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December 2004 Feature Article:

Passing it on: Youth and Beginner Hunts

Please use this area to post comments or questions about this feature article.

[Don Martin]

I read with interest the story about the youth hunt. Great article!

Only one concern, the part about going to the favorite chinese restaurant, with camos, bloodstains and all.

One thing we as sportsmen have to do is make sure that we don't offend the 80% of the population who are not hunters by our actions.

All probably would have been better served if you'd have changed out of the bloody camos.

Just my 02 cents..

Don Martin

[benjammin]

Dittos on the public image thing.

It's true Southeastern Washington is chock full of deer, even more so up northeast in the Selkirks, where Whitetails are perhaps overpopulated on aggie land. As the author indicated, private land is far and away the more productive for hunting. In fact, you may not be able to find decent public land to hunt in out here without looking far and wide. Sadly most of the private land is posted or is fee hunting with pricing too exorbitant for most people. The scarce number of doe permits the state puts out nowadays almost makes the application for same like trying to pick 6 for a lottery win.

I expect that, with a 1.6 billion dollar deficit in the state' finances, and given that most of the population in this state is west of the Cascades and fundamentally liberal and eco-centric, we will see our beloved fish and wildlife dept gutted yet again. If Gregoire does get sworn in as Governor, which is all but a sure thing now, I suspect our hunter education program will be turned into a correspondence course, and the certified instructor program will be eliminated, or at least severely reduced due to budget cuts. I also expect to see license and tag fees go up exponentially as the dept scrambles to replace lost funding somehow.

[Serious Hunter]

Point well taken on the camos ... they weren't THAT bloody ... but it doesn't take much to get people off'd.