female lions. Much like shooting does. If you kill the does you won't have many fawns next year and same with lions. Besides, who in the world would be proud of having a scrawney female rug on their wall? If it's not 6 and 1/2 foot long it's not too impressive. Plus the tiny little head. I attrubute a lot of those female kills to the firt time hound doggers or someone that's assisting that might shoot the cat. If you hadn't seen many lions then you think any cat looks big. I took a long time deer hunter a couple yrs. ago up here in the Okanogan and treed him about a 90 lb. female and he was insistant he needed to shoot it because it was huge. I talked him outta it and he never did get a big tom. They don't look near as big once you get them on the ground or especially on the wall. One Tom can service multiple females so having lots less toms is not hurting the population growth except by ONE. When you kill a female your killing all her offspring and her offsprings offspring and on an on. Over a period of about 7 yrs. if a female has 2 kittens survive per yr. and one is a female in each litter, I just penciled it out you will be in the ballpark of producing about 50 lions from her and her offspring. So when you kill a female you think about how many lions for the future hunting you have ended.
Here in Okanogan county we had a huge population 5 yrs. ago and actually needed some females killed to stop the population growth. We now have greatly reduced our lion population to a fairly low number. I've hunted about 10 days so far this year and only found a chaseable track 4 times. Two of which were barely chaseable by only the cold nosed dogs. Five yrs. ago you could find a lion track within 2 hrs. of hunting but not now.
Sure you got the right to kill a female if you choose. If your taking a hunter your really pressed in shooting one since you get paid for a cat and if he's happy with a scrawney female you can't resist letting him shoot it. He shoots it you get a couple thousand bucks, if he goes home empty your penniless. I'd recommend just taking some pictures and come back in 7 years and enjoy chaseing the 50 decendants she has produced. gotta git. Hillbilly Bill

[Darvin Ecklund]

It sure would be nice if all the permit holders got together and agreed to only shoot toms, but i'm sure that will never happen. Wish they would have a drawing for those that just wanted to pursue and a different drawing for those that wanted to take a cat. I would rather see someone kill a cat that was going to get it mounted after he harvested it then to see someone kill it just to say he killed it. How many cougar rugs or live mounts does a person need? Does anyone know if all the units that opened on Dec. 1 are still open or have the quotas been met?

[twispcougarhunter]

Hey Buzz, the problem with only giving draw permits is the WDFW don't make as much money on that. They make a ton of money on the boot hunters selling all of them a cat tag and the chances of them gettin a lion is about 1 in 100,000 so the return is huge. Although, the draw system is excellent in giving the best quality hunt it's bad for the WDFW so they look at that. Remember that 75% of the WDFW's revenue comes from selling hunting and fishing licenses. I just sent a comment into the WDFW because I know they are having to make cuts deep. I recommended to Cut Biologists. They need the enforcement guys so they will have animals and fish to sell licenses for, need the game area managers to keep the grazing permits, gravel selling, rental fees and keep doing forest thinning along with fence repair, then I hate to say it but they need that cotton picken bunch in Olympia to keep the ball rolling. They danged sure don't need all thesse Ologists that count fish, count wolves, count cougars and on and on. Those worthless bums are sucking the life out of the dept. and us too. they produce nothing, wear burkenstocks and kaki shorts and carry a clipboard. I do like an Idea I heard about at least letting the county residents have a pursuit tag. Their intention with the pursuit is to sorta Haze the cats into being afraid of humans. Once the out of area hunters leave due to the quota being filled they just don't come back. If the local hunters were allowed to pursue they could keep the cats run away from town. I think this is a great idea myself. gotta git. Hillbilly Bill

[Machias]

If you treed a 130 pound female then I say congrats, go ahead and take her. My problem is all the 60 to 90 pound females guys are harvesting. They could fix this problem pretty easy, no female harvest until say 1 Feb. Longer harvest season and more cats harvested. Darvin is right on the money, it's a race. Two years ago I was drawn and treed two nice little females in Dec, the season was closed just after Christmas. I treed a hog of a tom at the end of Jan that year. Next year I got drawn again and same thing, treed two females the first week and a half of the season. Seaeon ended last year first week in Jan. I treed a big boy the end of Feb. Or they could just close the female harvest once the quota is met and only toms are harvested. You can tell the difference and if your not 100% sure then you don't pull the trigger until you are.